Libation To Kalief Poem by Nassy Fesharaki

Libation for Kalief

(Stop criminalising and solitary…)
(Particularly for displaced and juvenile!)


"Libation" was the name of poem
-title was a magnet
-or a web

I was caught and stopped
-powerless looked around
-read through to Kalief

"What goes on? "

Felt as if I needed to find out
-took the word as "Caliph"
-I swore, with anger
- ‘Wrong Spell'

Days came in, raced and went
-time has come to look up

Now I feel obliged to
-Tiana; or Clark

And in fact, lots of thanks
-and thanks, thanks
-many thanks

Tiana, I love you
-and read your
- "EQUILIBRIUM"

See your chest, hands on sides
-a large gate seen behind
-it opens to Malcolm
-I hear a chorus:
- "Black is beautiful"

And this I have sung
-for decades, may years
-and repeat it again
-little bit different:
- "We are all beautiful"

I say so just because
-yesterday ended NAIG

That is game of people
-land owners before white
-you forced in; then this lame

For years and centuries
-they lived in misery
-as you did, and Kalief
-brainwashed to believe
- "We are of lower race…
-far below, no respect…
-till sixties' slogan:
- "Black is beautiful."

That came as your start
-but owners of these lands
-still caged, observed worse
-and remained in same hell
-till recent…

Yesterday…yes…only yesterday
-finally! ! !
-they had chance to declare:
- "I am an Indigenous…"

That is for the kids and elderly
-a lost and buried race deep beneath
-for decades, centuries; turned winners
-just because they declared proudly:
- "North American Indigenous Games"

Therefore you, Tiana
-yes, you are core of this; thank you
-thanks to you for writing of Kalief
-I read much to learn it; then wrote this

Truly my friend, my colleague
-I feel like I have reached the point
-where ended our Kalief…

I love your:
-it "Took me…thirty years to say:
I'm glad…I don't pass for white."