Descendants of Emmett Till
I once asked my boss to take the day off to march for Sandra Bland
She said no, and I was working as a community organizer that year.
They saw the revolution was coming, and I was hungry with no fears.
My frat brother says to me he sees himself when he sees Tamir Rice
Tamir was only 12 years old, but he fit the description of a “grown man”
I guess when you’re the right height, the right type, you lose your life?
Keith Scott was just sitting in his car reading.
For a Black man a book is a weapon,
our educational advancement is threatening.
Don’t ask for help like Johnathan Ferrell just age 24,
knockin on someone’s door, that person called the police
12 shots rang out, and Jonathan fell to the floor.
They don’t even have to be in uniform to take our life
Just ask Breonna Taylor, that should tell it all.
Shoot first, ask questions later, you heard the story before
But what about the veteran named Walter Scott?
His crime was a bad tail light, so he was fatally shot.
I thought this would be when all the violence stopped.
I’ll make sure I tell my children about Cory Jones,
He was murdered by an officer in plain clothes.
A path of doom, yet we remain the course on this road.
Terrence Crucher’s murder was such a shame
He was shot, and beaten up, death by taser,
class warfare with the precision of a laser.
Jordan Davis was killed because he liked loud music.
While John Crawford was killed for buying an airsoft gun.
I guess the authorities must’ve thought he would try and shoot it?
Amadou Diallo fled his home country to escape violence
Only to be hit with 41 rounds, an avalanche of bullets
He was an immigrant so I guess the cops felt he had to be silenced.
I cried so hard when we lost Botham Jean…
But Jesus Christ, Jordan Edwards was only 15!
No legislation on gun control, America really hates teens.
Rest in Peace to the angel named Nia Wilson
It’s not just the cops, we’ve got some evil civilians
No storybook could invent these villains, this is nonfiction.
Atatiana Jefferson is dead for having her door open
I hope baby boy finds a way to smile in this cruel world
I hope losing his mother doesn’t make him mean to little girls.
Sean Bell’s killer hit him with 31 shots,
Unloading 2 magazines, the officer had to pause
and consciously reload to let another round off
Antwon Rose and Trayvon Martin were just 17
It’s sad what could happen when suspected of a crime
Meanwhile R*sfeld and Z*mmmerman served no prison time.
When Alton Sterling passed, boy did the tears flow
Being mistaken for someone else could really take my soul?
He was taken from us when I was only 26 years old.
Look at what happened to Stephen Clark
Killed at his grandmother’s house
I bet the sun was out and it wasn’t even dark
I remember watching them throw Freddie Gray around
“He was a felon,” as if that made it okay at all
This was the day the Black cops in Baltimore dropped the ball.
Everybody loves the actor Michael B. Jordan
But not the film Fruitvale Station, I guess Black trauma is boring.
But please watch it, and learn Oscar Grant’s story no matter how gory.
Philando Castille was one of the saddest stories, killed next to his wife.
They knew he legally had a firearm from the jump, adrenaline pumps
push button to start, revving the law’s internal engine, for Castille’s ending.
Poor little Ayana Jones nobody cared, and she was 7 years old!
This should have been the tale that we overtold, to make it all fold.
It didn’t even slightly shake the world, America’s heart is truly cold
Eric Garner and George Floyd are why we can’t breathe,
Colin Kaepernick tried to tell us, and he gave up millions when he took a knee.
He lost everything, his career, and people still watch the NFL each week.
The Avengers
Division is the method that they use
to separate people in the world
a pseudo caste of classes
Crabs in a barrel
Unaware that the barrel
is not the crab’s natural habitat
The world may be Black or White sometimes
But no one should be in the gray area on brutality
We want them to connect with our reality
But that means sacrificing their own
We are The Avengers
We will not be defeated
We are the children of Iron-Man
And despite how hard they may try
to make us rust away
We will prevail
We are fed up with all the violence
We will no longer be silent
#IRUNWITHAMAUD
Black boy pain. Another one of us slain again.
Twenty five years old, say his name. Ahmaud.
AHMAUD ARBERY
Shout it from the mountain tops, ‘No Justice, No Peace’
My heart sinks as I watch the video release.
The masses watch them kill us with unimaginable confidence.
So confident they no longer wear sheets.
Then I read that the assailant is an ex-police.
My soul wonders, was this his first time?
Or did this offender repeat?
We can’t sit in a car reading a book.
We can’t stand outside a store.
We can’t stand inside a store.
Iced tea and skittles. Your sugar fix, our contraband.
We can’t play on a playground. Now we can’t go for a run.
Black boy pain. What have we done to make you hate us,
so much that our right to exercise is now a perceived threat?
Your choices are that of a human. Our choices end our humanity.
WE CAN’T BREATHE.
Your stranglehold remains on us with or without chains,
never ceasing. Instead it persists, it evolves.
Guns replace ropes. The outcome is consistent.
To society we are dispensable, cheap labor at best.
A threat. We are no longer of service to the empire,
no longer your natural resources and thus,
there is no use for us.
“These poems touch on the Black lives lost recently like George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and Sean Reed; but also other lost souls of the distant past, like Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, and Sandra Bland. These pieces have all been crafted and curated during the COVID-19 pandemic, and show the struggles of myself as a Black writer during these times.”
C.L. Butler is an Afro-Dutch writer from Philadelphia, based in Houston. He has published work with Versification, The Bayou Review, on Medium, and the NewPagesBlog.
Twitter: @CLBpoetry