just mindin’ my businesss
just walkin’ down the street
move along move along
(you lazy loot… get your black ass gone)
just enterin’ my home
in this hood i don’t belong
don t shoot don t shoot!!
(tough luck kid! your color’s all wrong)
i’m just eighteen
the whole rainbow all in one
i was black before my father
i’m as old as the sun
the same DNA
as the moon and the stars
the bloodstains on my pillow
are no different than yours
please Officer PlEASE!
don’t point your gun at me
i’m not the enemy
i wasnt’ born i wasn’t mourned to be
white chalk on asphalt
what ? your murderin’ me is my fault?
you call me the ‘ n’ word
Martin Luther MalcolmX Mandela
you call me the ‘n’ word
and claim you are a brother
while you insult ass-ault
my father sister mother
(you mother!)
beaten in our fields
raped in our beds
the seeds you sow still reek
of oppression and dread
of lead and rubber bullets
of pointy gnarling teeth
you re the Boogeyman from Hell
come to get me in my sleep
you’re darker than night
you’re blinder than blind
i’m the candlelit vigil
of your impoverished mind
the nightmare the daymare of sirens screaming
another brother down !! let freedom ring ??
he died for your american dream!
shrouded in secrecy indecency bigotry
democracy of thee i sing? what a mockery !!
we choke on your hipocracyyyy
i’m talkin bout YOU Mister Evil
oounting blood like money
talkin bout YOU Snake Eyes gamblin away our lives
YOU Ms Fraidy Cat hiding behind your chagrin
tightening the noose with sympathy around our necks
just boys barely men we’re hep to your sins
to the legacy of hate of apathy the shudder of death
the fear of our own footsteps
strange fruit hangin’ from the old oak tree
roots steeped in blood and sorrow
hearts caught in our throats for eternity
who knows who’s next tomorrow
i’m just eighteen
the whole rainbow all in one
i was black before my father
i’m as old as the sun
the same DNA
as the moon and the stars
the bloodstains on my pillow
no different than yours
generations of tears
flow from ancient holy skeyes
mine eyes have seeeeen the glory
the in-justice of our lives
you conceived in love
what are you SO afraid of
the color of my skin
or the darker matter you’re made of
deface me debase me erase me
you can’t replace me
deny me or your own humanityyy
you can shackle my dreams
but the spirit flies free
you can shackle my dreams
but the spirit flies free
and
when i honor you
i honor me
when i honor you
i honor me
when i honor you
i honor me
when i honor you
i honor me
© 2019, Antonia Alexandra Kilmenko
ANTONIA ALEXANDRA KILMENKO is a former San Francisco Poetry Slam Champion and she is widely published. Her work has appeared in (among others) XXI Century World Literature (in which she represents France) and Maintenant : Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art archived at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. and New York’s Museum of Modern Art. She is the recipient of two grants: one from Poets in Need, of which Michael (100 Thousand Poets for Change) Rothenberg is a co-founder; the second—the 2018 Generosity Award bestowed on her by Kathleen Spivack and Josheph Murray for her outstanding service to international writers through SpokenWord Paris where she is Writer/ Poet in Residence.
The BeZine 
Wow! Now THAT is a powerful poem! I cannot empathize, as I come from a place of white privilege, but I can sympathize, and mourn that there is such hate and evil against anyone not white. What I find most baffling, is that more white people don’t see that truth. Yes, in part, they’re blind to even their own white privilege, but no one wants to admit to being a villain simply because of the color of their skin, regardless of when it happens/happened. Thank you for sharing this with all of us. It is a piece that will stick with me for awhile, I think.
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