Redbone Poem by Deborah Dalton

Steeped
deep
behind my
self-imposed
eyelid
shut
blackness
I hear the
ancestral rush of
Hemoglobin life force
pumping
rhythmically

A connection to a culture
rich,
ignorant to its
genetic structure

Sensing the bungee cord
harness
tied to the edge of
collective
intelligence

Ambivalence is coerced
by the cost of
acceptance

In my darkness I
at once
identify with
every brown
variety of generational
experience

It is injected
cellularly
and it stays there,
it's true home

Laying claim to
dysfunction and greatness
at once

Djembe pulses
feed,
energize my
consciousness

Empathetic
to the core

Tribal unity
stringing to the
Universe

To the
One

Swaying
articulately

Linguistic footwork
springing my soul
to the bruising
sun

Skin kissed
passionately
by the sun

By the Son

The Euphrates
reach
pales
in significance
and
comparison

A continental
symmetry
unable to be
undone

An assertive will
stifled
by the threat of
antiqued
bayonets
rifles
pistols
intimidation and
whips

Or is it arrogance

Regal and noble
Arrogance

Cause,
the fight for right
was based on
resounding
entitlement

Rights denied
recovered
violently
or through
civility and coached

Peace

The resulting
birth
gestated from
the collective
scream to be seen

Human

It, also,
embraces
the willful
failure
as the game is played
to determine who has
won

My visual
solitude
defines
on those terms

A visage
coated in a
racial beingness
wrought with
injustices

Just because

Screwed up reasoning
spawns
distorted images
of equanimity

Seeking ownership
with or without
brows moist
with effort

Judging

Balancing

Arbitrarily

Ghettos
blighted
with extreme
indifference

Turning a community
beacon
into a
chemically
enhanced
hive

Raping resources
bare and
achingly
raw

Unsanitary healing
developing infected
scabs

An unsavory
cost

Hovels of comfort
spiraling inward
cued with
swan song
motivations

Seduced by
exceptions
held in a higher light

Symbols of
advancement

Correct stature

Dialects of
integrity
compromised

Tongues as tools
toward
upward mobility

Prominence

Prestige

Power

All celebrated illusions

Identity theft by
surreal
suburban nightmares

Priceless
or priced more
possessions
imprisoning and
liberating at once

Proud
Prideful
Pontifications
Pointing
People
to foreign standards
of acceptability

Necessary
DNA
associations
fueling my very life

Opened eyes
awake to living

Suffering shocks

Betrayal
each time
as I glance
at my mirrored
reflection
and re-discover that my
epidermal representation
is
so
damn
white


~ D²,7.04.14,8: 23 AM