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."
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem