LANGUAGE LAND-MINES

Exonym : noun. A name for a place or group of people that is only used outside that place or group.

To Thomas Sankara and all those who have fought and are fighting to free our language and culture from its land-mines

In memory of my great uncle, Silas Hoskins, who was lynched in 1916 for the thriving saloon and the land he owned in Elaine, Arkansas.

Vijay Prashad
recalls
his college hero
was an African leader unknown to him
a certain Thomas Sankara
who had changed
the ridiculous name of his country
defined geopolitically
and soullessly
by the colonialists
as “Upper Volta”
to “Burkina-Faso”,
the Land of Standing Men

We are all
consciously or not
speaking
the language of the exonyms
the master
has whitewashed us with
since the plantation

this morning
as I walked barefooted
on so-called free grass
I thought
of the term
“to stand one’s ground”
taught from school
to academic debaters
and
to the “upstanding” NRA-armed citizens
they want us to be

but
how can i stand my ground
when the ground i stand on
has long been stolen from me?

how can i stand my ground
when the ground i stand on
has long been land-deeded
and land-mined
by the master?

how can i say the ground
i stand on
is mine
till i have fought to reclaim it
and defend it
and name it
with its ancestral name?

with the
deceptively simple words
we are made to use
we are daily
being stolen away
from ourselves

SOME TIME CAPSULE MOMENTS ON YOUTUBE

there are very few
time capsule moments
i would
select
from the endless
mercantile stretches
on youtube

but they exist
and are
all the more precious

there is
that nano second
when Anne Frank leans out of
a still unboarded window
to gaze in real time
at a wedding
filmed
in the street below

there is
the face
turned to stone
of a child
in Gaza
helplessly
watching his father
burn alive

there is the screen test
of Richard Wright
acting
his Bigger within
and realizing
his paper child
is too volcanic
for the camera’s eye

and
there is the shadow
of a long gone man
burned into stone steps
in Hiroshima
after the atomic blast
in nineteen forty-five

RACHEL’S ARRIVAL

the time has now come
when the candle
burning all night
in front of your image
can go out
without my rushing
to light another

the time has now come
when i can shut the door
between us
without feeling
i am leaving you behind
under cold glass
without a baby-sitting
of your tired heart

the time has come at last
when i can feel you
have arrived
safely
at the Ancestors’ warm hearth

the time is now
when i know You are
walking
smiling
peacefully
not only at my side
but wherever
you always wanted to freely roam

THE KITE OF A FLAG FLOWN IN BERLIN

to Refaat Alareer whose birthday was yesterday, September 23rd ….

he is Palestinian
and tiny
and smiling
and delighted

nine cops
surround him

he is delighted
as he watches
his kite of a flag
unfurl
its grounded colors

nine Berlin cops
in full gear
have concentrated
the encampment
of their circle
around him

the child
still smiles
undaunted
watching his kite of a flag’
dance in the wind
to the melody
of visualized victory

the cops apprehend
the ten year old child
who looks over their shoulders
straight
into the eyes
of his People’s History

Fighting Words

Journal of the Communist Workers league

LANGUAGE LAND-MINES | SOME TIME CAPSULE MOMENTS ON YOUTUBE | RACHEL’S ARRIVAL | THE KITE OF A FLAG FLOWN IN BERLIN

Poems by renowned Black leader and activist Julia Wright