By A Scribe Called Quess?
knowing that I walk atop the bones of my ancestors
in the shadow of their oppressors
towering statuesque above me
I cannot look down without feeling
the puzzled pieces of my past beckoning me back together
cannot look up without feeling
the weight of history break me into pieces
I cannot leave this ground and feel whole
cannot stand it either
without its heavy sky
pummeling my dreams into nightmares
the ground is a haunt
is a restless cauldron of simmering spirits
bubbling over beneath the soles
of callous sojourners singed
by the heat beneath their feet
yet numb to the stories in its foment
the sky is riddled in dead eyes
the probing gaze of ghastly men
now ghosts cast into iron
who when flesh
owned men, women, and children my kin
who when flesh
beat men, women, and children my kin
who when flesh
raped men, women, and children my kin
who when flesh
slaughtered, maimed, murdered
men, women, and children that looked like me
I cannot leave this ground
where the scattered bones of my ancestry
lay namelessly
without tomb nor headstone
sans burial ground much less monument
and not feel the echoes of a chorus
of gnashing teeth testimonies hissing at my heels
can not stand this ground
their once slavers hovering above us
without feeling
the frozen laughter of gilded antebellum
the sky a glacier of silence
that yet speaks so loudly
if you dare to listen closely
you’ll hear their names
whispering proclamations of self praise
form the perch of street signs
that hang like still nooses
suspended in time
lynching the esteem of listless passersby
the stories beneath their feet
and above their heads
having passed them by
yet the themes having ground their weight
into their subconscious
making of their minds infertile soil
insufficient to nourish the seeds of dreams
for the dead eyes have probed
and made lifeless the soil
the bones have spoken
but their voices have been muted
by the cast iron gaze above
I live in New Orleans
where the bones of my ancestors
beat the ground like a drum
bang Bamboula rhythms
through the soles that walk this land
I live in the South
where monuments to Robert E. Lee
Andrew Jackson & Jefferson Davis
stand taller than most homes
and the street signs are noosed
in the names of slavers
I cannot leave this ground & feel whole
cannot stand it either
and not feel history
trying to break me
on its cyclic wheel