Race Poems
Homemade Apartheid II
by Hébert Logerie
They reside on the other side of the city
They bathe in the quiet and still fertility
They own yard-keepers and docile servants
Dogs, cats, hyenas and precious plants.
They breathe the camphorated air like us
Swallow the transparent and abominable dust
Cross over and fall in the muddy rivers like saints
Like our siblings living under the tiny tents.
......
Shibboleth
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
Machete salutations sweat
The rims of blades.
Sparks sprinkle fire-spittle
On the confused breath of hostile fumes
Branded Death.
Brines grow on festered fringes
Dappled with pestle-prints of
Silence,
Yet Death is borne on yawning.
......
Sam's Racehorse
by Marriott Edgar
When Sam Small retired from the Army
He'd a pension of ninepence a day,
And seven pounds fourteen and twopence
He'd saved from his rations and pay.
He knew this 'ere wasn't a fortune,
But reckoned with prudence and care
He'd find some investment to save him
From hard work and things like that there.
......
Ambition - in Kamalas own words
by Dr. Robert Ippaso
What if I can see it, smell it, almost touch it,
That gilded throne where I will proudly sit,
Would people think me mad,
Is my ambition so preposterous and bad.
And why not me, have I not earned this crown,
Someone not worthy of that queenly gown,
Bejeweled and composed for all to see,
My vassals all around, bowing deep to me.
......
Race
by Elizabeth Alexander
Sometimes I think about Great-Uncle Paul who left Tuskegee,
Alabama to become a forester in Oregon and in so doing
became fundamentally white for the rest of his life, except
when he traveled without his white wife to visit his siblings—
now in New York, now in Harlem, USA—just as pale-skinned,
as straight-haired, as blue-eyed as Paul, and black. Paul never told anyone
he was white, he just didn't say that he was black, and who could imagine,
an Oregon forester in 1930 as anything other than white?
The siblings in Harlem each morning ensured
no one confused them for anything other than what they were, black.
......
Recognition
by Ken Ripley
I saw his skin
and loved him not.
“I see a colored man,” I cried,
and proudly went my way.
But when I prayed to God that night
He sadly turned aside.
I looked again
and saw a man.
“I see a Negro, Lord,” I cried,
......
Ambition - in Kamalas own words
by Dr. Robert Ippaso
What if I can see it, smell it, almost touch it,
That gilded throne where I will proudly sit,
Would people think me mad,
Is my ambition so preposterous and bad.
And why not me, have I not earned this crown,
Someone not worthy of that queenly gown,
Bejeweled and composed for all to see,
My vassals all around, bowing deep to me.
......
Shibboleth
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
Machete salutations sweat
The rims of blades.
Sparks sprinkle fire-spittle
On the confused breath of hostile fumes
Branded Death.
Brines grow on festered fringes
Dappled with pestle-prints of
Silence,
Yet Death is borne on yawning.
......
My Color Is Naturally Human
by Hébert Logerie
Do you think your colors matter?
My beautiful shades do not matter
Because my natural color is human
And I am a being created in the image
Of the Almighty God. I am like a page
With a rainbow in his heart. I am a man
Who’s proud to be who he is. Color is not
Important for me. I am interested in knowing
You as a person, if you’re kind because I have a lot
To share with you: my life experiences travelling
......
A Black Smile
by Hébert Logerie
Don’t smile with me if you don’t want to
Because I am not a mirror
Don’t be like a bluffer who gives me a black smile
A strange, nervous and abnormal smile
Because I am not a josher
Show me the genuine emotions of you
Give me something normal or natural
I am not asking for anything special
Just be yourself and I will appreciate it
Don’t give something unusual and vile
......
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Stephen Collins Foster (1 poems about Race)
(1826 - 1864) / Lawrenceville, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States -
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