Neal Hall writes

My Name

I have pledged allegiance to a fully mast[ed],
half flaccid flag and to the Republic which stands not,
one nation . . . indivisible . . . with liberty and justice for all. [1]

I have prayed your lord’s prayer, to your god,
made in your image . . . to deliver me from your evils,
but hollow be his name, no will for black prayers to be done [2]
on his earth nor as it is in his gated heaven.

I have given you my soul, leave me my name. [3]

After all my toils, frets and fears suffered
two scores and seventeen years;
[all] my blood, sweat and tears poured
into every valley you’ve forsaken me in,
I’ve sung . . . My country tis of thee [4] . . .
when you said sing

I have, at your twilight's last gleaming,
hailed your broad stripes and bright stars
waving over land you’ve proclaimed to be free and
home of the brave not yet brave enough
to let all men be free. [5]

I have given you my soul, leave me my name.  [6]

I believed your claim that Columbus,
with certain navigational precision
sailed west to find India sitting in the east and
discovered a continent not lost nor looking to be found;
inhabited by men not lost nor looking to be found and
he renamed them a new name, other than their own name.

I have given you my soul, leave me my name. [7]

Cause if freedom comes a calling and I have no name
to be called, how will I be freed. Leave me my name.

I believed you when you proclaimed,
Jefferson professed with loving tenderness
that ‘ her ’ rape – slave rape, plantation rape,
socioeconomic rape – was consensual.

I have believed your lie that Washington never told a lie;
that it was a civil war fought by civil men
to free uncivilized slaves that Lincoln, without fraught, presided over
so “ that this nation, could claim yet a second new birth of freedom;
a second new claim to be a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and
dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. [8]

To these yet unfinished and abandoned words and work,
I have given you my soul, leave me my name. [9].

Cause when freedom comes a calling and I have no name
to be called, how will I be freed.
I have given you my soul, leave me my name. [10]

1 Adaptation of the Pledge of Allegiance by Francis Bellamy (1855-1931), written in August 1892
2 Adaptation of Matthew 6:9-13, The Holy Bible
3 A John Proctor quote from the 1996 movie The Crucible, played by the actor Daniel Day Louis.
4 My Country Tis of Thee by Samuel Francis Smith, 1831
5 Adaptation of the U.S. National Anthem
6 A John Proctor quote from the 1996 movie The Crucible, played by the actor Daniel Day Louis.
7 A John Proctor quote from the 1996 movie The Crucible, played by the actor Daniel Day Louis.
8 Adaptation of A. Lincoln’s November 19, 1863 Gettysburg Address.
9 A John Proctor quote from the 1996 movie The Crucible, played by the actor Daniel Day Louis.
10 ibid

Lost Name -- Sohrab Crews

Neal Hall writes

Where’s The Precipice       
   
from Jupiter the fine lines        
are not linear distinct, defined        
they’re blurred of contrast,        
purpose, perspective   
   
from Mercury        
oil can’t see its flame,    
a stained teacup drained its cup of tea    
pours its empty cup of tea in me   
   
sometimes when you’re        
at  your last you ask        
where’s the precipice,        
that edge weary feet and toes        
aligned themselves side by side            
to hang beyond    
before their synchronized leap   
   
is this all we’ve lived up to be        

Venus, Uranus warned us,    
we’re vicious wolves ripping    
at flesh beyond the hunger   
   
fat cats getting fatter storing    
fat beyond their need of fat   
   
atrocious agents of atrocities,        
we’re blood thirst Romans in revel,    
sitting below Saturn and Pluto        
in coliseums to watch Rome burn   
   
we’re the white elephants in    
a room of gloom pointing at the    
white elephant in the room   
   
if this is this all we’ve lived up to be    

where’s the precipice,        
that edge weary feet and toes        
aligned themselves side by side            
to  hang beyond before    
their synchronized leap   
   
this is not living       
   
we’ve become something other        
than humanity,    
skin slithering out of skin    
molts of men, sloths of mankind   
   
there’s a time to step away    
a time when you want        
no more time to want,        
time to let time slide from high    
above a washed up shore    
where the ocean roars up        
to your falling    

if  this is all we’ve lived up to be        
leave me to gravity, the calm    
comforting whistling of the air    
on the ear on the way down   
   
where’s the precipice,        
that edge weary feet and toes        
aligned themselves side by side            
to hang beyond before    
their synchronized leap   
   
when this is all we’ve lived up to be   
   
this is not living   
   
where’s the precipice,    
where’s my precipice    
the calm comforting whistling of the air        
on the ear on the way down   
   
where’s my precipice   


Precipice -- Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

Neal Hall writes

James Baldwin’s Nothing        
  
he said he was not French in France,    
he simply did not exist,        
he was invisible, a relative reprieve,    
and it was what he needed *
    
here, beyond the borders of America,    
I am a James Baldwin nothing    
an invisibility faring me far better        
than my visibility in those States,        
united against me to label me        
to identify me as their nigger   
   
here I am a James Baldwin nothing,    
an obligatory nothing, categorically dismissed,    
not enough of something to bother with 
despising  me    
  
here I am a James Baldwin nothing,    
where there’s some solace        
but nothing like real solace,        
where there’s some peace        
but nothing like real peace,    
where there's some dignity        
but nothing like real dignity,    
where there’s some freedom        
but nothing like real freedom   
   
I am that James Baldwin nothing    
that something more than, that something        
far bigger than america’s nigger   
   
here I am something of a nothing,    
a James Baldwin nigger    

*  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Wht4NSf7E4   

 

  James Baldwin -- Karen M