E66: The Poetry Hotline - The Sun Rises in Me

Josephus· Host0:00

And now, The Poetry Hotline.

Speaker 20:02

[dialing] Poetry Cafe.

Speaker 3· Guest0:07

[beeping] When did this Negro stop working towards the end of the struggle? No, I don't mean African American. I didn't mean Black. No, I didn't mean all lives. I mean with the downfall of The Cosby Show, whether or not you believe, with the downfall of Essence and our killing of Jet, with the selling out of Shea, with the persistent wringing of hands and wringing out and wailing dramatically over burial shrouds. The tired, tiresome times of #timesup, MeToo, Black Lives so quickly fading, quickly enfolded into the twisted up narrative becoming yet another example of only one month of acknowledgement and of sales and of discounts before we turn the dial to zoom in on Asian Lives Matter, 'cause just us is not for us, I guess. When did I stop fighting, hoping, caring, only staring in the face of a country founded on glorious revolutionary beliefs that all men and women are created equal, yet it refuses time and time and time's up yet again to actively, permanently change? When did I stop? I know. It was a gradual poisoning, inexorable as the almond sweet scent of cyanide. It's when I could only see what was persistently fed to me. Search, hunt, try as young I might, I mostly only knew what angry