BLOOD

 

Secreted in the darkness of unmarked graves.
Black bodies lay silent in millions of hidden caves.
The heavens open and offer down alimentary tears.
Purifying the graves of those slaughtered under racist fears.

They were victims massacred under the cover of night.   
Their hopes and throats slashed under "Burning Cross" light.
Their mangled bodies were then thrown into unmarked graves.
Some of them were free men, and others were runaway slaves.
Abandoned, they have no family to cry alongside their grave.
There are no flowers or stones that mark where they now lay.
They were sent into eternity under terror, torture, and screams.
Ruthlessly murdered by racists butchering the American dream!

Today White Americans scream: "Racism is dead!"
"Blacks use it as a guilt trip to keep themselves fed!"
Millions ignore the truth and scathe us with lies!
They ignore racial attacks, which cause our children to die!

Ignorance kills our children and markets our pain.
It mitigates our victims and promotes the criminally insane.
Time is lost fighting principalities and racially divisive lies.
While every night we watch more of our innocent children die.

We hear it:
Quietly whispering from the thick Alabama woods...
From the Mississippi Delta where slave houses once stood.
We can feel the shiver of spirits seeking release.
They are begging for closure and crying for some peace.
Their memories haunt us from their unmarked graves.
They cry out for justice, for the lives that they gave.
Their cries rekindle the hope we need to win this ongoing fight.
They give us their courage to do what is right.

They say:
My children, you are not hateful or bitter with pride.
You don't need to beg white America to stand by your side.
Your are our blood.  The children of millions of martyred kin!
We who bled on our knees so you could one day stand as men!

So, when whites state boldly, "It is not all that bad!"
Remind them of your ancestors that lost all that they had.
When they scream, "You're playing the race card again!"
Remind them of the children we've lost to racist white sin!
Tell them it is a matter if history, and not about racial guilt.
America was developed off the slave blood it spilt!

Remember you are the blood and heart of the slave.
You are the progeny of hope that racist tried to bury in graves.
Let that which was buried now grow strong and tall again.
Let our ancestral blood give courage to strong black women and men.

© 2013 Eddie Phillips

Author's Note

People hate to discuss race. They feel like you are saying they did something bad. Its really sad. I love to discuss race. I think that by discussing the bull on both sides we prevent misunderstanding. So many people view whites as racist and blacks as whiners. If you say a black man created something people quickly say WHO CARES! Yet these are the same people who wept when Steve Jobs died, or give props to Ford and Edison. Its hypocritical and stupid. How does saying a black man created a traffic light hurt you? Talk about race and share your backgrounds. Our forefathers (both white and black) lived and died so we could have the freedom to discuss it and not ignore it. Pretending it is dead or done doesn't make it go away.

Reviews

[Sami Khalil]

"Their memory haunts us from their unmarked graves
They scream for justice for the lives that they gave
They are the reason that some of us fight
Because they pull at our spirits to do what is right"
My faves in this well written poem with a good message...:)