New Year, Same '16 Issues; Poem, Video

So Merry belated Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanakkuah, and New Years!  I believe that covers it.  So all those holidays were good and productive for me.  And thank you for all your support throughout 2015, it was because of you, I called that year a success.

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