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

Am I

I haven’t penned. even now i miss poetry.

the need, its solace, the release.

Where did it go. is a poet’s pen whose has not known paper still a poet

Am I?

Mornings

Spoiled sick by your curdled fingers

your memory lingers

like milk slipping off the back of my mind

like kids and swings in the summertime

Hold fast, your eyes are far away

Listen close, the sounds darkness makes

When the sun slurps sleep from my cheeks

your eyes and mine meet

again

like chocolate red ribbons beckon

pupils open wide to drink your presence

then escape

as day breaks knuckles on night’s secrets.

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night,Image
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

–Dylan Thomas

The Last Hope

She doesn’t give a fuck

having stuck

so closely to depression

that she can feel him up against her back sweating

rode in the haul of death’s ship

stopped in hell’s kitchen and licked the pot clean

she’s been pimped, sold

and let the memories jangle around her ankles

She’s your Mother

Sister Friend Neighbor

Girlfriend Grandmother Teacher

She’s so open from centuries of exploitation

that still goes on to this day

Someone grab her, she just got on the A train

Headin downtown with some guy

The embodiment of hope

The last key

If only she cared enough to open the door