Yet every time it is spoken other voices recognize and rise up to kill it.

Shut it down,

shut it up,

lock it up,

cut the tongue

The corner susurrus,

the store front ruminations,

the stoop sermons,

the bedroom supplications,

the workplace divide and conquer,

the hospital segregation/poor drugs/rich drugs

the roadside confrontations/random et al

the thoughts and prayers,

Al Sharpton is tired/Jesse spent.

yes indeed! the Negro is a spoken language not received;

The Negro speaks like this,

I am not lazy, I am not on your frequency

I am contemplative and missing some memories

Where did you send my memories? /Beaten out of my recollection but still stains my cells/

I feel myself other than. 

I am Negro,

A Negro, I am not your language, I have my own,

Black and sweet like a berry I speak volumes of juicy pain riddled truths

Negro language has changed from divine black-speak to patois Nigger “tawk dat” so painful

We doan memba di strong Yoruba/Swahili/Hausa/Fula/Igbo/Amharic dat flow from our black

Bodies like oil and glittered like gold and all the other gem stones.

the fruitful red dirt, the tin and the copper

You cut my tongue because of my treasures and mispronounce my color,

Lord, I am Negroman, not Niggerman. Come off my neck, I can’t breathe

Let me speak, let me speak my Language

Those diamonds are mine, you can have them since you like shiny things but for God’s sake

Let me speak my language and live.

 

lmh 5/52018