GEORGE FLOYD, OUR HEARTS STILL WEAR YOUR TEARS (2021)
George Floyd, one year
Yet, it feels like today
A knee in your neck
Left you breathless
A picture unforgettable
“I can’t breathe”
Can’t be unheard
Mama
That word
Touched our souls
Cried with you then
Today our hearts
Still wear your tears
Always remembered
Never forgotten
Rest In Power
My brother
BLM
"WHEN I PLACE MY HAND IN MY POCKET"
Now, when I place my hand in my pocket
I see the horrific picture of a knee in George Floyd’s neck
Now, when I place my hand in my pocket
I hear the words ‘I can’t breathe’
Now, when I place my hand in my pocket
My mind is flooded with the inerasable picture of the cold
Evil and cruel death of my brother
Now, when I place my hand in my pocket
I can’t say I’ve never seen a man take his last breath
Now, when I place my hand in my pocket
I see the murder of all my black brothers and sisters
Who are dead because of the color of their skin
Now, when I place my hand in my pocket
I am angry and I am sad
I’m overwhelmed and I am mad
Because for too long we have suffered at the minds
And hands of hate, cruelty and injustice
And for too long, too much blood has been shed
Too many bodies have been buried
Too much heartbreak have been endured
Too many mothers, too families have suffered
Now when I place my hand in my pocket
I feel no contentment, no peace, no comfort, and I cry
Because now when I place my hands in my pocket
I see George Floyd a face my mind can’t erase
And I hear the words I can’t unheard “please! I can’t breathe”
So now, I no longer place my hands in my pocket
Bio: Twitter: EmpressIjah2
Ava Tenn is a Poet and Freelance Writer.
She believes that poetry can penetrate your heart and speak to your soul and with its balm it can change the world.
She has had publications in the Toronto Sun, Good News Toronto
and Planet Africa magazine. She enjoys learning, reading, dancing and helping people. Ava believes in prayer, peace and unity and creating awareness through words that inspires and motivates. When she is not writing poetry and articles, she’s writing songs wishing she could sing.
She resides in Toronto where she is currently working on her manuscript.
Here we are
I began curating this poem
Six minutes 19 seconds in
To what has become a national holiday
Just two years ago
Two years ago it took a bunch of pain
And senselessness
For us to bring to the fore front
A moment in history that happened years ago
To become relevant in everyone’s mind
We needed it to become Americanized
For the select few to humanize themselves
And go back read about the events that took place on this day in 1865
But no, I’ve seen it all
The decorations
The attempts at change
The celebrations
All taking place within a world so broken
Yes the steps are taken but look at one’s feet
To see the cracked ground that the now enlightened walk upon
The fragility of it all
It’s looking like 2020 Part 2
Shackles still remain just a little loosened
That’s because more and more people continue to be shackled in their own way
So have your parties
Have your events
Have your jubilations
Just make sure that learning is taking place
In the end we just want understanding
We can’t change the past
And the future is never promised
So make the change in the present
Bio: Follow R.D. Johnson on twitter @r_d_Johnson R.D. Johnson is a pushcart nominee, a best of the net nominee for Fevers of the Mind "(Not Just On) Juneteenth" Reggie is an author reigning out of Cincinnati, Ohio. At the age of 9, he found a love for writing while on summer vacation. With influences from music, Reggie has created a rhythmic style of writing to tell his personal experiences and beyond. Reggie has several books available on all major online retailers and his work can be seen in various literary magazines. He currently has two columns, Drunken Karaoke featured on Daily Drunk Magazine & REPLAYS featured on The Poetry Question. https://thepoetryquestion.com/category/replay-rdj/
https://feversofthemind.com/2022/06/17/poetry-by-r-d-johnson-not-just-on-juneteenth/https://feversofthemind.com/2021/02/17/4-poems-by-r-d-johnson-malcolm-martin-angels-dr-kings-dream-february-1st/https://feversofthemind.com/2021/07/26/a-review-from-thank-you-for-the-content-iii-by-r-d-johnson-reggie-d-johnson/
✊🏾 HAPPY JUNETEENTH ✊🏾
Here’s a new piece for you to enjoy entitled ‘Six Minutes Nineteen on 06/19’
Been a little over year
Of people having to be reminded of what black is
A reminder of the anger and a reminder of the sadness
Still the fact is
It shouldn’t take a trauma for you to understand a trauma
Only thing we are doing is piling it up
Adding a comma
Some try to be empathetic others will just call it drama
And God got something for they ass
I’m a call it karma
What goes around comes back around
And let’s just use it to describe 2020
We traded chains and shackles
For cuffs and death
Something we saw too many
A nation went from uniting like minded people
To further put a division between everyone
To the point that folks can’t even be subtle with their racism
So what can one do?
We continue to be a voice
We continue to be the change
We continue to persevere
We have to…
We have to withstand any and everything
Now so those that come after us don’t have to as hard
Just as generation after generation had to
Just remember me as the bridge
Someone on the journey to a better life
I’m black
I’m proud
Give me my flowers while I’m here
And not just on Juneteenth
Everyday
And don’t forget me when I’m gone
Bio: Follow R.D. Johnson on twitter @r_d_Johnson R.D. Johnson is a pushcart nominee, a best of the net nominee for Fevers of the Mind "(Not Just On) Juneteenth" Reggie is an author reigning out of Cincinnati, Ohio. At the age of 9, he found a love for writing while on summer vacation. With influences from music, Reggie has created a rhythmic style of writing to tell his personal experiences and beyond. Reggie has several books available on all major online retailers and his work can be seen in various literary magazines. He currently has two columns, Drunken Karaoke featured on Daily Drunk Magazine & REPLAYS featured on The Poetry Question. https://thepoetryquestion.com/category/replay-rdj/A Review from “Thank You For the Content III” by R.D. Johnson (Reggie D. Johnson)4 Poems by R.D. Johnson : Malcolm & Martin, Angels, Dr. King’s Dream & February 1st (re-post)
Q1: When did you start writing and first influences?
Khalisa: I have always been a storyteller creating new worlds with images, a creative writer, and it’s always been an escape for me. A way to articulate the world in a new way. that helped me process trauma and joys in a new ways. My mom still has the Tupperware bins of my early fiction writing form when I was 6 years old. When I discovered Lucille Clifton, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Gwendolyn Brooks, and James Baldwin, my life was forever changed.
Q2: Who are your biggest influences today?
Khalisa: I am really inspired by Tiana Clark, Dorothy Chan, Audre Lorde, Terrance Hayes, and Jericho Brown.
Q3: Any pivotal moment when you knew you wanted to be a writer?
Khalisa: I was standing in front of my undergraduate creative writing class and the director of the department heard me reciting poetry and told me I should do it for the rest of my life. I didn’t get serious about writing until that pivotal moment. She gave me permission to go full force, hone my craft, and envision a career.
Q4: Who has helped you most with writing?
Khalisa: I would definitely say that my college professors Claudia Rankine, Ada Limon. They taught me the craft of writing poetry, showed me how to be a critical poetry editor, and opened my eyes to so many different types of writing and the many different versions of what poetry can be.
Q5: Where did you grow up and how did that influence your writing & have any travels away from home influence your work?
Khalisa: So, I was born in Gary Indiana and being from the Midwest/outside Chicago definitely influenced my tone, dialect, approach, and vibrato. I think being from a major metropolitan, all Black city influences my subject matter and perspective as well of the inequities and disparities that people of color experience. It also showed me how much of pop culture is stolen and appropriated from Black street culture and that shows up in my writing. Then moving to the South definitely was a culture shock and inspired my writing and shifted my work to have more of a southern influence that reflects on nature, family, food, and matriachs. I feel like moving to the south made me get more in touch with my ancestory, history, and roots. That has made me writing more well-rounded and allows me to have more tools in my tool kit. I can make my writing sound like the street kid, like the proper private school girl, like the Southern belle, or the down home girl. I can take on many different voices and personas in my pieces. Traveling to Chile with Ada inspired my writing and helped me grow my skill in narrative writing and painting images.
Q6: What do you consider the most meaningful work you’ve done creatively so far to you?
Khalisa: I would definitely say that my book Ghost in a Black Girls Throat is the most meaningful collection I’ve ever written because I can feel the direct impact its had with the culture and so many of my topics are timely and speaks to large social justice issues like racism, bigotry and sexism. It also is in conversation with the history of prejudice gentrification, and generational trauma in the Black culture. My poems confront and address important issues, and start important conversations. That said, I do think that my newer work is some of my bravest work. I wrote a letter to Cardi B and Meg the Stallion that got published in a dream publication- Electric Literature, and that made me feel empowered to talk about sex and desire on a public forum.
Q7: Favorite activities to relax?
Khalisa: I really love to dance and laugh. My favorite pasttime is watching funny movies with my husband, eating good food, or listening to good music- like jazz and motown classics. To relax, I color, journal, and do yoga. I also really like to just zone out to my favorite shows and movies and get lost in another world.
Q8: What is a favorite line/stanza from a poem/writing of yours or others?
Khalisa:
“That’s what they will come for first.- the throat. They know that be your super power your furnace of rebellion. So they silence us before the coal burns.” – Ghost in a Black Girl’s Throat
“I can be razor-backed and spike-edged when he tries to skin me, unscale my silvery back, debone my brazen hen-hide. I will be foul-mouthed and crooked-necked. I will be the chicken-head they know me to be, if it will save my life.”- Livestock
Q9: Any recent or forthcoming projects that you’d like to promote?
Khalisa: I am currently working on my Blk Southern romance novel, in addition to gathering stories of Blk queer women and femme folks that live in the South. Lastly, my poetry and art lyric collection is slated for publication in Jan/Feb 2022, called Unlearning Eden.
Come Home a poem for George Floyd (June 7, 2020 Catrice Greer)
These wombs, sacred, we build placenta worlds of blood and bone cord by cord, cells churning with life a zygotic landscape
s .. a .. f .. e
safe from gunshots, lethal force, blue bias, blows safe from bent-tongued accusations, chokeholds, grief tears and pain light-years away the amniotic sac aglow you hear only my voice
Mommy …
I walked with you, my love, my sun floating close to my own heartbeat tethered in the mitochondrial house we are one my peace, your peace
my child, to lose you to this world that does not know you never carried you is not the deep-rooted tree of life I birthed a premature exit is not the afterbirth of my labor
Call my name when the end is near I will come again for you I will come again for you, my angel my sweetness you will reside here with me, rest in peace. Come home.
Fevers of the Mind 