What Shall It Be, Stick or Broom?

By Rudolph Lewis

They have trucked us away,

21st century displaced! Our head

in scarves! Me & my people—shipped

away from the filth, scattered

with tongues & guns in flood & storm

Time has stopped—our necks in attics

Up against tyranny & death

& a few dollars, they will

not let us speak. No agony

voices—it’ll  be hush

a pillow over the mouth

Vegetate, we longing to be

None will read on the walls

it’s a bad idea to go home

water, food, shelter only for the

rich—how many more will swan

dive head first off I-10? Why

don’t we slit our wrists now?

Can our flowers be revolutionary

with Blackwater’s shoot to kill?

Let Marie endure Jackson Square.

Let beignets deep-fry, dip in

white sugar at Café Du Monde

Let riverboats paddle up muddy

streams, parades meander crescent 

torched streets to the sea. It’s all

politics in the Garden District—

helicopters above a flooded bowl

& toxic soup weeks after a disaster

We cannot fathom, we’re sitting

on a cot in a shelter, in somebody’s

house. We endure in other worlds

Waiting, our faith tested by Fox

No answers where’s our life

why we ain’t horn swinging

with no life but survival, or our

caring whether other people care

Does not dignity require the stick?

*   *   *   *   *

Responses

The Fire Next Time

By Jeannette Drake

I am too mad

to die,

too angry to slit

my wrists,

though I have considered

it a thousand lives

before

and for lesser loves,

this revolutionary petunia,

no longer withering

in her own tears.

I will sweep this yard

clean until dust rises

and all of heaven

burns with justice.

I am too mad

to die! 

posted 27 September 2005