“When the looting starts, the shooting starts.”

Walter Headley, 1967

“The past is not dead. It is not even past!”

William Faulkner, 1951

 

Flying bricks

And shattered glass

Stolen goods

And clouds of gas

 

Burning shops

And burning cars

The past is here

With brand new scars

 

Rubber bullets

And steel batons

Running feet

As chaos dawns

 

Clenching fists

And shouting tongues

Burning eyes

And burning lungs

 

Cries for justice

In the smoke

Scales of justice

That are broke

 

Under knee

A dying breath

Under tree

A dangling death

 

Stolen lives

And shattered dreams

Poppa cries

As momma screams

 

A past of death

That’s still alive

Hardened hearts

Where hatred thrives

 

Blinded eyes

And stolen sight

In a darkness

Much too bright

 

Repetition

Of past sins

Where father ends

And son begins

 

When past is past

When past is dead!!

That’s the day

We’ll move ahead

 

Until that time

Until that day

Our nation dies

And wastes away!

 

……

 

Epilogue of The Dying Negro (1)

 

Unless we turn

And hate is scorned,

And love embraced,

Then be forewarned:

 

“The time will come

And fate’s hour nigh,

When guiltless blood

Will pierce the sky”

 

 “I see the flames

Of God’s rage hurled,

His roaring shakes

A guilty world”

 

 “God’s justice wakes!

And in their turn

Victims triumph

And villains burn!”

 

1. Last three stanzas paraphrase lines from the poem The Dying Negro