ORGANIZER: Dr. Juanita Kirton
CONTACT: juanita.kirton@gmail.com
Privileged
Privileged to turn a faucet
Flush my shit, open a frig
Sleep in a bed
Buy blue for my dog
Walking in a fog
Lack for nothing
No hunger
No loss
Never empty
Got plenty
Images invade from away
Swollen bellies
Lost children
Ravaged cities
Much to pity
Gods and faiths divide borders
Families, villages, cities and nations
Bombs answer the cries
There is no escape
Keep running the tape
Blameless spectators
More blood, less dollars
Words with no power
The button beneath a lunatic’s hand
No time left to take a stand
Knock down stones, statues and shrines
Forged histories, lies and deceit
Where is the truth?
Two flags fly under Constitutional rights
One black, one white
Where is the answer? What is the question?
Men, women and children
Take to the streets
Your voices cannot be heard
Black men rigid with murder
Excuses won’t quiet the masses
Sumping’ gotta’ give
Vote your ass in, vote your asses out
I can’t find the real
shoot up swallow a pill
Privileged to turn your faucet
Flush your shit, open a frig
Sleep in a bed
Feed Blue to your dog
Wake up, get outta’ the fog
A New Nation
Bullets lodge themselves in brown bodies
uniformed uninvited guest invade doors
young boys with no prospects
patrol the projects
and the temporary rhetoric of speech stomping
silent the scattering of rodents
This one person, one vote, born from ashes and strife
still in labor
Two hundred years of pushing and breathing
has not given birth to a new nation
Freedoms call needs a hearing aide
the blood that lies beneath the soil has turned to stone
there is no roadmap to a Democratic Republic
never been done before
someone said, “We are a grand design”
an experiment gone wrong
The “Pursuit of Happiness”
many interpretations
the perspective your own
male, female, somewhere in-between
black, brown, yellow, white, a kaleidoscope
like a rainbow
Is happiness, Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist
or..?
How do we pursue Peace?
war, introspective, reconciliation?
On the eve of November 8, 2016, the detached, the isolated
spoke
with the jerk of a handle, a stroke of a pen
In Retrospect does my vote have substance?
Democracy, stuck in the birth canal
dilated 3-centermeters, seven more to go
If I’ve calculated correctly
four hundred more years before this nation is born
Can we wait for the first breath
clean her up
watch her learn to crawl?
In my silent dreams the earth has no boundaries
her natural resources shared by all
no hunger, no want
no want, no war
and so the leaves continue to fall,
winter will arrive
muted voices scream, “Enough”
How to create a New Nation?
walk on Mt. Evans
ride across the desert
swim in the Pacific
travel on the waves of the Atlantic
taste Utah’s salt
see Glacial Bay
listen to Motown
carry a rainbow
feed the hunger
One God/many God’s
All that divides us is made-up mindless stories
Sandy and Harvey blew us together
your blood my blood
your wish my dreams
your fears a lack of knowledge
Trust is a hard word to swallow
A New Nation
Bullets lodge themselves in brown bodies
uniformed uninvited guest invade doors
young boys with no prospects
patrol the projects
and the temporary rhetoric of speech stomping
silent the scattering of rodents
This one person, one vote, born from ashes and strife
still in labor
Two hundred years of pushing and breathing
has not given birth to a new nation
Freedoms call needs a hearing aide
the blood that lies beneath the soil has turned to stone
there is no roadmap to a Democratic Republic
never been done before
someone said, “We are a grand design”
an experiment gone wrong
The “Pursuit of Happiness”
many interpretations
the perspective your own
male, female, somewhere in-between
black, brown, yellow, white, a kaleidoscope
like a rainbow
Is happiness, Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist
or..?
How do we pursue Peace?
war, introspective, reconciliation?
On the eve of November 8, 2016, the detached, the isolated
spoke
with the jerk of a handle, a stroke of a pen
In Retrospect does my vote have substance?
Democracy, stuck in the birth canal
dilated 3-centermeters, seven more to go
If I’ve calculated correctly
four hundred more years before this nation is born
Can we wait for the first breath
clean her up
watch her learn to crawl?
In my silent dreams the earth has no boundaries
her natural resources shared by all
no hunger, no want
no want, no war
and so the leaves continue to fall,
winter will arrive
muted voices scream, “Enough”
How to create a New Nation?
walk on Mt. Evans
ride across the desert
swim in the Pacific
travel on the waves of the Atlantic
taste Utah’s salt
see Glacial Bay
listen to Motown
carry a rainbow
feed the hunger
One God/many God’s
All that divides us is made-up mindless stories
Sandy and Harvey blew us together
your blood my blood
your wish my dreams
your fears a lack of knowledge
Trust is a hard word to swallow