Black Blood of Poetry

Posted on February 9, 2014 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

The King was dead

You joined the adults

Cried your eyes out

Didn’t know exactly why

Only that something catastrophic had happened

Something that’d set your people back fifty years

You couldn’t even go out to play

Maybe not for the next fifty years

Buildings were on fire

 

            Burn baby burn

 

It was like the Apocalypse

Like the end of time

Spoken about in church

The fire next time

 

            Burn baby burn

 

Our Black prince

Had already been assassinated

Who was next

Panthers were hunted and killed

Right on our city streets

Brothers were being sent to Nam

To fight a war that made no sense

While there was Civil Unrest

Right on our city streets

 

            Burn baby burn

 

Body bags

Were returning on planes

Along with pure heroin

Mothers aged overnight

Sobbed into folded flags

Kids shouted slogans

They didn’t understand

 

            Ungawa

            Black Power

            Destroy

            White boy

 

While Vietnam veterans

Nodded off into the night

 

            To die

            To sleep

            Perchance to dream

 

Napalm burning them in their nightmares

 

            Burn baby burn

 

Older bloods were disappearing

Later you’d learn

They’d been sent up the River

Into the heart of darkness

Their absence opened the Void

A Void so dark and so deep

Generations got lost

Some never returned

Others were still trying to return home

 

Bring the boys home

Bring them back alive

Bring the boys home

Bring them back alive

 

Black rage

White fright

 

Neon lights flashing

Flesh beckoning from street corners

Beautiful girls lost and turned out

Drug deals transacted on street corners

Three Card Monte con men

Hustling the larcenous

Even native New Yorkers

A sucker’s born every second

 

Battle lines had been drawn

But they were easy to cross

You could get lost

Between the moon and New York City

Between Brooklyn and 42nd Street

And never return home

 

Mind altering drugs

Misled you

Into believing that you were invincible

You dodged bullets

Or at least you thought so

Lived another day to tell your story

You refused to go to funerals

Faced death everyday

But wouldn’t look the Grim Reaper

In the eyes

When he/she was harmless

In a coffin

Ready to go six feet under

 

            Let the dead bury the dead

 

You’d never die

You’d never be sent up the River

The cops would never catch you

You’d learned the secrets

Of being an Invisible Man

You disappeared into apartments

While they chased phantoms on roofs

In the streets

You’d grab a girl’s hand

Tell her the truth

That you were a wanted man

And she’d want to save you

She’d guide you right by the police

Right before their very eyes

In plain view

As they say

And you laughed

Because every day you cheated death

You lived another day to tell your story

As long as no one could see you

You were free

Everything was permitted

Just don’t get caught

 

Even in the asphalt jungle

There were rules

Silence was golden

Everything said

Could be used against you

Even your silence

Because no story is ever left untold

Cops are the best storytellers

Just give them something to work with

A snitch

A rat

A codefendant to turn state’s evidence

A perjurer

Thank God there was no electric chair

Prosecutors have no qualms

About sending innocent men to their death

As long as they get their convictions

Building blocks for their careers

It’s strange

But the guilty go free

While the innocent become disillusioned

Sometimes they escape state-sponsored death

 

You’ve trod the same path

As the bloods before you

Was sent up the River

Despite your belief to the contrary

Found all the older bloods

You thought were missing in action

One good thing

Since they’d paved the way

And because they were responsible

For the road you took

Because they didn’t leave a road map

And you fell into the Void

Belatedly they taught you

All you didn’t know

Almost everything you needed to know

To live

To be

To become a part of history

History was living

 

You were reading history

You were reading

Malcolm X’s autobiography

While his killer was a few cells away

It was strange

You hadn’t come into consciousness

When the Black Prince was assassinated

But you met his assassin

Looked him in the eyes

Didn’t see the Grim Reaper

But a disillusioned old man

Praying to the same god

In a different way

You watched him

Wondered why he’d really killed

Perhaps he even wondered why

 

You played prison football

With panthers

Who’d been set up by the FBI

Later you’d’ see them

Vindicated and rich

On talk shows

Traveling to Africa

Sometimes there is justice

Belatedly

After a terrible price has been paid

 

But your journey had just begun

You are a Black Boy

A Native Son

Living Sonny’s Blues

You Cry I am

A Man-child in the Promised Land

You came down Mean streets

Aware

 

You traveled

Met people with invaluable lessons to teach

You’re inspired

By that trinity of freedom fighters

Nat Turner

Gabriel Prosser

And Denmark Vesey

 

You become wise enough to know

That you can’t live in the past

Only learn from it

Even though it could be conjured up twenty years later

Be used against you

But it was unchanging

This you know

And you must move on

Even if others

Would hogtie you to the past

 

You do battle with demons

Not blond-haired blue-eyes devils

But your own heart of darkness

You fight to break the chains

Of your miseducation as a Negro

Of psychological chains and images

Of the new slavery

Repackaged as Corrections

 

You read the dictionary

From A to Z

Emulating Malcolm X

Read the Bible

From Genesis to Revelation

Looking for secrets

You think of the dead King

And those 8th century B.C. prophets he admired

Of his assassination

On a Southern terrace

Of your tears

Of not being able to go out and play

Of rioting in the streets

Of dancing in the streets

Of the Apocalypse

The fire next time

 

            Burn baby burn

 

More than thirty years later

The ruins remain

War-ravaged urban areas forsaken

You wonder if there are new beginnings

If you’ll emerge from the darkness

Even recognize the light

 

You remember when the lights went out

 

Where were you

When the lights went out

In New York City

 

You were not afraid of the dark

You were bold

And only the bold ventured out into the night

And you were as bold as they came

If you were not afraid of the darkness

There was no reason to be afraid

Of anything

 

You learned that you could create yourself

Because you’d never been formed

The Void had only touched you

Not devoured you

Who you truly are

A Black Boy

A Native Son

Living Sonny’s Blues

You Cry I am

A Man-child in the Promised Land

You came down Mean Streets

Conscious

Aware

 

Your eyes are wide open

And no one

Absolutely no one

Can tell you lies

You found yourself in the blues

Cried out when you learned

Who you are

You didn’t boast

That you were a descendant

Of Kings and Queens

Because they’d been buried a long time ago

You know that as their blood weakened

Yours was infused with strength

The strength of survivors

There may be a drop of royal blood

Coursing through your veins

It had been spilt so many times

You doubted it

Need not take refuge in it

If it was there

Because the blood that coursed through you

Is the blood of survivors

You walk in the steps of your ancestors

Your hear their voices in your head

You will walk with this consciousness

This awareness

All the days of your life

Until you take your last breath

Someone will have to close your eyes

Because you’ll keep them wide open

Until you breathe your last breath

You’ll keep your eyes wide open

Until you breathe your last breath

Posted in Martin Luther King, Poetry | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Preface to my book, “Black Shadows and through the White Looking Glass”

Posted on February 3, 2014 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

Preamble

 From slavery to freedom.

From pre-colonialism to post-modernism.

From revolution to reactionism.

From the War for Independence

            to the Civil War

From the slave enlistment bill

            to Selective Service.

From Articles of Confederation

            to the Confederacy.

From agrarianism to technocratism.

From pre-industrialization.

            to post-industrialization

 

From George Washington

            to George Bush.

From the birth of a nation

            to a kinder, gentler nation.

From Thomas Jefferson

            to William Jefferson Clinton.

From Democratic Republicanism

            to the New Democrats.

From honest Abe

            to tricky Dick

            to Slick Willie.

From preserving the Union

            to fighting a “lawless society”

            to establishing a New Covenant.

From Radical Republicanism

            to Roosevelt’s reign

            to Reaganism.

From Reconstruction

            to public works

            to trickle-down economics.

From the Welfare State

            to a Police State.

From the Do Nothing Party

            to the Freedom Now Party.

From New Deal Democrats

            to Dixiecrats.

From the Grand Old Party

            to the Great Society

            to this dialogue on race.

From the melting pot

            to multiculturalism.

From Jim Crow

            to the Rainbow Coalition.

From Griots to the Last Poets

From Phillis Wheatley

            to Gwendolyn Brooks.

From highly imitative        

            to Pulitzer Prize-winning poetry.

From Various Subjects, Religious and Moral

            to Annie Allen.

From Zora Neale Hurston

            to Toni Morrison.

From Their Eyes Were Watching God

            to Paradise.

From folklore

            to Nobel Laureate fiction.

From Mules and Men

            to Beloved.

From Richard Wright

            to James Baldwin

            to Walter Mosley.

From Native Son

            to “Sonny’s Blues”

            to A Devil in a Blue Dress.

From the Royal Family –

Count Basie, Duke Ellington

and Nat King Cole

            to the King of Pop.

From a Lady singing the blues

            to the Funky Divas.

From the Queen of Soul

            to Queen Latifah.

From Bojangles

            to M.C. Hammer

            to the Tap Dance Kid.

From Porgy and Bess

            to Jelly’s Last Jam.

From slave songs and spirituals

            to soul.

From delta blues

            to rhythm and blues.

From New Orleans jazz

            to Brass Construction.

From ragtime

            to rock ‘n’ roll

            to rap.

The gift of story and song.

From slavery

            to sharecropping.

From pickin’ cotton

            to hoeing fields.

From the farm

            to the factory.

From grapes of wrath

            to industrial traps.

From the plantation

            to the penitentiary.

From the old slavery

            to the new slavery.

From chattel slavery

            to the convict lease system

            to the chain gang

            to prisons for profit.

 

The gift of sweat and brawn.

From Africa to America.

From chains to the cross.

From a slave religion

            to a religion of salvation.

From segregated balconies

            to the front of the pews.

From hearing the Word

            to proclaiming it.

From making a way out of no way

            to leading the way.

The gift of the spirit.

The long shadows

of black history in America,

once hidden, often denied,

now revealed.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The King is Dead!

Posted on January 20, 2014 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

The King is dead!

I was 7 years young when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. Growing up in the ‘60s, what one historian called the Decisive Decade, there was death all around.

At 7, I didn’t understand the impact of King’s death, of his assassination – it is my first “political” memory. Around me, all the grown-ups were saying, “They killed another Black man!” I didn’t know who “they” were. I only knew that “they” had killed another Black man. Later I would learn that “they” had also killed a President, and his brother, and….

Later, I would write a poem, referring to these killings as “assassinations with political ramifications.” These killings would spill over into the ‘70s, and if Richard Nixon was right, for the wrong reasons, we were living in a “lawless society.”

I know as a society we have come a long way, but I also know that we have a long way to go, specifically to realize a just society.

Today, as we remember Dr. King, on this day, we should celebrate his life, what he stood for, and remember those words he wrote from the Birmingham Jail: “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” And then we need to do something.

The King is dead! Long live the King and the ideals he stood for

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Even a Black Poet is Considered Armed and Extremely Dangerous

Posted on January 20, 2014 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

(For Henry Dumas)

It was a time
when a president,
a presidential candidate,
a Prince of Peace,
a Black knight in shining armor,
and Black Panthers,
were gunned down.

Assassinations with political ramifications.

But who’d think
that a poet
would be gunned down too?

This Bard was described
as an incredible artist,
someone who wrote
“the most beautiful,
moving and profound poetry.”

Poetry for My People

He was armed
with brilliance,
and magnetism.

Did this make him dangerous?

In “The Waking Dream”
he had a wise woman say:
“They kills em off
as fast as we can birth em.”

Assassinations with political ramifications.

Our Black Boys.
Our Native Sons.
Our Men-Children in the Promised Land.
Our Princes of Peace.
Our Black knights.
And our Black Panthers.
Black males who cried “I am!”

This was a time
of chickens coming home to roost,
of COINTELPRO,
and conspiracies.

Guess who’s not coming to dinner?

A precursor of many more killings by cops —
“justifiable homicides,” so we are told.

“They kills em off as fast as we can birth em.”

A promising poet,
armed with brilliance,
and magnetism.

Did this make him dangerous?

An innocent Black man.
A case of “mistaken identity.”
Shot dead by a white transit cop.

“These devils are devils and sons of devils.”

Maybe his words damned him.

This was a time
of chickens coming home to roost,
of COINTELPRO
and conspiracies.

 

Posted in Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Murder, Poetry, Politics, Revolution, Uncategorized, Urban Impact | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Nelson Mandela — On Love, Commitment and Freedom

Posted on December 6, 2013 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

This is an excerpt from an essay I wrote a number of years ago about Nelson and Winnie Mandela:

I think we also have to break away from the bourgeois tradition of romantic love which isn’t necessarily about creating the conditions for what you call critical affirmation…. We must think of not just romantic love, but of love in general as being about people mutually meeting each other’s needs and giving and receiving critical feedback.

–bell hooks, Breaking Bread

I
…When I think of a love that epitomizes these things – commitment and freedom – I think of Winnie and Nelson Mandela. He, a freedom fighter, imprisoned for nearly three decades by the now defunct apartheid regime in South Africa. She, also a freedom fighter, his wife, his comrade, fighting for and waiting for his release those three decades. When I think of their love, specifically Winnie’s for Nelson, I know that it was a great love she had for him, that they had for each other – a love of commitment to each other, to the struggle for freedom, on a personal as well as a political level – for only a great love could have withstood the test of prison time – three decades of fighting and waiting to realize their love in a state of physical as well as political freedom.

When Nelson Mandela was finally released from prison, we wanted to see a happy ending. We wanted to see Nelson and Winnie together, happily ever after. Because we grew up on fairy tales and notions of romantic love – which are constantly reinforced by love songs, movies and romance novels – we wanted to see the personal triumph over the political. It was heartbreaking to see the political triumph over the personal. Diehard romantics probably would have preferred to see Winnie and Nelson together in exile rather than a part in a new, provisionally free South Africa with Nelson as president.

I can only speculate, but I think that during Nelson’s nearly three decades of imprisonment, Winnie’s love for him transformed from the personal to the political. I think Winnie knew this more so than Nelson. I think Nelson knew this too, but that he sustained himself on romantic notions of revolutionary love, that is, that his wife, his comrade, would be by his side until he was free because the personal and the political were inextricably linked; moreover, if separated, the personal would triumph over the political, that they would triumph together. In any event, I think that sometime during his captivity Nelson realized that if he truly loved Winnie, he had to give her her freedom. He had to tell her that the personal was over although the political would never be until a free South Africa was realized. The greatest act of love would have been giving Winnie her personal freedom while he was still imprisoned, but he did not, perhaps trying to keep the personal and the political together, which could not be. In the final analysis, once freed, Nelson chose the political over the personal – there was something politically expedient about their breakup, something that smacked of betrayal, something that perhaps made us lose faith in both romantic and revolutionary love.

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There are no second acts in American lives?

Posted on November 15, 2013 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

F. Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote, “There are no second acts in American lives.”

That’s only true if your life is a one act play! I’m in my third act, approaching the climatic scene, and the denouement won’t be anti-climatic!

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For Black People and All Peoples who Supported the Right to Vote for Blacks

Posted on November 5, 2013 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

Vote!

There was a time when Black people and all women could not vote in this country. The Union was formed in 1776, and Black men did not get the right to vote until 1870, with the passage of the 15th Amendment. All women did not get the right to vote until 1920, with the passage of the 19th Amendment.

After the passage of the 15th Amendment, White men instituted poll taxes and literacy tests to prevent Black men from voting, and later Black women. Poll taxes were ruled Constitutional by the United States Supreme Court in Breedlove v. Shuttles in 1937. Poll taxes remained in effect until 1964, with the passage of the 24th Amendment. And of course there was the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibits states and local governments from imposing any “voting qualifications or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure…to deny or abridge the right of any citizen to vote on account of race or color.”

And remember, countless Blacks as well as a number of a Whites were beaten, threatened and killed for Black people to possess this right to vote. If you don’t vote for any other reason, vote to honor the people who died in order to secure the vote.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Voting in NYC — for District Attorney of Kings County

Posted on November 5, 2013 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

No excuse not to vote, especially for Kings County (Brooklyn) District Attorney. Let Charles Hynes know that he can’t jump from the Democratic to the Republican and Conservative parties because he lost the Democratic primary to Ken Thompson. He had his time; now he needs to ride off into the sunset. Democrats who have loyally supported Hynes as a Democrat ought not to jump ship to Republican or Conservative Party and vote for Hynes.

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Waiting for Parole — Between Hope and Despair

Posted on October 29, 2013 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

“The Gift of Story and Song” — From my book, “Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass

Posted on October 15, 2013 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

From Griots to the Last Poets

From Phillis Wheatley

            to Gwendolyn Brooks.

From highly imitative        

            to Pulitzer Prize-winning poetry.

From Various Subjects, Religious and Moral

            to Annie Allen.

From Zora Neale Hurston

            to Toni Morrison.

From Their Eyes Were Watching God

            to Paradise.

From folklore

            to Nobel Laureate fiction.

From Mules and Men

            to Beloved.

 

From Richard Wright

            to James Baldwin

            to Walter Mosley.

From Native Son

            to “Sonny’s Blues”

            to A Devil in a Blue Dress.

 

From the Royal Family –

Count Basie, Duke Ellington

and Nat King Cole

            to the King of Pop.

From a Lady singing the blues

            to the Funky Divas.

From the Queen of Soul

            to Queen Latifah.

From Bojangles

            to M.C. Hammer

            to the Tap Dance Kid.

From Porgy and Bess

            to Jelly’s Last Jam.

From slave songs and spirituals

            to soul.

From delta blues

            to rhythm and blues.

From New Orleans jazz

            to Brass Construction.

From ragtime

            to rock ‘n’ roll

            to rap.

 

The gift of story and song.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment