Can You Hear Me Now
Can you hear me now,
now that my tongue’s inflamed
and the tongues of flames
that rage across the city’s precincts
are setting off alarms, again,
as the din crescendos across a nation
tone deaf to chants
and last-gasp desperation?
Can you hear me now?
Are you listening now?
Are your ears burning
like eyes are burning
with tears and tear gas?
Burn, baby, burn.
I remember Watts.
I was there. I watched
the occupying all-white force
make its stand at the strip mall
on Rosecrans and Central,
my father’s 38 on the seat between us,
resolute as we rolled past the palisades.
A Tuskegee Airman and hero now
but just another black father then,
remembering the young black man
he was when deputized white men
dragged from a bar
and beat a black man to death
in the street
in plain sight
in the dark night of broad daylight
that was welcome-home-nigger
Mississippi.
Keep your hollow thanks
for his service.
Black men in uniform were lynched
for their service
while America looked the other way.
Go wave the colors elsewhere,
where the view’s unobstructed
by red summers, white rage
and brown shirts in blue uniform.
My father’s victory’s not your victory.
His survival won’t buy your absolution.
The blood-soaked shroud
his uniform could have been,
surely would have been
but for the broad porch column
that concealed him.
He never told his mother.
I never did tell mine
how police and plain-clothes detectives
drew weapons
and threatened to kill me
in the alley behind
white America.
Running from what?
the detective demanded.
If truth be told,
from 400 years of slave patrols.
That’s not what I said.
What I said was, “Nothing.”
But enough is enough
and I can’t say nothing.
So, no, I won’t condemn the violence,
the tragedy of your shattered glass
and smoke-smudged precious brick
and mortar.
Call it burnt offerings
to unanswered prayers.
I’m calling down hell,
fire and damnation.
Can you hear me now?
Can you hear me now?
Long as my tongue’s tied up in my shoe,
Long as I sing righteous hymns and walk softly,
Long as I’m just praying for justice
to one day roll down like waters,
you look, you yawn and look away,
back to the current day’s trading.
So, no. Fire this time!
Can you hear me now?
Fire this time!
because you value property
more than life,
because you swear your agents
to protect and serve property,
because they’re still patrolling
for runaway property.
But I’m not your property.
And you don’t get to dictate
how I fight for my life.
Look to your soul,
my soles are worn through.
It’s now up to you.
Is the fire this time purgatory
or just eternal damnation?
–Khephra Burns
Khephra Burns is an author, editor, playwright, poet and veteran of television, stage and live events productions. He is a partner and executive with the International ArtsGames Committee (IAC) and senior producer for the ArtsGames. He’s also editor-in-chief of The Boulé Journal of Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity.
