DONALD TRUMP BLUES (CLOWNS DON’T BUY YOU KLEENEX)

by Judy Juanita

To the tune of Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold Em”

Craiyon graphic

What have you got to lose?

Dude, the Donald Trump blues

& his one-man wrecking crew

Only wall he's built is the wall

between me and you

We been disagreeing since his first run

And that’s been half the fun

Going to bed mad

Waking up glad

But this clown's not buying Kleenex

For the tears that'll fall like rain

When he slices up Social Security

Makes the US Post Office history

Gives those gainful jobs to red state Billy Bobs

But you going behind my back

To vote in this crackerjack

Saying what we got to lose?

The Donald Trump blues

In 2016, we knew he was talking smack

Bout Mexicans taking jobs from blacks

We knew Sporting Life ain't picking cotton

Ain’t going back to the lowly bottom

We know he pits the po' against the po'

The fear of being po'er than po’

A fire-breathing dragon ready to gun

Down the country, the Constitution

He already lit the fuse

On January Sixth

What you got to lose?

This here’s your Wanted

Dead or Alive moment

Don't kill true love waiting on

A rich man to keep his promise

Clowns don't buy Kleenex

What the hell he gon do next?

That’s the for real Donald Trump blues

This clown ain't buying Kleenex

What the hell you gon do next?

We all gotta lot to lose

It’s no if-and-or-maybe

What the hell we gon do

Baby?

Judy Juanita's latest book of poetry Gawdzilla equates the filmic Godzilla to US imperialism, racism, and sexism. Her first collection Manhattan my ass, you're in Oakland won the American Book Award 2021. Her short story collection The High Price of Freeways won the Tartt Fiction Award and was published by the University of West Alabama [Livingston Press, 2022]. Her semi-autobiographical novel Virgin Soul [Viking, 2013] follows a naive college journalism major in the 1960s who joins the Black Panther Party and ends up editing its weekly newspaper.

REPARATIONS APPROVED: YESSSSSSSS

by Judy Juanita

California is moving forward with its effort to compensate and apologize to Black residents for harm caused by discriminatory policies over generations after the state’s reparations task force voted to approve recommendations Saturday. —USA Today, May 10, 2023

“I can tell you from a psychological perspective that if you take $350,000 or $840,000, and you write a check to any group of people, Black, white, poor, homeless, whatever, you give any group of people that much money and say,” There you go, best of luck,’ you come back in six months, they’re going to be broke,” he said. “Whatever reparations are done, that would be an absolute disaster, as opposed to guidance and help in creating generational wealth, as opposed to income.”

—Dr. Phil

Screw Dr. Phil. I will blow mine wisely
(because the cancer of oppression goes deep)
And furthermore, f**k Dr. Phil
who pimped out Oprah
made $20 mill off her 
and off pimping out people's raw emotional trauma
and has the nerve to say Blacks would go crazy
if we got reparations
NEWSFLASH: We already crazy
The idea of getting our just due 
for the ancestors  
is mind-boggling 
for us and everyone else 
(because the cancer of oppression goes so deep)
And further, further, furthermore, 
if we spend every single penny of it
let's say 400 billion (1619-2019=400 years)
on Land Rovers, Lamborghinis, Louboutin
diamonds and pearls, lavish weddings
gambling in Vegas, Macau, Monte Carlo
yachts, gold-carriage funerals, mansions
lavish baby showers, the luxury life
Gucci, Rolex, trips around the world
why should any single nonblack be upset?
It would snake its way back to their pockets. 
(because the cancer of oppression goes that deep) 

Judy Juanita's latest book of poetry Gawdzilla looks at racism and capitalism side-by-side with the beauty and freedom of California. Her poetry collection Manhattan my ass, you're in Oakland  won the American Book Award 2021 from the Before Columbus Foundation. Her semi-autobiographical novel Virgin Soul is about a young woman who joins the Black Panther Party in the 60s (Viking, 2013). Her collection of essays DeFacto Feminism: Essays Straight Outta Oakland [EquiDistance, 2016] examines race, gender, politics and spirituality, as experienced by a black activist and self-described "feminist foot soldier." Winner of the Tartt Fiction Prize at the University of West Alabama [UWA], her short story collection The High Price of Freeways was published by Livingston Press in 2022. [UWA] in July, 2022.

YO MUVA

by Judy Juanita

Don't know Scott  Adams or his mother, 

Dilbert's done 

Yo muva

Don't know Tyre Nichols' mother

RowVaughn Wells wearing the shroud 

in Tennessee

(this week)

But to the five little pigs in black-skinned masks 

In Tennessee 

(this week)

Yo muva

Where is George Floyd's mother?

Where is she?

My God. Where is she?

Can such a body of water be found on a map?

"Your mama’s a whore, sucker,” Eldridge shouted at University of California, Berkeley in his last demented era
Yo muva

George Floyd begged for his muva
Long gone from this bitter earth

Tyre called for his muva
Three blocks away

The muva in me can't stomach 
one more investigation 
No more chest thumping
the muva in me won't last 
one more minute
Yo muva 
Yo muva
Yo muva
Yo muva

I told my grandson
 I HATE WHITE PEOPLE 
Then I qualified it. 
NOT ALL WHITE PEOPLE, NOT MY FRIENDS, NOT INDIVIDUALS, JUST THIS ROTTEN HOLLYWOOD-BASTARDIZED APPROPRIATED CULTURE THAT HAS GLORIFIED WHITE PEOPLE AND GIVEN EVERYONE PERMISSION TO EXTERMINATE US.
Permission to hold us on the ground and exterminate us like vermin

But that dresses up "the talk"
What I have to say
To the nth degree
Where karma waits like a volcano
Where the long arc of justice bends
And bends until it breaks
And gets repaired with Krazy Glue 
Where some Pope sits on a throne with a potty seat hooked up beneath his flaccid ass 
In between “the talks” about keeping his hands visible on the steering wheel
And being careful about predawn sneaky links in ritzy white neighborhoods

Is

Yo muva


Judy Juanita's semi-autobiographical novel about her youthful experience in the Black Panther Party Virgin Soul was published by Viking in 2012. In 2021, her short story collection The High Price of Freeways (Livingston Press, 2022) won the Tartt Fiction Prize. Her poetry collection Manhattan my ass, you're in Oakland won the American Book Award in 2021. She teaches writing at the University of California, Berkeley.

DAVE CHAPPELLE

by Judy Juanita

Dave Chappelle returned for his third stint as host of “Saturday Night Live,” which gave the controversial comedian a starring role in an episode dominated by the midterm elections and the fallout from Kanye West’s antisemitic remarks. —The Washington Post, November 13, 2022

you're looking 

malcolmish

dave 

if only you hadn't walked 
from fifty million dollars
empire wouldn't have known
 
if only you'd been ridiculous
you could be feted
and ignored by all
 
if malcolm had been mediocre 
and not stood up to empire
he would be almost 100 years old
 
while you buck empire over and over
making your black ass
a target 
 
empire smiles all malcolmish
giving any judas permission to kill 
ask malcolm 
 
standing in the audubon ballroom
looking malcolmish
knowing what was coming

Judy Juanita's poetry collection Manhattan my ass, you're in Oakland won the American Book Award 2021 from the Before Columbus Foundation. Winner of the Tartt Fiction Prize at the University of West Alabama [UWA], her short story collection The High Price of Freeways was published by Livingston Press [UWA] in 2022. Her short story, "The Black House," was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2022, and her poem “Bling” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2012. Her semi-autobiographical novel Virgin Soul is about a young woman who joins the Black Panther Party in the 60s (Viking, 2013). She appears in Netflix’s Last Chance U: Season 5, Laney College.  She teaches writing at University of California, Berkeley.

APPROPRIATION

by Judy Juanita

Sources: Khloé Kardashian claps back at criticism she holds daughter True, 3, ‘too much’, Khloe Kardashian Faces Backlash for Holding Baby True Dangerously: 'You're About to Break Her Neck!', The Kardashians' Legacy of Blackfishing and Appropriation, Kardashians and Cultural Appropriation | Penn State - Presidential Leadership Academy (PLA)

a kardashian butchers her face into

a kewpie doll with our lips

another apes us with silicone butt

mocking the slavemasters who auctioned us naked

inserting the middle finger to show our fertility

one nestles a brownbaby against that recast jaw

triggering envy hate monstrous anger

the reproach: you hold our brownbaby too much

she is defiant: we good

nah

you good

we not

Judy Juanita's poetry collection Manhattan my ass, you're in Oakland won the American Book Award 2021 from the Before Columbus Foundation. Her poem "Bling" was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2012. Her semi-autobiographical novel Virgin Soul is about a young woman who joins the Black Panther Party in the 60s (Viking, 2013). Her collection of essays DeFacto Feminism: Essays Straight Outta Oakland [EquiDistance, 2016] examines race, gender, politics and spirituality, as experienced by a black activist and self-described "feminist foot soldier." Winner of the Tartt Fiction Prize at the University of West Alabama [UWA], her short story collection The High Price of Freeways will be published by Livingston Press [UWA] in July, 2022. 

TIME'S UP

by Judy Juanita

“Burn this city,” a photograph by Anthony Citro.

Just because Woolworth's lunch counters were integrated

And black people could buy their lunch there

Didn't mean that Woolworth's as an institution wasn't fading

Its time was up.

Just because blacks integrated the Academy Awards

Showed up and showed out in 2022 

Doesn't mean that Hollywood as an institution isn't fading. 

I said it once and I'll say it again:

We should all be so disgusted by this perversity

That we boycott the Academy Awards and Golden Globes

As the pimps and hos conventions they are. 

Of course, who am I but a black woman

Old as coffee grounds, talking still 

About the mistreatment of women? 

Besides it being a display by the rich in front of the rich 

Because they're effing rich and can floorshow v. streetfight

The "slap" is good for biz. And there still is no biz like show biz.

Meanwhile the exploitation of "the nubile bodies they peed and shat upon" 

Continues practically unabated. If you think women aren't still peed and shat upon

Please tell me why female broadcasters and weathercasters show much 

Flesh/leg/cannot age while their male counterparts can look like Elmer Fudd

And stay employed until they're way past 65. 

Please tell me why Kevin Costner can walk out and preach to the minions 

With gravitas and brag about being 68 during the awards

While the "sell by" date for females in H'wood is 38 or so 

(unless they're a supertalented Brit).

Please, this slap wasn't shit. 

The real problem is that H'wood is as out-of-date 

An institution as slavery. 

But because it's so profitable for the slave-owners

It hasn't faded out completely. 

But its time is up.

Judy Juanita's poetry collection Manhattan my ass, you're in Oakland won the American Book Award 2021 from the Before Columbus Foundation. Her semi-autobiographical novel Virgin Soul is about a young woman who joins the Black Panther Party in the 60s (Viking, 2013). Her collection of essays DeFacto Feminism: Essays Straight Outta Oakland [EquiDistance, 2016] examines race, gender, politics and spirituality, as experienced by a black activist and self-described "feminist foot soldier." Winner of the Tartt Fiction Prize at the University of West Alabama [UWA], her short story collection The High Price of Freeways will be published by Livingston Press  [UWA] in July, 2022. 

LIZZO

by Judy Juanita

I am 100% behind you baby girl

Behind your superb black ass

Behind your exponential black ass

Behind all the big black women

We who are BeyBey

We who are BeyBey's kids

We who raised BeyBey

Who raised BeyBey's babies and babydaddies

We behind you Lizzo

Show that ass

Put that ass on the Lakers scoreboard

For the world to see

Your big fat cocoa ass

As important for the world to see as 

Emmett Till's bludgeoned face

"Let them see what they did to my boy

Let the world see what they did to my boy"

Let us worship Lizzo

That's right—Bow down

Before her big black ass 

Before her big black booty

Not injected into her backside by a Dominican doctor

Not leaking formaldehyde into her veins clotting her heart

Killing one more big fat implacable life

Fuck Brazilian butt lifts

Fuck the strip clubs that hire the women

Who pay with their very life for butts

That sit high on their hips

21st century Venus Hottentots

Fuck the only way these women will earn $2,000 a night $3,000 a night $4,000 a night

Instead of working at  Walmart

(Yeah yeah yeah do the math $15@ hr. times 30 hrs a week so they don't have to give them health benefits. That's $450 a week, $1800 a month, the living wage that Biden is fighting for? Get real. You'd hop on a plane to the Dominican Republic, leak silicone all over the seats armrests tray tables too for a big black ass a big black ass)

Lizzo's black ass is worth gold

Diamonds and Gucci

In the belly of the beast 

Same place where

Lizzo's Army yeah

A black only army for the descendants of Buffalo Soldiers and Tuskegee Airmen 

A big black beautiful army whose big black unbleached asshole emits the noxious gases called life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Same place where corner stores have filled those asses for decades with hostess twinkies butterfingers koolaid fruit loops sodas hogmaw and chitlins hot links potato salad macaroni and cheese sweet potato pie (BeyBey's son the athlete/personal trainer says with disgust, Ma, this is carbo overload, but eats at the christmas table because he too worships Lizzo once a year)

We love you Lizzo

Our anti-Lady Godiva

Our anti-Kardashian

Our anti-American

Miss America?

You're the missing America

The antidote to self-loathing

You had to be huge

In our face

All over the place

You are the dream deferred no more

You cannot be invisible

You will not live underground

Not one more day

Lizzo our Lizzo

Lizzo Lizzo Lizzo Lizzo Lizzo

You is You is You is

America the beautiful.

Judy Juanita's book of poetry Manhattan my ass, you're in Oakland won the 2021 American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. Her short story collection The High Price of Freeways won the Tartt Fiction Award and will be published by the University of West Alabama's Livingston Press in 2022. Het debut novel Virgin Soul was published by Viking in 2014. 

UP UP AND AWAY

by  Judy Juanita

Billionaires space race published July 12, 2021 by Dave Whamond.

Billionaires millionaires the amerikkkan dream

Up, up and away onto the edge of space

Horatio Alger wins again

Rags-to-riches

Poor boy sandwiches

Raggedy Ann dolls

Immigrants in shacks 

Children in cages

We love it all, eh?

Up, up and away

The bigger the better

The farther from the crime scene 

The better. And the edge of space is

The Mall of America.

Opportunity our national anthem

Except except Tulsa in 1920-when? 1921

Black people black dynasties

Black millionaires buying and flying

Their own airplanes

Black businesses black prosperity

And we prostrate ourselves

For a black face on the $20 bill

   Eh?

Ask the black Okies

About the grand downtown they built

Especially for the bombs

Dropped especially on Tulsa

Listen to the sound of bombs

The bombs bursting in air

That Francis Scott Keys conjured

Ask the black Oakies

Then forward to Philly in 1990-what? 

1990-when? 1990-why?

Because a black mayor dropped bombs

On wild haired Ramona Africa 

An American millionaire, no?

Rags to riches, no?

Horatio Alger, no?

MOVE the antithesis of progress

Cleanliness

We, the clean, deodorant-rich country

Watching  televised spectacles 

Little blue-and-white suited people

Blast past the boundary of space as

The richest man in the world

Thanks his wage slaves and customers

For paying for it all

And all is forgiven because why? Because

When the land ran into the Pacific Ocean

Manifest destiny shot into space

Judy Juanita's latest book is Manhattan My Ass, You’re In Oakland,  a collection of poetry. Her semi-autobiographical novel Virgin Soul chronicled a black female coming of age in the 60s who joins the Black Panther Party. Her collection of essays DeFacto Feminism: Essays Straight Outta Oakland examines the intersectionality of race, gender, politics, economics and spirituality as experienced by a black activist and self-described "feminist foot soldier." The collection was a distinguished finalist in Ohio State University's 2016 Non/Fiction Collection Prize. Her seventeenth play, “Theodicy,” about two black men who accidentally fall into the river of death, won first runner-up of 186 plays in the Eileen Heckart 2008 Senior Drama Competition at Ohio State University.

IJS*

by Judy Juanita

Imma be ok

Even wif lightening ‘n thunder 

setting de trees on fire

& dogs howling up a storm

but if I were a spooky sort 

(which I is deep down)

I’d say we is coming into 

de apock-a-lips

* = I’m just saying

Judy Juanita’s poetry has been published widely. Her poem “Bling” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2012. Her semi-autobiographical novel Virgin Soul is about a young woman who joins the Black Panther Party in the 60s (Viking, 2013). She appears in Netflix’s Last Chance U: Season 5, Laney College where she teaches.

BEFORE AND AFTER

by Judy Juanita

before

We stood on garbage cans to watch the assembly line

at the Chevrolet manufacturing plant on 73rd ave

See the USA in your Chevrolet

America is asking you to call

Drive your Chevrolet through the USA

America’s the greatest land of all

We paid our parents no mind at all

when they said Dinah Shore was passing for white

Oakland had white-only garden apts. on 66th ave

housing UC Berkeley grad students

young dads in Bermuda shorts 

moms in capri pants

a 99 year covenant kept us out

the little children called us niggers

if we took the shortcut home

Those apts. became the site of the 1980s drug wars

The would-be Coliseum was a swamp

BART was a developer’s dream 

to bring suburban commuters to SF

Oakland be damned

We had to fight to get Oakland stops added

The boys across the street were from Georgia 

Their mother welcomed my brother to peepee 

in their bathroom but insisted he poopoo at home

I thought white people pooped white poops

And we pooped brown 

Wave after wave of Ohlones, Mexicans, Chinese, Portuguese

Oakies and Arkies from the Oklahoma and Arkansas dust bowls

coloreds and whites from Louisiana, Texas and Oklahoma 

migrated for munitions and troop movement work during WWI

Our parents and grandparents came in droves

planting their families and dreams 

in the fertile soil called California 

after

We’re all Panthers now

The Black Panther Party did not backfire

It was an early warning system 

for this entire country/world 

about U.S. oppression

the ravages of imperialism 

the rampant police-as-occupying-force 

in the black community

As the vanguard it did exactly 

what 

it was historically tasked to do

it woke people up 

What people choose to do now

under this near totalitarianism

is up to individuals and groups

We don’t need Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, Denmark Vesey

Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Fannie Lou Hamer

MLK, John Lewis, Huey P. Newton, Eldridge Cleaver

Sojourner Truth, Rosa Parks, all our people

who fought to the finish

They came, they saw, they served

It’s up to the living to stand up and be counted

Judy Juanita’s poetry has been published widely. Her poem “Bling” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2012. Her semi-autobiographical novel Virgin Soul is about a young woman who joins the Black Panther Party in the 60s (Viking, 2013). She appears in Netflix’s Last Chance U: Season 5, Laney College where she teaches.

POEM FOR THE REST OF US

by Judy Juanita

“Last Saturday, a neighbor in Fort Worth called the city’s non-emergency line because he was concerned about his neighbors, 28-year-old Atatiana Jefferson and her 8-year-old nephew. It was the middle of the night, but her front door was open. The dispatcher sent police officers, who appear to have treated the call as a reported burglary. While searching the perimeter of the house, Officer Aaron Dean saw a figure in the window. Without announcing himself, he yelled ‘Put your hands up! Show me your hands!’ Two seconds later, he fired his gun, killing Jefferson in her own home.” —Radley Balko, The Washington Post, October 15, 2019. Photo: A makeshift memorial outside the home of Atatiana Jefferson on Monday. Jefferson was fatally shot by a Fort Worth police officer early Saturday morning. (Jake Bleiberg/AP via The Washington Post, October 15, 2019

We wear a masque called freedom
But Atatiana was shot like a fugitive slave.
We masquerade as upright citizens
Brave this deadly force every goddam day
Masquerade as independent thinkers
While our thoughts get shot down in the streets.

We believe, like true believers, in the rule of law
The gangs in blue shoot through that too.
Our red, white and blue masques say VOTER
But our ballots keep disappearing.
When the ancestors greet Atatiana
They shake her alive. The masquerade is over.

Faith leaders wear the masque of concern
But their brand-new bibles are warped and cracking.
Atatiana’s neighbor, in masque, cries out
They had no reason to come with guns drawn.
The ancestors ask: Are all the players numb?
Some, not all, though in costume, torn and dirtied, know.

The great pantomime and our long drawn out performance
Cracks and peels with every gun drawn and each bullet fired.

Judy Juanita's poetry has appeared in Obsidian II, 13th Moon, Painted Bride Quarterly, Croton Review, The Passaic Review, Lips, TheNewVerse.News, Poetry Monthly and Drumrevue 2000.  Her short stories and essays appear widely. Juanita's semi-autobiographical novel Virgin Soul chronicled a black female coming of age in the 60s who joins the Black Panther Party. Her collection of essays, DeFacto Feminism: Essays Straight Outta Oakland was a distinguished finalist in OSU's 2016 Non/Fiction Collection Prize.