Call for Conscious Black Poems

[Marvin X]

Peace Brother Marvin,

Thank you for your submission to the anthology Stand Our Ground: Poems for Trayvon Martin and Marissa Alexander. It is an honor to include your work in this effort. 

I will be keep you updated as the project moves forward. At this time, we really need all the help we can get to encourage poets to contribute. I do hope you will share the call with all the poets in your global network!

Thank you,

-- 
Ewuare X. Osayande

Editor,

Stand Our Ground: Poems for Trayvon Martin & Marissa Alexander

Your Donations Support this Project

 

FreedomSeed Press

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On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 10:42 AM, Marvin X Jackmon [e-mail] wrote:

Memorial Day, 2007 I am a veteran Not of foreign battlefields Like my father in world war one My uncles in world war two And Korea Or my friends from Vietnam And even the Congo “police action” But veteran none the less Exiled and jailed because I refused To visit Vietnam as a running dog for imperialism So I visited Canada , Mexico and Belize Then Federal prison for a minute But veteran I am of the war in the hood The war of domestic colonialism and neo-colonialism White supremacy in black face war Fighting for black power that turned white Or was always white as in the other white people So war it was and is Every day without end no RR no respite just war For colors like kindergarten children war For turf warriors don’t own and run when popo comes War for drugs and guns and women War for hatred jealousy Dante got a scholarship but couldn’t get on the plane The boyz in the hood met him on the block and jacked him Relieved him of his gear shot him in the head because he could read Play basketball had all the pretty girls a square The boyz wanted him dead like themselves Wanted him to have a shrine with liquor bottles and teddy bears And candles Wanted his mama and daddy to weep and mourn at the funeral Like all the other moms and dads and uncle aunts cousins Why should he make it out the war zone The blood and broken bones of war in the hood No veterans day no benefits no mental health sessions No conversation who cares who wants to know about the dead In the hood the warriors gone down in the ghetto night We heard the Uzi at 3am and saw the body on the steps until 3 pm When the coroner finally arrived as children passed from school I am the veteran of ghetto wars of liberation that were aborted And morphed into wars of self destruction With drugs supplied from police vans Guns diverted from the army base and sold 24/7 behind the Arab store. Junior is 14 but the main arms merchant in the hood He sells guns from his backpack His daddy wants to know how he get all them guns But Junior don’t tell cause he warrior He’s lost more friends than I the elder What can I tell him about death and blood and bones He says he will get rich or die trying But life is for love not money And if he lives he will learn. If he makes it out the war zone to another world Where they murder in suits and suites And golf courses and yachts if he makes it even beyond this world He will learn that love is better than money For he was once on the auction block and sold as a thing For money, yes, for the love of money but not for love And so his memory is short and absent of truth The war in the hood has tricked him into the slave past Like a programmed monkey he acts out the slave auction The sale of himself on the corner with his homeys Trying to pose cool in the war zone I will tell him the truth and maybe one day it will hit him like a bullet In the head It will hit him multiple times in the brain until he awakens to the real battle In the turf of his mind. And he will stand tall and deliver himself to the altar of truth to be a witness Along with his homeys They will take charge of their posts They will indeed claim their turf and it will be theirs forever Not for a moment in the night But in the day and in the tomorrows And the war will be over No more sorrow no more blood and bones No more shrines on the corner with liquor bottles teddy bears and candles. --Marvin X 25 May 2007 Brooklyn NY   Marvin X is on of the founders of the Black Arts Movement. He co-founded Black Arts West Theatre with playwright Ed Bullins in San Francisco's Fillmore District, 1966, and worked at the New Lafayette Theatre in Harlem, NY, 1968.   www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com

[La Vonda Rochelle Staples]

thank you and sending it back to you multiplied

[Marvin X]

Thank you for your kind remarks, but just write, stoping thinking about what you are writing, let your hand be guided by your Higher Power. Sometimes we think too much. I don't try to write a perfect poem, I just write. Whatever happens happens. Sometimes we hit the mark, sometimes we don't, but I don't stop, especially when the Higher Power is guiding my hand. Get busy! Love, m

[La Vonda Rochelle Staples]

Are you one of those poets who have no idea how great they truly are? When I read what you wrote, it's perfection. I try very hard with my writing, with my poetry to make complete statements which can be interpreted in myriad ways yet stand alone. Bringing the reader to the point of confusion and then subsiding into resolution. That's my goal. Other times, I try to write what I'm feeling exactly as I'm feeling it. I miss the mark. You didn't. This is a perfect piece.

[Marvin X]

I don't get it, what is the reason?

[La Vonda Rochelle Staples]

And this is yet ANOTHER reason why I don't write poetry. Marvin X on the west coast, Seneca Turner on the east coast and Katie Anderson (you will know her soon) in the midwest. I'm a scribbler.

[karen denise]

Write on my Brother !!