BLACK MAN RUNNING

by L. Smith

"At the end of the day, the evidence in this case will prove that if Ahmaud Arbery had been White, he would have gone for a jog, checked out a cool house under construction, and been home in time for Sunday supper," Assistant US Attorney Barbara Bernstein told the jury [in an opening statement of the federal hate crimes trial of Arbery’s killers]. "Instead, he went out for a jog and ended up running for his life.” —CNN, February 14, 2022

“A White father and son in Mississippi were charged this week after they were accused of chasing and shooting at a Black FedEx driver in an incident that the driver’s attorney says was a “copycat crime” of the murder of Ahmaud Arbery. FedEx driver D’Monterrio Gibson said he was delivering packages on his route in Brookhaven, Miss., on Jan. 24 when two White men with whom he had not interacted chased him in a pickup truck for about seven minutes and fired at least five shots at the van he was driving.” —The Washington Post, February 12, 2022

Inhale, exhale. Red blood pumping.

He was a black man running.

Running for what? For leisure?

For health? For fun? For fit? In pursuit of dreams?

He was a Black man running, running until the gun, the threat, the them,

the father and the son—they both pointed that gun and

Black man running now running from that gun

from the threat

of the ones

in pursuit

of him.

 

Black man running, for what? For leisure?

For health? For fun? For fit? In pursuit of dreams?

(Nah, they don’t do that. Not the black man, huh?)

Black man running run from himself, from his shadow,

run from his responsibilities, from his family, from his integrity,

at least that’s the lie they try and try again to tell me. Black man running from

something that he did, that he ain’t supposed to do, ain’t supposed to have done, and

Black man running with something he stole, like their wealth, like their women’s innocence,

running with something he ain’t supposed to have like self-pride and self-confidence,

that’s what they wanna feed my conscience, but nah—

Black man running running b’cause he gots to run.

He gots to run to keep from crying, from screaming, from loosing.

He gots to run to keep from coming loose.

He gots to run to keep from the noose.

He gots to run to keep the noose loose.

 

(That uppity nigga there got the audacity to run with entitlement.)

 

Hell yeah, that black man running. He running from that gun.

Black man running always been running from the gun,

from the one with the perceived power, from the wretched one with the will to

kill his potential, stifle his legacy, ruin his reputation, claim his coins and his creations.

Black man running, he run from the pain, from the fear,

from the frustration, and he can feel all those running who

ran before him, running with him now, running inside of his chest—

making his heart beat harder and his lungs fill faster and legs run rapid.

Inhale, exhale. Red blood pumping.

 

Black man running been running a long time. Black man running is

tired of running—not of feeling tired, not the bottom of his feet feeling tired, not the soles aching,

but the bottom of his soul, tired and aching, from all those souls running inside his chest keeping his

blood pumping red.

He is so tired; he is soul-tired of blacks running.

Tired of being a black man running.

Tired of them chasing him while he’s chasing his dreams.

Tied of them chasing him while he’s slowing down.

Tired of them chasing him while he’s doing no thing. At all.

Inhale exhale, inhale exhale. Red blood pumping.

 

(This nigga here got the audacity to be running and funning.)

 

But what happened to black man running?

Black man running with his red blood pumping? Well,

they forced him to stop running. Inhale, inhale.

 

But what if black man running was running toward somethin’?

Well, black man running was forced to fight those in pursuit

of his portion, in pursuit of his promise. Inhale, inhale, inhale.

 

Black man running had to stop his run, to stop his fun, his fit, his leisure,

had to quit his pursuit of his kingdom, of his dreamdom

to fight those in pursuit of his freedom,

those in lust of his life, jealous of his journey, envious of his evolution,

not that one, but of the magnanimous way he was created

by the Creator, and how their pursuit to stifle him never seems to really win,

they—them other theys—literally shackled his ankles a time or twelve million,

amputated his manhood for sport cloaked as social order, for hate hooded as justice,

and black man—well, he just keeps running, keeps evolving,

so they—these theys—saw this black man running

and decided for him that he would run no more.

 

Inhale, inhale, inhale. Red blood pumping.

 

Black man running would have run on, would have won on, had he kept on running.

He would have been winning, had he kept on running, but they—the jealous, the fearful, the hateful—

they jolted his journey.

Inhale, inhale. inhale. Red blood pumping.

 

The father and the son—they both had that gun.

The wicked and the wretched—they both wrestled his run, and when it seems like

black man running wins with his wrestle, with his hustle, with his bustle, and

when it seems like black man running is making gains with his grind and with his grit, and

just when it seems like black man running might get the glory,

what they know

is that black man running

can’t win ‘gainst no gun.

(This nigga here ain’t gone outrun this gun.)

 

Inhale, inhale, inhale. Red blood pumping.

 

The gun wants no fun, no fit for the black man running.

                No gaining, no glory for the black man running.

                No playing, no pleasure for the black man running.

                No leisure, no living for the black man running.

(Black man running, you gets this gun.)

                The kingdom not coming for the black man running.

(Black man running, this gun got your gallows.)

                No dreaming, just drumming for the black man running.

 

Exhale. Red blood spilled.

 

He was a working black man running

running at work.

He was a running black man running

who went for a run.

L. Smith, a New Orleans native, is a writer, an English teacher, and a Johns Hopkins University graduate who has freelanced for local newspapers. She has an anthology of poems and prose set to publish spring 2022 that her mother and daughter created space for her to write. She also has begun the blog Writer Teacher for writers teaching writers.

IN WHICH I INTERROGATE MY FREQUENT RESPONSE

by Eileen Ivey Sirota

Surveillance video shows a Black 17-year-old struggling with staff at a Wichita juvenile center last fall before his death, which followed being restrained facedown for more than 30 minutes. Late on Friday [January 21, 2022], Sedgwick county released 18 video clips of what happened before Cedric Lofton (AP photo above) was rushed to a hospital on 24 September. He died two days later. The release of the clips followed the announcement by the Sedgwick county district attorney, Marc Bennett, that the Kansas “stand-your-ground” law prevented him from pressing charges because staff members were protecting themselves. Bennett said he struggled with whether an involuntary manslaughter charge was justified, but concluded it was not. Sedgwick county’s webpage crashed after the video was posted. —The Guardian, January 22, 2022. Videos are available at The Wichita Eagle.

what can grow

in this salty pool

 

that does not bring back

a single Emmett or Ahmaud

 

that does not cleanse

so much as one tainted tree

 

this sterile balm

 

useless as nipples on a tomcat:

white woman tears

 

 

Eileen Ivey Sirota is a poet and psychotherapist, the author of a chapbook, Out of Order, published by Finishing Line Press in 2020.  Her poems have also appeared in Calyx, Ekphrastic Review, District Lines, The New Verse News, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and Voices: The Art and Science of Psychotherapy.

THEY CALLED HIM A "F-ING N—"

by Rémy Dambron

Ahmaud Arbery's aunt, Theawanza Brooks, says, "Nobody has the decision to make as far as being the judge, jury and executioner." Her nephew was shot and killed in 2020. The trial is set to begin Monday in Brunswick, Ga. —NPR, October 18, 2021. Photo: NICOLE BUCHANAN FOR NPR

Once again, it falls 

on Georgians to guide the way

to be our nation’s conscience,

filtering out the noise, the hyperbole,

the lies.

Once again, it falls

on Georgians to decipher the truth

to act not on our prejudices or partisanships, but on our collective

humanness.

Once again, it falls

on Georgians to rise,

to stand as one and affirm 

that this man was not a thief,

was not burglar, was not a prowler, was not a criminal, was not a threat,

just a jogger.

Once again, it falls 

on Georgians to convince the courts

not to fear him for his skin,

not to judge him for their rage,

but to picture them standing over his bloodied body, shotgun still smoking

with the gall to call him that horrible word.

Once again it falls,

on Georgians to uphold the law,

to make right the wrongs 

of centuries of recklessness,

of supremacy.

To make good on the little remaining scraps of a social contract we used to

cherish.

Once again it falls,

on Georgians and a jury of their peers 

to demand that justice be done 

but never done,

screaming one more time

into the void of voids

enough is enough.

Rémy is a teacher and Portland-based activist whose work focuses on denouncing political corruption and advocating for social and environmental justice. With the help of his loving wife and chief editor, his poetry has appeared in What Rough Beast, Poets Reading the News, Writers Resist, Society of Classical Poets, and The New Verse News. 

FOUR SONGS OF MURDER

by Richard Lawson

BRUNSWICK, Ga. — Prosecutors in the trial of Ahmaud Arbery's accused murderers filed a flurry of new motions in recent days, including 15 in just the past 24 hours. Among them, the state's District Attorney's Office is asking the judge to allow a three-hour closing argument (an hour longer than allowed) and to show jurors cell phone video of Arbery's killing during opening statements. Arbery was shot to death on Feb. 23, 2020, after three men chased him through the coastal Georgia neighborhood of Satilla Shores. Travis and Greg McMichael are charged with first-degree murder along with their neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, who joined the chase and recorded the incident on his cell phone. All three have pleaded not guilty. … The state has filed previous motions seeking to keep out evidence of Arbery's diagnosed mental illness or his prior run-ins with police. The judge has not yet ruled on any of the motions. The next court date is July 22 at 10 a.m. —First Coast News, July 2, 2021

1. I Sing For Ahmaud

I sing for my sanity 

At night when I cannot sleep 

When the darkness plays an endless loop 

Of yesterday’s tragic news  

And I sing for the young black men 

Daily dying in our bleeding streets 

And I sing and pray for the mothers 

Whose tears stoke the flames of justice  

Now I sing and I pray  

Try to understand the fear the killers feel 

Why they grasp the coward’s last line of defense 

The trigger of a gun  

Yes I sing and pray that they’re something more 

Than the heartless, mindless head at the White House door 

Greeting millions marching for justice 

With tear gas and vicious dogs  

I sing for my sanity 

And pray for a savior like Dr. King 

To heal this deeply wounded world 

With wisdom, peace and love  

Yes I sing for the martyrs 

That their blood will finally cleanse this world

And slake the thirst of hate  

For now and all-time  

Now I sing and I pray  

Try to understand the fear the killers feel 

Why they grasp the coward’s last line of defense

The trigger of a gun  

 

I sing and pray that there’s something more

That the mindless, heartless head at the White House door

Greeting millions marching for justice

With tear gas and vicious dogs

Yes I sing, I sing, I sing

I sing for this country’s sanity

                                                                                  

2. Chanty For Ahmaud

The sunbeams and shadows thread through the Spanish moss

As the young men run under the live oak trees

It’s 1820 and all is well 

Cause young black men know where they should be 

At work for the master crushing shells from the beach

Making tabby all day, yes that’s their play

Hang your head low and shuffle your feet

Building master’s big house on Satilla’s white shore (and they sing)

“Ho, Ho. Scrape and pound.

Happy at work for the master

Ho. Ho. Yes scrape and pound

Crushing shells for tabby to build Master’s house.” 

 

Now it’s two thousand twenty, see what we’ve lost

Young black men forgot their place in this world

They dare to run on Satilla’s white shore

Without a white man to set their course

Sorry to say it had to be done

Lesson well-taught with an old shotgun

Soon we’ll forget and go back to our ways 

When young black men knew their place (and they’ll sing)

“Ho. Ho. Scrape and pound.

Happy at work for master

Ho. Ho. Yes I scrape and pound

Crushing shells for tabby to build Master’s house.” 

3. Black Lives Matter 

Black lives matter 

Finally a cause worth dying for 

Black lives matter 

Finally a chance to do what Jesus would do 

Do you know Jesus 

He used to run every Sunday down in southeast Georgia 

Then one day two white men shot Jesus dead in the street

Crucify! Crucify! Yes they crucified Jesus again 

Do you know Jesus 

After dying in Georgia, she moved up to Kentucky 

Asleep in her own bed the police shot her dead

Crucify! Crucify! Yes they crucified Jesus again 

Black lives matter 

Finally a cause worth dying for 

Black lives matter 

Finally a chance to do what Jesus would do

Do you know Jesus 

Dead in Kentucky, on up to Minnesota 

Policeman put a knee on his neck, he died

Crucify! Crucify! Yes they crucified Jesus again 

Black lives matter

Do you know Jesus

4. Little Jimmy’s Eatin’ Some Crow Now

Awake this morning before the cock crowed             

I worry, worry, worry bout my battered soul                       

I can’t stop seeing that black child’s blood

Puddled neath his body and his toy gun

2020 air still stings my eyes

It’s summer 21, now who will die

Don’t know why some folks continue to hate

And take delight in passing it along

It’s the damnest way to live in this world

Bowtie man telling cute jokes

“Why’d the little negro bring his toy gun to town?

To give police some target practice.”

“Whooowee,” says the bowtie man, “...that little Jimmy’s eatin some crow now.”

Why? Why? Why?... Hell, I don’t know

And he laughs and laughs into the online sky

Bowtie man with the crazy eyes

Living to spread hate as far as he can

He’s the darling of every other Christian man

“When should a black man jog down the street.”

“If he’s in south Georgia... never. “

“How do you celebrate Black History month.”

“Watermelon, breakfast, supper and lunch. Whooo Weeee.”

It’s the damnest way to live in this world

Bowtie man telling cute jokes

“Why’d the little negro bring his toy gun to town?

To give police some target practice.”

“Whooowee,” says the bowtie man, “...that little Jimmy’s eatin some crow now.”

The work of Richard Lawson of Brunswick, Georgia has been published in Fine Lines.

TORNADO SIREN

by Julie L. Moore

Unmoored from its original empirical underpinnings, particularly with respect to African Americans...  ‘Blackness’ has become the symbolic assailant. 

—Jeannine Bell, Indiana University Maurer School of Law

 

Each Saturday at noon they practice the drill—

shrill shine in spring air like a child’s high-

pitch whine in a public sphere 

where everyone can hear—

so when the real storm

arrives, we’ll fly down 

basement steps or insulate

ourselves in inner rooms,

to save ourselves—

but what horn warned 

John Crawford III

                             that fiddling with a bb gun 

in the middle of a Walmart aisle 

while chatting on his cell

               would be his sirens’ song 

full of sound and fury signifying

assailant, that 9-1-1 wouldn’t 

bring aid but grave 

in a half-second flat? 

What bell rang 

for Breonna Taylor, 

who climbed into bed, reaching 

for her beloved, for a good night’s 

rest, not knowing it’d be eternal

& irredeemable?  

                                                          O, something wicked that way 

came, & keeps on coming: 

It knows no caution & hides 

in plain sight. Sly & slick,

it slithers through amber

waves of grain, through the rocks

of ages. Did you see it 

funneling all its strength 

as it chased 

Ahmaud Arbery 

on the road, 

nipping at his heels, 

mowing him down?

And after, 

did you see 

its twisted tail 

slide across his fallen 

flesh & hear

its overdue alarm 

roar like Chimera

used to snort, 

sense its 

white-

tipped tongue

wagging 

as it left?

Author's Note: The epigraph comes from Jeannine Bell’s article, “Dead Canaries in the Coal Mines: The Symbolic Assailant Revisited,” Georgia State University Law Review, vol. 34, no. 3, Spring 2018.

A Best of the Net and six-time Pushcart Prize nominee, Julie L. Moore is the author of four poetry collections, including, most recently, Full Worm Moon which won a 2018 Woodrow Hall Top Shelf Award and received honorable mention for the Conference on Christianity and Literature's 2018 Book of the Year Award. Her poetry has appeared in African American Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Image, New Ohio Review, Poetry Daily, Prairie Schooner, The Southern Review, and Verse Daily. She is the Writing Center Director at Taylor University, where she is also the poetry editor for Relief Journal.

THRENODY

by Buff Whitman-Bradley

Detail of the Cover of I Can't Breathe: A Killing on Bay Street by Matt Taibbi.

In America now
We can watch real murders
On TV
Then wait for officials to decide
Whether officers
Were justified
In killing the black man
As he lay handcuffed and helpless
Face down on the pavement.
In America now
We can listen to news reports
About whether there might be evidence
That the unarmed black jogger
Behaved in a way
That was threatening in some fashion
To the heavily armed
Father and son
Who jumped out of their pickup truck
And gunned him down.

In America now
We can watch videos
In which white people call the cops
On black children mowing lawns
In the wrong neighborhoods,
On black professionals
Who “seem suspicious”
Entering the lobbies
Of the condominiums where they live,
On black walkers who remind them
To leash their dogs.

In COVID America now
Black people are dying of the virus
At three times the rate
Of whites,
Black people are incarcerated
At six times the rate of whites
Black people are unemployed
At twice the rate of whites.

“I can’t breathe!” cried Eric Garner
For four hundred years.
“I can’t breathe!” cried George Floyd
For four hundred years.
“I can’t breathe!” cry black children
From broken and polluted neighborhoods,
From decaying and crumbling schools.
“I can’t breathe!” cry black parents
From hospital emergency rooms
Holding sons and daughters
In their laps
Who are dangerously ill
Because mom and dad could not afford
Early and dequate health care.
“I can’t breathe!” cry young black couples
Unable to rent or buy homes
And begin family life
In neighborhoods
Where the unspoken understanding
Is “whites only.”

“I can’t breathe!”

“I can’t breathe!”

“I can’t breathe . . .”

Buff Whitman-Bradley's poems have appeared in many print and online journals. His most recent books are To Get Our Bearings in this Wheeling World and Cancer Cantata. With his wife Cynthia, he produced the award-winning documentary film Outside In and, with the MIRC film collective, made the film Por Que Venimos. His interviews with soldiers refusing to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan were made into the book About Face: Military Resisters Turn Against War. He lives in northern California. He podcasts at: thirdactpoems.podbean.com .

WE REAL COPS

by Deirdre Fagan

The two vigilantes in their pickup chase Ahmaud Arbery whom they eventually kill.

After Gwendolyn Brooks

THE VIGILANTES.

TWO IN A PICKUP.

We real cops. We
Pop pops. We

Shoot straight. We
Leak lead. We

Trim thin. We
Spin sin. He

Die soon. We
Gain fame.

Deirdre Fagan is a widow, wife, mother of two, and associate professor and coordinator of creative writing in the English, Literature, and World Languages Department at Ferris State University. Fagan is the author of a chapbook of poetry Have Love published by Finishing Line Press. Her poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and academic essays on poetry, memoir, and pedagogy are available in various creative and academic print and online journals and collections.

WHITEWASHED

by Betsy Mars

Ahmaud Arbery falls to the ground after being shot.

When you want a commodity, a spokesman,
team spirit, sales soaring, think fast,
think brawn, think black.

Think pounding pavement. Think
of those hard-earned calves jumping
on command. Think of a casket.

I mean a basket. A hoop, rope
hanging from its neck.
Think of a shot, circling the rim,

going down as the buzzard, I mean
buzzer, ends the game. If you train off-court
or just enjoy a runner's high, I'm sorry.

Be prepared to run, to shoulder the blame—
a steal from behind—as your muscles
strain, push off on defense. Find the hole,

cut inside. Man-to-man or zone, you don't
stand a chance. They've got the big guns,
the refs in their pocket.

Betsy Mars is a prize-winning poet, educator, photographer, and recent publisher whose first release, Unsheathed: 24 Contemporary Poets Take Up the Knife, came out in October 2019. Her work has appeared in Kissing Dynamite, The Blue Nib, Poetry Super Highway, and Rattle (photography), to name a few, as well as in a number of anthologies. Her first chapbook Alinea (Picture Show Press), came out in January 2019. Her father was a professor and her mother was a social worker, and their progressive beliefs as well as her childhood years in Brazil deeply influenced her values. Her passions are language, travel, and animals; the latter two often conflict as her pets prefer she stay at home. 

MEN IN BLACK

by Michael L. Ruffin

BREAKING NEWS: Georgia police on Thursday arrested a white father and son and charged them with murder in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old black man whose death in February has recently attracted widespread outrage. Much of that anger has been focused on the fact that no charges had been brought against the father and son, Gregory and Travis McMichael, ages 64 and 34. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said that both men had been taken into custody and charged with aggravated assault in addition to murder. Travis fired the shots that killed Mr. Arbery, the state police agency said in a statement. —The New York Times, May 7, 2020, 8:26 p.m. ET

MIB 1997
Running black man
gets to be
a secret agent
who fights aliens
and protects Earth.

MIB 2020
Running black man
becomes
a victim of
lawless and
senseless violence
before he lives
long enough
to become
who he could
and should
have been.

MIB 2053 (Proposed Sequel)
Anyone can run
down any street
anywhere
anytime
without being afraid of
anybody
and remain
alive and free
to become and do
anything.


AUTHOR'S NOTE: For Ahmaud Arbery, killed in my state on February 23, 2020.


Michael L. Ruffin is a writer, editor, preacher, and teacher living and working in Georgia. He posts poems on Instagram (@michaell.ruffin) and prose opinions at On the Jericho Road. He is author of Fifty-Seven: A Memoir of Death and Life and  of the forthcoming Praying with Matthew. His poetry has appeared at TheNewVerse.News and is forthcoming in 3 Moon Magazine and Rat's Ass Review.