However, today, I got in a creative mode, stepped in the studio, and started working on some music. Now as any ex-girlfriend, or current lady-friend will tell you, if I get in there, and don't come out for 10 or 12 minutes, then the night's a wrap--I'm projecting.
In this case, I started working blankly on some music to accompany my saxophone--however, it didn't turn out that way. I started feeling the music, and that led me to writing some poetry. As the poem began to take form, something in me began to awaken. The activist in me started it's morning yawn, and routine, taking over my pen and the pad. It was exhilarating! So after I wrote the poem, I recorded it. Then while listening to it, I became enthralled and found it needed something visual--so I did a video as well!
It's been a crazy first day of the year, but a good one, one that was needed creatively. So below I've posted the poem (in written form) as well as the video via YouTube. It's me, the activist me, the, Black like me, me. So if race, racism, riots, police brutality, #BlackLivesMatter, #SayHerName, bothers you, you can gladly move on to another post, which is not so…shall we say inspired. But for those who need to know that Black people are still fighting, still struggling, still battling this institutional white supremacist system--sit back and listen, sit back and read, then get the hell up, repost it, so we all can get in the fight!
--Ashe'
New Year, Same ’16
Issues
We turn a new page
for a new chance at,
365 ways.
Waves flowin’, mind goin’
on what we need to do;
single Mama
out there in them streets—
protestin’.
Daddies with Molotov cocktails
out there too.
For the last couple of years
it’s been rough,
if your skin is brown,
and you call america home.
Ain’t no justice,
from the Atlantic to the Pacific,
we strappin’ up our babies
with the chrome.
Because the cell phone
with the movie app
ain’t keepin’ em safe—
Cops is killin’ us
left and right,
while the grand juries remindin’,
what matters,
is your race.
They use to say,
give us your tired,
your poor, your hungry,
and a way, we’ll surely find.
But somehow that message
got stuck in the gears,
and now it’s like—
never-mind.
Never-mind yo’
presidential candidate,
wants to round up all the Muslims
while, the other one is
bought by big business.
We might get our
first woman president,
but by the
end of her first term,
there might not be
any of us.
So this is the dream,
this is, Sweet 16;
Feels more like a porno-scene,
and some,
big dick just creamed
all over our lips, and we
don’t get a shot,
to enjoy any of it.
And if you cringe
by the choice of my words,
just leave your local suburb,
and follow your favorite officer
and watch him shoot
some poor, defenseless Black soul,
then, leave ‘em on the curb.
‘Cause this is happenin’,
every single day, in every single hood;
while the courts are no good,
they ain’t slappin’ any wood
for any
guilty, crooked cops…
We been in this spot
while politicians ain’t doin nothin’
to stop,
the institutionalized, white supremacist
shot!
© 2016 C. Barbee
