The Color Question

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I wonder what color the trees would be if they weren’t green

Maybe they’d envy the sky and be blue

What if I weren’t brown

What if my melanin morphed into red hot like a corvette red

Give adequate reason to associate me with the colors of devils

Justify why I have been outcast amongst civilized people

So when I disrespect my mother

& cock guns to unload clips at my brother

Just call it the devil painted  embedded into the cells of my skin inbreed into future generations

That way you can explain

Sloppy attitudes towards education and infidelity  displayed in fiction

Just say red people are born that way they follow Lucifer its true look at the stance

Too proud for any man and those hands Gifted for music

A tool that the Fallen Angel used to sway the masses

Red

Symbolizing the millions of gallons of a blood shed of a people in constant struggle

We fight monarchy democracy colonization

only the evil bite the hands that feeds you

Imagine the initiator of this secular epidermis raising his hand to God among saint and angels brimming with the purest color there is

But having the life knocked out of him as he crashed to the ground he fermented this

Planet with the people the color of death brown

So that is the rationale behind the apartheid and mass genocide in Africa

That is why our attempts to govern ourselves fails

And the freedom of trafficked humans in the forgotten countries on a black continent

isn’t announced on an international scale

Red

The color of demons and whores

That’s why thousands of black men deserved to be strung up by their necks

& women sexually exploited for centuries dignity torn from between their legs

Then I could understand if I weren’t brown

Perpetrating in this skin that reflects the dirt within

You red like burnt apple cinnamon

Nah I’m red like a crimson letter stitched to our dress big bold and obvious

Like yellow stars watched by Gestapo

Fully clothed in villainous costumes we were born standing in the public square

 Waiting for the pale heroes to smite us with heavy blows

We all know our color makes us easy targets
how about we vote on another color

Pink is too close to red, purple yellow orange reminds me of something like lemon/cool-aid & I don’t know about you but I don’t want to be known as

the sugary artificial dye #4 people

So how about we name ourselves a color that properly represents the flesh bone and soul

The question was so perplexing that I had to go on a search and look for the definition

Listen

Brown is a natural down to earth neutral

Found in earth wood and stone

Represents wholesomeness steadfast simplicity

Convey a simple feeling of warmth love & honesty

Then it went onto list synonyms

Chocolate tan mahogany oak

Hazel bronze sienna toast

I decided you could call me whatever you please

Because brown looks pretty fucking good on me

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© Perception 2011,  Ariama Long

I Walk

I walk

Hearts beat slow like molasses

Classes cant teach this

Cold flashes as wind passes

Little faces pressed up against glasses

Intense invincibility crashes

I walk

Through poets snaps

Heads high under fitted caps

Down piss stairwells and rainbow train maps

Past tense strangers as litter makes laps around the tracks

I walk

By gangs of accents that flood these streets

Red and black pleats on the scarves that match the weaves

Heats me headphones spill with fierce beats

Cars breathe

I walk

Seeing encroaching high risers and pushy condos forcing out mom and pop stores

Franchises envying the space across the project mother’s floors

While workers huddle exiled nicotine in front of their doors

Corner hustlers beg for more

I walk

Dreadlocks swing free as sirens sing

Birds screech while fluttering cross musical intersections that play for buildings

I walk

Triumphant stut past soup kitchen line where my father spent some time

Anklet bells chime like inmate shackles as they echo in the officers eyes that watch mines

Pupils black like trigger happy minds patrolling the confines of my borough

I walk

Past Brooklyn roots sucking memories out these trees

Fleets of preachers moving boulders

Africa seats himself amid the sunset on his knees

Praying for the priests in the country of nativity

I walk

Flipping my hair to portrait still water in a writer’s paradise

Helicopter star lights freckle the night hates on my smile lit bright like a torch carrier’s stride the day feels right

I walk

It seems all roads lead to the county of kings

Where drunks marry these blocks children liquor fiends

& conceit glistens off door knocker earrings

The hood stings like

Corruption flowing into my dreams

Like the sound of a smack to the back of the head as it rings

Like 10 000 mosquitoes bites on one of them hot ass summer nights

I walk

Admiring gargoyles that architects took time to chip into existence

Too bad they don’t exist in neighborhoods where copper skin is plentiful sense

Their meant to keep out bad spirits

This painful shutout we spray paint onto the breast of our buildings

Given shades of cool mints and reds so when the sun hits

It sprouts yellows and oranges in different hues

So beautiful that in blissful unawareness the bricks drink  our pride

images (24)so we are unashamed to walk in the daytime

© Perception 2011, Ariama Long

Let Me Be Held When The Longing Comes

Let me be held when the longing comes

by you

yours the arms, yours the tenderabstract willow

breath.

Tumble down into the quiet dark

of this embrace

night is come again.

Stay a little longer,

for no other reason than it is

good not to be alone always

let there be a song of remembering and not knowing

what is there except

a warmth and a blossom

of a feeling, sweetly,

gladly, home.

–Stephany

Brooklyn Chronicles: Ch 9

“Oh honey

you need a stool

They shouldn’t be making you stand

this long. Mhm, get you a stool”

A voice with

a curved back

that seemed to reach from her tiny shoes

and almost back to the floor again

said grinning

A red cloak and old, powdered brown face

Adorable, right?

“Yo, she just stole from the store”

What?

Right.

Adorable

Philly Story #5: Falling

it’s cold out here

i lost my token

forgot my change as i stepped in

missed the bar as the bus jolted forward

and was heading to the floor with my face

when an older man

concern in his ebony eyes, and

gripping his cane, gripped my arm just as hard

i didn’t fall that day

 

It’s Just Another Day In the Neighborhood

A neighborhood’s blood pumps thick

busting through vessels stickin to the sides of deactivated muscles

limp fingers flail where once a fist formed

forced acceptance replaces the anger

‘that lingered in every household

silent voices reign

into the gutters of the ghetto

cold sunshine drapes clotheslines packed with designer labels

but still bills laid unpaid, slurpin government checks through the mail slots

Lives tormented by words unsaid

Shoot up the anecdote to the ebb and flow

as T-cell counts drop low down through inconspicuous  looks of lust tossed

affecting the whole race of us

dangerous

are these perforated prophylactics littering school grounds

children bearing children already heaven bound

as boroughs pulsate

unclean red hate spilled onto the pavement

meant to transport

the souls of our soles

steppin over the next gunshot victims ghost as he grabs at your ankles

On your way to the liquor store?

Or Crown Fried?

condemn this hood’s arteries

facilities cloggin the mentalities of the people

bleeding onto insulin detectors

kidney failure running rampant shutting down our natural bullshit filter

sprinting through our systems

Break our blood

drop  by drop into America’s pot

before they cleanse our culture in assimilated soaps

exalt our hope for freedom in sudsy prisons

where we sing our souls blue through bars on hip hop notes

Spit this verse written for you

Money fuels the industries manufacturing artists

willing to appease the crowd

 

i want bloodfire pumpimg in my veins

to see clearly the obstacles placed in front of me

take every neighborhood by the lifeless limb to the mountaintop

just over the horizon

wars peace isnt between death and defeat

our blood shed will never be a means to an end

a means to an end

is our blood boiling

with a renewed sense of justice

 

This is a call to action3885668363_12d2876299

 

Everyone trailer parks Bayamon boogie down boriquas in their mothers kitchens cooking rice and hotdogs downtown chinatown italianos chicanos the village jamaica in queens

This Is A Call To Action

Life, Love, and The Pursuit of Happiness

its in the blood

get it pumping

with revolution

into those dead fingers

then ball it

into a fist.

i believe in living

i believe in living.
i believe in the spectrum
of Beta days and Gamma people.
i believe in sunshine.
In windmills and waterfalls,
tricycles and rocking chairs;
And i believe that seeds grow into sprouts.
And sprouts grow into trees.
i believe in the magic of the hands.
And in the wisdom of the eyes.
i believe in rain and tears.
And in the blood of infinity.

i believe in life.
And i have seen the death parade
march through the torso of the earth,
sculpting mud bodies in its path
i have seen the destruction of the daylight
and seen bloodthirsty maggots
prayed to and saluted

i have seen the kind become the blind
and the blind become the bind
in one easy lesson.
i have walked on cut grass.
i have eaten crow and blunder bread
and breathed the stench of indifference

i have been locked by the lawless.
Handcuffed by the haters.
Gagged by the greedy.
And, if i know anything at all,
it’s that a wall is just a wall
and nothing more at all.
It can be broken down.

i believe in living
i believe in birth.
i believe in the sweat of love
and in the fire of truth.

And i believe that a lost ship,
steered by tired, seasick sailors,
can still be guided home to port.

–FBI’s Most Wanted, America’s Beloved and Feared Sister–Assata Shakur

Popcorn The Prodigy

Meet Kioni “Popcorn” Marshall, an extraordinary 12-year-old poet from the Bronx. Despite her age, Kioni has earned the respect and admiration of the NYC poetry community by developing her own unique voice and bravely exploring mature themes like alienation, abandonment, loneliness, and abuse. Follow Kioni’s…