It has been quite some time since I shared new work with you, I’ve been so busy with Daemonologie, my course, and paid work that the chance to update this space kept passing me by.
I’m going to share something that feels personal to me but which is particular to every Black person living in the postcolonial. A poem about a man who was not the perfect victim but whose death relit the fire that roils at the heart of those United States.
Where there is no justice, there will be no peace
Today, Derek Chauvin is legally a murderer.
Every few years I write this poem,
Where I list names and say years
And rail against injustice,
Then I tuck away the pain.
It is 2021 and Daunte Wright is dead,
And Adam Toledo is dead, and Mohammed Hassan is dead.
It is 2020 and George Floyd is dead,
And Breonna Taylor is dead, and Manuel Ellis is dead
And Daniel Prude is dead.
It is 2019 and Elijah McClain is dead,
And Willie McCoy is dead, and
It is…any year and every year.
Every few years the people burst,
We take to the streets and speak out
And demand no more,
Then we tuck away the pain.
It is 2021 and Uncle Tony tells me
That the problem of race is solved.
It is 2021 and you would imagine a
Prince of the blood had joined with Jezebel.
It is 2021 and a man is shouting Africa
At my mother and my aunties.
It is 2021 and whenever a black voice
Dissents, I dare not peruse the comments.
Today, Derek Chauvin is legally a murderer –
Relief overran the banks of many minds,
To touch hard seeds of hope,
Washing the soil of cynicism.
We hung in the balance of our paroxysm:
Was it to be grief, or joy, or rage?
But today, unlike so many days,
The murderer is named by his deed.
Know the date, mark the time,
It is today, it is April 20th 2021,
It is almost midnight,
I say to myself two things –
When will I write this poem again?
And when I do, where will I tuck the pain?
But today, for now,
I look at a photograph
Of a murderer in his chains,
And I smile.
C.D. Brown
chavbrown 