Sitting On the Toilet Stool For 40 Acres...and A Mule: A Poem

From the Womb to the Tomb

I'm sitting on the toilet stool,
I’m waiting for my bowels to move.
Plus 40 acres,
and a mule.

I trust this no time to lament
the two centuries already spent
for this stolen country that is wrecked
to pay up on its bouncing check.

I think it might be constipation
but then it might just be the nation
That for (4) centuries tells me lies
gives less than damn about our lives.

Our lives don't "matter”
for that's just chatter.
More sloganeering and "white noise"
to self-appease the pasty boys.

Like Still Bill on Signal Hill
That never worked, and never will.
The time comes nigh, and we must reckon
That justice, justice, justice beckons!

I'm lying in my bassinet
Don't know how bad this shit is yet.
Freshly minted from the womb
By God, I'll know before the tomb.

I'm sitting in my college dorm
Waiting for "police reform."
It did not happen yesterday,
Airman Fortson was blown away.

In his dress blues, he looked like me
A young Black Man of 23.
The pigs, they kicked down the wrong door
But Roger Fortson is no more.

They pumped lead pellets in his chest,
Perhaps, this day, my son can rest.
And while he is at heaven's gate
Breonna Taylor will await.

I'm sitting in a nursing home,
Black Man abused and all alone.
As darkness cometh, I am awed
By foolishness: there is no God.