"Thank-You” Note to American Presidents
 
                                             By Jerry W. Ward, Jr.

How beautiful
is the blood of the dead
splashed like azaleas
on the body of Earth
 
You have
made my day
aesthetic
 
29 March 2011 

*   *   *   *   *

I Did Not Ask to Be a Palestinian

                (For Atef Al-Dabbour)

                                    By Jerry W. Ward, Jr.

They afflicted us, taunted us, condemned us,

determined us to be out of place like roaches.

We must leave their lebensraum.

Before the fall our family was happy,

counting days in olives and figs.

Our home had pitas baked in love,

bulging with lamb and spices.

Oranges and mint tea quenched our thirst.

Sleep was sweet.  Our land knew peace.

History is cruel.

Two thousand years it sleeps;

it awakens to terrorize,

to swarm like a legion of locusts

intent on genocide-missions,

to ravish, to leave us

merely skeletons inside barbed wire

or merely traumatized eyes

or merely brave souls in famished flesh.

History merely blasphemes: God chose to put you out of place.

My parents weep and sicken unto death.

Dreams of happiness smash

against nightmares: beasts are eating my people.

Salaam, salaam, why have you forsaken us?

My unborn nephews will never know

quite why their names are out of place, disidentified.

Once, my tongue confessed

That dispossession is rancid wine in an open wound.

They asked:

Why not request reparations?

And I replied:

How can I,

blessed by Allah,

ask for money

Kissed by Yahweh?

But they still don’t understand.

I did not ask to become Palestinian.

*   *   *   *   *

Don’t Be Fourteen (in Mississippi)

                             By Jerry W. Ward, Jr.

Don’t be fourteen

black and male in Mississippi

                they put your mind

                in a paper sack, dip it

                in liquid nitrogen

                for later consumption.

Don’t be fourteen

black and male in Mississippi,

have two 20/20 eyes,

feet that fail to buck, wing, and tap,

a mouth that whistles

                they castrate you, wrap

                you in cotton-bailing wire

                while your blood still feels,

                feed you to the Tallahatchie

                as guilt-offering to blue-eyed susans,

Don’t be fourteen

black and male in Mississippi

                they say you a bad nigger

                named Bubba, a disgrace

                to the race in your first offense,

                and  give you to Parchman

                for  forty-eight years.

                You need, they say, a chance to grow.

Don’t be fourteen

black and male in Mississippi

                they say you a man at two.

                be one.

                when white boys ask

                why don’t you like them,

                spit on them

                with your mouth closed.