LAST CHANCE TO REMEMBER

by KP Liles

United States Post Office, Miami FL, 1922 Photo by William Arthur Fishbaugh,1873-1950

You could vote

and laugh

with dragonfire force.

You could mail letters, 

medicine, the Hope Diamond,

at the Post Office.

You could dine out

indoors. You could visit

splendid national parks.

You could chat

or argue with neighbors

then shake hands afterward.

You could travel

anywhere you could afford.

If you were Black,

Muslim, or loved someone

counter to expectations, 

you could

prove greater joy.

You could imagine. 

You could hear more

than one voice, one name

night and day, in print, 

onscreen, on-air 

or in dreams.

You could feel

faith’s traction.

We had global foods.

Unlimited entertainment.

Such glorious sport—

you’d start cheering

at “land of the free...”

That crowd’s roar!

You could give children

roof, ice cream, ambition

and sleep well for it.

More or less everything

was possible

if you could believe.

KP Liles has penned two poetry collections, Singing Back the Darkness (NYQ Books) and Spring Hunger (Plain View Press). He currently lives in the New Orleans metropolitan area.

GEORGE FLOYD ELEGY

by KP Liles 

German artist Eme Freethinker has painted a portrait of George Floyd on what used to be the Berlin Wall to honour the unarmed black man killed May 25 by a white Minneapolis police officer, who knelt on his neck for almost 10 minutes.

George Floyd
George Floyd
George Floyd

And so many
buried unheard
we now cannot unhear

Nor can we ignore
revolutions’ anthem
I can’t breathe

Impossible to unsee
George Floyd
that pressing knee

Ahmaud Arbery
jogging Glynn County
Georgia George Floyd

Breonna Taylor
sleeping Kentucky
Less than a meme’s life apart

Eric Garner New York City
Michael Brown Ferguson Missouri
Nia Wilson George Floyd

Oakland California Trayvon
Martin Sanford Florida
Tamir Rice Cleveland Ohio How

many George Floyd George Floyd
until name becomes flood
spilling all the killed Black folks

into brightly lit kitchens
until the dream’s ghost
upends breakfast table

until No
No Some risks George Floyd
do not resolve in mind

So if it is not for me
to lift your body or name
let mourning

be pallbearer
to token grief
minstrel solidarity

Head bowed shouldering memory
let us at long last George Floyd
carry outrage ‘cross that bloody river

end this procession
where we face off
the uniform night

KP Liles has penned two poetry collections, Singing Back the Darkness (NYQ Books) and Spring Hunger (Plain View Press). He currently lives in the New Orleans metropolitan area.