In Memoriam: Martin Luther King, Jr.
I
honey people murder mercy U.S.A.
the milkland turn to monsters teach
to kill to violate pull down destroy
the weakly freedom growing fruit
from being born
America
tomorrow yesterday rip rape
exacerbate despoil disfigure
crazy running threat the
deadly thrall
appall belief dispel
the wildlife burn the breast
the onward tongue
the outward hand
deform the normal rainy
riot sunshine shelter wreck
of darkness derogate
delimit blank
explode deprive
assassinate and batten up
like bullets fatten up
the raving greed
reactivate a springtime
terrorizing
death by men by more
than you or I can
STOP
II
They sleep who know a regulated place
or pulse or tide or changing sky
according to some universal
stage direction obvious
like shorewashed shells
we share an afternoon of mourning
in between no next predictable
except for wild reversal hearse rehearsal
bleach the blacklong lunging
ritual of fright insanity and more
deplorable abortion
more and
more
June Jordan
Other author posts
Problems of Translation: Problems of Language
Dedicated to Myriam Díaz-Diocaretz 1 I turn to my Rand McNally Atlas. Europe appears right after the Map of the World.
Poem for Nana
What will we do when there is nobody left to kill? *
Apologies to All the People in Lebanon
Dedicated to the 600,000 Palestinian men, women, and children who lived in Lebanon from 1948-1983. I didn’t know and nobody told me and what could I do or say, anyway? They said you shot the London Ambassador
1977: Poem for Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer
You used to say, “June? Honey when you come down here you supposed to stay with me. Where else?”
