Poem Commissioned for the 2nd Annual Anti-Racism Day at the New Mexico State Legislature.
The Pits - by hakim bellamy
The unique thing about lies is
They only go backwards in time
A fabrication about the past
Can be corroborated
But when you make up
Your future
They call it a dream
So would I be lying
If I told you
The Constitution
Was cut from
The same cherry tree
George Washington forgot
To lie about?
Or would I be sleeping,
And only call the Constitution
A liar
If I were awake?
But we’re going to
Talk about
Dreams today
We’re going to pretend
That the day you lose
Your faith in people
Doesn’t feel like a broken heart
A bad day
Waiting to happen
So inevitable
I’ve marked it on my calendar
Already made time
To nurse my son’s soul
And eat gallons of salt
His first day of school
The first time someone calls him a…
We’re going to dream
That martyrs
Don’t die for nothing
That people don’t go
To jail
For the crime
Of their skin
That the sound
Of a prison door
And a heart
Unlocking
Sound the same
We’re going to visualize
The luxury sedan
Apple Pie man
Three-piece suit
On the outside of the vehicle
License and registration in hand
Being asked
“How did you make your money?”
“Who did you hurt to get this?”
K-9 sniffing his car
For privilege
We’re going to
Picture profiling different
Picture profiling non-existent
We’re going to imagine
A blood money economy
Not founded on the backs
Of cotton-pickin’
Native, African, Mexican
Hyphen
Any American
We’re going to imagine
We’re gonna John Lennon
We are going to invent
Words that don’t exist
Like “Race”
And erase racism
Until we don’t have to be
“Anti” anything
We want words like
Love-ism
In it’s place
Because I’ve never seen
People love each other apart
They’re usually
Loving each other back
Together again
We’re going to fantasize
The color of my son’s skin
Pretend it was a nightmare
That states had laws
On the books
That made it illegal
For two people
To make a miracle
The complexion of Jesus
As brown-olive as Muhammad
We used to think down
But now?
We’re gonna think up
A world that would never
Dream up legislation
That would stop us
From making love
Though we live in one that still does
We gonna masquerade
In our great-grandmother’s star-spangled gown
Dress up as the country
We said we’d be
Instead of what we were
Because a country that lives in black and white
Will never be able to dream in color
We’re gonna fake it
Like the Cherry tree
That birthed
The parchment
That bore the Declaration of Independence
That born our country
We’re gonna pretend
That THAT tree
Did not bear strange fruit too
Like the Bill of Rights
Does not have blood
On
It’s
Roots
We’re going to pretend
Our founding fathers would be crying
At the revelation
That what they wrote in 1776
Was fiction
Not fact
That the Constitution
Is being used
As a short story
And not a contract
We’re going to dream today
That all men are created equal
And we’re gonna pretend
That we hold these truths
To be self-evident.
Copyright Hakim Bellamy January 25th, 2012
Delivered at the New Mexico State Legislature Roundhouse Rotunda, Commissioned for Anti-Racism Day
