A Queen Named Freedom...

U.S. President Barack Obama presents Cicely Tyson with the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016, in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C. Tyson died Thursday, Jan. 28, 2021. Image Source: Cicely Tyson paved the way for Black actors to follow footsteps, Jonathan Landrum, Jr., Associated Press, Star Tribune

© January 30, 2021, the Griot Poet

 

Her birth certificate named her Cicely,

Part of the Tyson family,

Close-knit: mother Fredericka, father William, siblings: sister Emily, and brother Melrose, called Beau,

She lived through American apartheid,

Known as “Jim Crow,”

 

Named after a character in a minstrel show,

Meant to ridicule us perpetually,

Demean, and remind us of our pariah status,

Early getting the artistic theater bug,

She patently refused parts that demeaned us,

 

Knowing the power of images,

Images become inner messages,

Repetition of negatives is conjuring,

Of myriad destinies unsuspecting,

The Jedi Mind Trick of social engineering,

Her ministry was her theatrical performances,

Sixty-eight on television, twenty-nine films, fifteen stages, one appearance on radio,

 

If it had been a film,

She would have gotten an Oscar,

For “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pitman,”

Had it not been on the small screen,

She won an Emmy for Binte in Alex Haley’s Roots for television,

 

Binte was the epitome of Biblical Rachel,

Because her child was no more,

We felt her mother’s pains when she birthed him,

And a mother’s pangs,

Wailing when Kunta Kinte was stolen,

From the Mandinka in Jufere

Or, the dignity portraying sharecroppers during The Great Depression in “Sounder,”

 

Now, Rachel cries for:

 

Emmett Till,

Trayvon Benjamin Martin,

Jordan Davis,

Tamir Rice,

John Crawford III,

Renisha McBride,

Freddy Gray,

Sandra Bland,

Andre Hill,

Ahmaud Arbery,

Breonna Taylor,

George Floyd,

 

A host more since,

Sixteen nineteen,

Eighteen sixty-five,

Or, time immemorial,

 

The facade of white supremacy,

Is held together,

By terror,

Hooded robes,

Red hats,

Tiki torches,

Beaten bodies,

Or, brandishing semiautomatic weapons,

At Michigan state and the US Capitol,

 

Your unflinching portrayal

Of strong, black women,

 

From Binte,

To Ms. Jane Pittman,

Imbuing Ida B. Wells,

Mamie Till,

Coretta Scott King,

Betty Shabazz,

Angela Davis,

Nikki Giovanni,

Sonja Sanchez,

Michelle Obama,

And Kamala Harris,

 

It gave us the overriding confidence,

From our mother:

We can do this,

Straightened our backbones,

Led by our theatrical drum major for justice,

Bring about the world we imagine,

Opposing with all our might the real savages,

Changing from white hoods to tiki torches and red hats,

 

Because our mother,

Cicely,

It helped us birth it into existence,

 

“[She] was sitting there talking to me wearing Manolo Blahnik pumps,” [Gayle] King said. “She was dressed to the T, she was ready, she was sitting in church, she was so proud and so happy, and she was not finished,” King said. “And I asked her, ‘Do you think about death?’ And she said, ‘Of course I think about death. I’ve lost many friends, but I feel like as long as you’re still breathing, you have work to do.’” Raechal Shewfelt, Yahoo News

 

Two days after this interview,

She passed,

Joining the pantheon,

Of Civil Rights icons and activists,

 

The Oscars should apologize for their “honorary” snub,

 

Rest easy, Queen,

We’ll take it from here,

You have done more than enough.

Reflections of Insurrection...

© January 28, 2021, the Griot Poet

 

“If an attempted coup goes unpunished, it becomes a training exercise.”

 

Because the first attempt never sticks.

The German Nazi Party attempted it,

Got arrested,

Hitler in prison,

Sat down and wrote “Mein Kamph,”

 

Ten years later:

 

A ninth-grade high school dropout,

Staged the Reichstag Fires,

With a prison rap,

Got elected chancellor,

Fear of instability motivated German citizens,

To trust a weird, mustached imbecile,

Who had simple answers for EVERYTHING complicated,

 

Because fascism is for the lazy,

Democratic republics require an informed citizenry,

Shared facts and a shared reality,

Once in power, he got busy attacking,

 

Liegende presse: lying press,

The early version of “fake news” and labeling journalists as “enemies of the people.”

He obliterated the Weimar Republic Constitution,

Manipulating circumstances to be declared Fuhrer,

 

He didn’t have Twitter,

He had Marconi’s invention: the radio,

A popular form of entertainment, he turned to gold,

 

Ranting and raving incoherently,

To the disturbed, he seemed like a savior,

Someone who licensed their bigotry,

Gave them a group to gravitate,

The “Mark of the Beast”: a swastika, proto red hats,

 

Any coup attempt without consequences is a dress rehearsal,

 

It won’t take a decade,

If we look the other way,

Bullies and fascists,

Are the same:

 

Give them a centimeter’s wiggle room,

And, they will take kilometers,

The only book he ever bothered to read,

“My New Order” – the sequel to Mein Kamph of Hitler’s speeches,

And the pattern of how he whipped crowds into a mobbed frenzy,

 

Their goal is to conquer,

Those they perceive weak,

Don’t give him a salary,

Travel allowance,

Secret service protection,

Or a platform to speak,

 

More importantly:

Snatch away his ability to run again for president,

Better yet,

If the Constitution means anything,

Convict him,

Send him to prison,

For inciting violence, death, and sedition,

 

Make real the words of Isaiah:

 

Isaiah 14:16-17

 

“They that see you shall narrowly look upon you, and consider you, saying, ‘Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms,

 

the man who made the world a wilderness, who overthrew its cities and would not let his captives go home?”

 

The alternative:

 

He will make himself,

A president in exile,

Of his Neo-Confederacy,

Red state Governors,

Will stop obeying,

Federal mandates,

Like masks, while traveling,

Listening to him,

Because it’s contrarian and apostate,

“Owning the libs,”

Prolonging our exit from this pandemic,

The proverbial thorn-in-the-side of this body politic,

A bone spur coronavirus that will not quit,

A blood tick on the ass of the republic,

Until he settles scores,

Inspires domestic terrorists,

Move radicals from insurrection to insurgency,

I, for one, don’t want to look like Northern Belfast and the IRA,

Before you know it,

Instead of Epstein engines or Cochran warp drives,

We’re reaching for our automatic rifles,

And the country is plunged into Civil War,

Because ripping things apart is what he is truly known for.

Evilgelicals...

© January 25, 2021, the Griot Poet

 

Saw a great thread on Twitter that talks about how white Evangelical Christians consider themselves the only “real” Americans, and any deviation from that is degenerate communism.

 

That’s why their pews are empty, and their temples are filled with echoes.

 

Echo - a nymph - was the last witness to Narcissus, dying from his hubris because he couldn’t love the creature in the river: his own reflection.

 

Nothing they do resemble the teachings of Jesus,

Masters of projection: the epitome of evil,

Southern Baptist Convention supported slavery,

And didn’t give their non-apology apology until 1995,

Reiterated in 2017,

The same year, coincidentally,

They became a numerical minority,

And started openly behaving like Neo-Confederates,

They believe the “big lie” about the 2020 election,

Preferring fascism to democracy,

Or, the philosophy of Palestinian prophets,

They openly worship a demagogue,

Their complexion idolatry,

Apostate to “peace on earth” philosophy,

Brandishing Armalite-15s at peaceful rallies,

BLESSED at apostate ceremonies,

 

They’ve devolved, if that was possible, from Tea Party Birther racists,

To Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor-Green,

The House of Representatives, per Speaker Pelosi, is both a toxic work environment and crime scene,

Representatives have to expense Kevlar bulletproof vests,

 

Proving, white evangelicals are masters of gaslighting,

Their god is a mythological past where

The only people of value has white skin,

BIPOC, Immigrants, LGBT, Women

Regulated to shadows unseen,

 

They should stop perpetuating the biggest lie,

They’re not following brown-skinned Palestinian prophets,

Who’s neck they’d stretch, or likely stomp on,

They wanted to throw out the votes of the “least of these,”

The actual “meek of the Earth” that looks like him,

They’re worshiping their lack of Melanin,

The “Golden Calf” in their Sinai Desert,

The altar of white supremacy,

Cremation altars of “I really don’t care.”

Separating brown-skinned youth from their parents,

Pitching children and the future through the flaming altar of Moloch,

 

They are anti-Semitic,

Anti-immigrants,

Anti-Christian,

Following their Orange Antichrist over the abyss into oblivion,

 

As tired as we are after January Six,

We have to focus on this year’s off-year local elections,

We have to focus on the 2022 midterm elections,

And every election afterward, as a consequence,

Fascists, homophobes, misogynists, nihilists, racists,

Just like any bully and Evilgelicals,

Must be beaten, crushing evil, until it is made insignificant, dust, and defeated.

The Root of Their Evil...

Mr. Charles Montgomery Plantagenet Schnicklgruber Burns - Wikipedia

 

© January 24, 2021, the Griot Poet

 

Moscow Mitch is already complaining,

Joe Biden is making serious mistakes,

Using executive order’s to undo the damage

Of executive orders by the sociopath,

He gleefully supported,

To get conservative judges on federal courts,

Who ironically, did not join his demented leader’s Memory Palace,

Inciting violence at his “stopping the steal” fake rallies,

 

That Moscow and the Goombah Ossified Party

Acquitted him,

Of a criminal call to the Ukraine president,

That was so “perfect,”

His minions hid it away in a classified SCIF,

 

Their only “diversity,”

On Capitol Hill,

Is Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Tim Scott,

Bill Hurd, the ONLY black republican in the House RETIRED,

These pitiful three are all they have for diversity,

The first two, oblivious that they’re Hispanics,

The latter banned permanently from the family BBQ: lost,

They ignored their own 2012 autopsy,

Doubling down on The Southern Strategy,

The median age of Fox Propaganda viewers is sixty-five,

Showing racist strategies have a demographics shelf life,

 

What are they trying to “conserve?”

It’s not the environment,

Or, the planet from climate change,

More like the exchequer of their actual constituents:

American Carnage oligarchs,

Who’s rail against “socialism” is a Jedi Mind Trick,

But are cool with government subsidies for their businesses,

Like the continuous one to the oil industry since 1917,

 

13 “Enter through the narrow gate. (A) For wide is the gate, and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

 

Matthew 7:13-14

It takes on a different tint,

Applied to American Carnage racism,

And the pursuit of justice,

And equitable treatment,

By brown-skinned

Palestinian prophets,

That when you fed the hungry,

Healed the sick,

Visited the prisoner,

You did it to him,

Instead,

You crucify him afresh,

With chock holds, bullets, and knees on necks,

 

Moscow Mitch voted to acquit

A criminal monster sociopath,

Along with the racist republican Senate,

Under their so-called “stewardship,”

The economy fell off a cliff,

Except for the Uber rich,

We’re sequestered in our homes binging Netflix,

Wearing masks in public,

Washing our hands raw,

And trying not to die before

We all get vaccinated,

 

The gods they worship are Mammon and avarice,

 

The root of their evil is the love of profit,

 

I need no other points or clap back.

Straitjacket...

 

Amazon: 1:6 action figure

© January 22, the Griot Poet

No one is forcing you to believe anything,

You can believe in Jesus, Thor, Vishnu, or Tiddlywinks,

 

It’s as if the beliefs that your ancestors,

Forced on First Nation People,

Drove out the African’s native language and beliefs,

At gunpoint, or with the whip,

Have karmic reciprocity to it,

You say “law and order,” but you fear justice,

Hell and the River Styx: you belong in it,

 

No one is asking you to accept anything,

Your thoughts you’re free to form, and think,

 

You can’t burn crosses, lynch, or castrate black men,

Separate their children, assault their women,

You can’t repeat that to Central Americans,

You can’t murder Trans People,

Or, hang gay students on fences like Matthew Shepard,

 

You can feel how you want to feel,

You don’t have the right to turn our lives into a battlefield,

That genesis behaviors more stringent than Seal Team 6,

“The talk” for African American parents,

Mental checklists for the rest,

That might in an instant have to face a life-or-death test,

 

You’ve never had the distinct terror of merely existing,

Consider this lethality of iced tea and Skittles,

An illegal chokehold for selling loosies,

An execution for jogging,

A hail of bullets for holding a cell phone,

A hail of bullets for sleeping,

In your apartment,

Awakened by a no-knock warrant,

Rewind the choke for supposedly a fake twenty,

You might get threatened at gunpoint for the simple act of voting,

 

Your white supremacy privilege,

 

Allows the privileged few to pick your pockets,

Doesn’t work for their rural, non-monied kin,

Empowered them to storm the US Capitol,

Sedition to overthrow a democratic election,

And install in real-time the “Republic of Gilead,”

From Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,”

No doubt pleasing Vladimir Putin,

Naomi Klein penned “Disaster Capitalism,”

Monetizing the climate crisis,

The thesis extended to hate and division,

Oligarchs use to control the bewildered masses,

Escape civic responsibility to pay their taxes,

Too bad Q Bacca didn’t get a pardon,

 

“Great again” is opposite this:

 

You can’t call First Nation People savages,

The African diaspora, you can’t rape and ravage,

You can’t push up on any woman, and ignore her rejections,

You can’t summarily hang a series of Matthew Shepards’,

You can label the Coronavirus with a racist epithet,

Getting Asian Americans and immigrants attacked,

Or, ban an entire religion,

In the same breath, talk about “religious freedom,”

 

Everything I just listed: do the opposite of it!

 

I’m not forcing you to accept anything,

You don’t have the right to terrorize me, my family, or my friends.

Denouement...

 

What is a denouement? Fiction 101

© January 20, 2021, the Griot Poet

A scion of a wealthy man,

Winning the sperm lotto by sheer chance,

Had all the trappings of success,

Squandered all his father’s loans and largess,

Indebted to mob gangsters and miscreants,

Indebted to fascist strongmen,

The facade of facades: he’s actually penniless,

 

Never once considered the virtues: prudence, justice, temperance, courage, faith, hope, charity,

The last meaning, “love in action,”

He’d rather gin up a hoard

Of hellish, racist factions,

Cheerleading the storming of the US Capitol,

Making us an international embarrassment,

 

The embodiment of the seven deadly sins: pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth,

Lacking proper love from father and mother, he had no soul to sell, or measure the cost,

Of losing one,

 

In the waning moments of a Washington sun,

January 20, 2021,

The creeping minutes of a lame duck session,

He attempted a self send off triumphant - largely ignored,

Except by the fascists and hangers-on,

That don’t mind that he’s opened Pandora’s Box,

Except by those who despise The Constitution,

He attempted a coup because he couldn’t accept a loss,

 

He enters now a Memory Palace,

Of his creation,

Well past

The Twilight Zone’s dimensions

For as long as his wealth lasts,

He owes over a billion dollars in debts,

Coming due in the year 2024,

 

He’s the only president who never got above 50% approval,

Now down to the lowest thirty-four,

He’s the first-ever impeached twice,

Likely will be the first convicted in the Senate,

 

A lesson for Cruz, Hawley, and other republicans,

Who wanted to take the mantle of fascism,

Knowing that without voter suppression,

They can never win legitimately any elections,

 

To be viable, they will have to change their tactics,

Be compassionate,

Accept reality,

Respect science,

Embrace diversity,

Show empathy,

And less of their asses,

Stop this deification of the free market,

It is a graven image, and Golden Calf in their Sinai Desert,

Stop pimping itinerant Palestinian Prophets,

Who they never believed in philosophically,

Realize physically,

Dumbo Gambino descending that escalator,

Was an apt metaphor,

For what came later,

As “bottom” had no absolute floor,

 

Social media deplatformed him,

Like the international terrorist, he is,

Not because of any semblance,

Of moral values,

Because another first: a sitting President

Incited insurrection,

Because they anticipate pending lawsuits,

Anathema to corporations,

On their appalling behavior in pursuit,

Of avarice gifted by Mammon,

Political misinformation worldwide DROPPED seventy-three percent,

Because they finally gagged ONE lunatic,

Because their viral algorithms

Promote sensationalism,

Not truth, or accuracy,

They just need metadata

To feed

Their digital altar of Moloch,

To satisfy their greed,

 

He is a Trojan Horse,

Dear Leader as deer tick on America’s ass,

Leaving like he came, displaying no class,

Prophet of his American Carnage and doomed insurrection,

Not apologetic or reflective,

 

He is the hollowest of hollow men,

The embodiment of TS Eliot’s script,

The closing stanza of which,

Can be a fitting epitaph,

To anyone daring to follow this dark path:

 

“This is the way [his] world ends,

“This is the way [his] world ends,

“This is the way [his] world ends,

 

“Not with a bang: but a whimper.”