The homicide in Ferguson Missouri involving Darren Wilson and the victim Mike Brown affected me strongly. I made some artwork which I put in my previous diary and afterward I wrote two poems. One is titled "Three Minutes In Ferguson Missouri" and the other is titled "America I Have Some Questions".
After I wrote the poems I put them together with the artwork I made and into a little video format on YouTube in which I read the poems. You can access them by clicking on the title above each poem.
Below is the first poem.
Three Minutes In Ferguson Missouri
Mike was shot in Ferguson
on a sunny day,
he was shot for being in the street
for being in the way.
He was big and strong
but what went down that day
was just plain wrong.
Mike and Dorian had been walking
‘Get out of the street’
a cop named Darren pulled up and said.
We’re almost there replied one of the pair
three minutes later Mike was dead.
Mike was black and Darren white,
the cop reported there had been a fight.
Mike held his hands up to the sky
that’s when Darren shot him
and that’s when Mike Brown died.
It happens a lot in the U.S. of A
a cop kills a black man
and gets time off with pay.
The killer let Mike lay in the street for hours
No ambulance came.
Was it called?
It was not!
Mike bled and he died that day in Ferguson
and was left in the street to rot.
You might be selling cigarettes
or walking in the street.
but if you’re black talking back
changes the fate you meet.
Three minutes in Ferguson
were all that it took
for cops in Missouri
to put Mikes death
in their book.
The second poem is below.
America I Have Some Questions
Okay America which is it?
Is there liberty and justice for all?
Or just liberty for cops?
America this thing you did in Ferguson...
that was bad.
Why is it you don't know it was bad?
Why is it some say Mike had it coming?
Really America. Is death the penalty for jaywalking?
And if it is...
why didn't Mike have a trial before his execution?
You know America, a trial with a jury
and a judge and a lawyer?
Why?
America it seems to me
you have a hard time living up to what you believe.
Do you remember what you did to the natives?
Do you remember what you did to the Scottsboro boys?
Do you remember what you did to women?
Do you remember what you did to the Jews?
Do you remember what you did to the Catholics?
Do you remember what you did to the Irish?
Do you remember Colored Only, White Only?
Do you remember sitting in the back of the bus?
America do you remember who you are?
America it seems to me you have Alzheimers
and have forgotten.
American society needs to do some soul searching. There needs to be a confrontation in the hearts and minds of the citizens of this nation. It's time to ask ourselves if we really believe in truth and justice as the American way.