(Video from 2013 Nikki Giovanni Poetry Slam)
Shh, can you hear me? Hear me swinging? Like a child in the
park on a warm spring day.
Shh… Listen… Can you hear the water below me; with my feet
dangling above the Pear River?
Can you feel the slight summer breeze? Or that
swinging…swinging …swinging; or what about my fear?
From them accusing me of an
unforgivable crime… Can you feel the cold cuffs slapping my wrists; Followed by
fists and those hard batons? And my momma screaming…
Momma, she didn’t even know my name, build, hair type,
height or weight; only that I was a black male. Pulled me out of the line-up
…and said I raped her.
Shh, can you hear the grand jury? “One count Rape, Two Counts Kidnapping”.
And now I can taste what’s to come. That bitter taste… And It’s
been 4 years and I aint goin’ out like Bobo. They aint gunna do me like young
Bobo. That young Till boy didn’t deserve to be done like that. So I will fight.
I am 23 years old and strong. I will go out on my feet and not my knees I will
fight something fierce in this injustice….
Can you hear them, calling my name; Mack Charles Parker,
Mack Charles Parker, Mack Charles Parker.
Those hooded white men are now at my cell and I tried to
escape, I swear I tried, but I couldn’t and my punches landed nowhere in vain
and now they’re beating me with their clubs.
Can you smell the blood streaked across the courthouse floor
to the door?
Can you see them, dragging me into that car?
Shhh, listen close….and you will hear the gunshots into my
body off the side of that cold road.
Shhhh, be quiet and listen. Listen to me swinging. Something
like Strange Fruit; out of place and hanging off a bridge and not a poplar tree.
(1959)
-Moises Lee Seraphin
