Poems on Malcolm in 8 Parts
#RememberMalcolm
I.
malcolm is love.
malcolm is man; brave.
his face; light.
malcolm gave
his life.
malcolm: “surrender, fight.”
“yes,” said malcolm
and bled from the bullet holes
in his chest.
bright, red.
gone.
II.
malcolm is X; unknown
malcolm is a king.
baba for little girls
blocking gunshots from memory.
malcolm is here.
alive.
malcolm died
many times before.
III.
so much lighter after hajj.
malcolm, you are so much lighter after hajj
smiling more;
you are much more about love.
you cared, always cared,
but its different now malcolm -
you are king now,
our king.
not confined to no space,
you are light now.
IV.
i care enough about you
to not care so much
who claims you,
for you are no ones, save God.
V.
i see your human;
flesh,
filth,
breath.
i see your human,
i see you are human
and beloved
to an entire people,
to the Lord who brought you into being.
The Lord made you human, Malcolm.
I feel your human;
your faults are mine.
I’m sorry about that time
when I thought you were other than me.
VI.
I think about your feet
as you circled the holy black stone.
feet of a servant,
returning home,
asking for more,
yearning to know
himself, his Lord.
VII.
living like a man who died 20 years ago.
wake up,
come back.
i’m sick of you dying.
VIII.
we need heart today.
preach to us, Brother Minister.
it’s been hard today,
young brothers died.
preach to us, Brother Minister.
no one knows how to march today,
we are crying.
preach to us.
Written on March 1st: 3 days after Trayvon’s murder
These poems are part of a series that I began writing a few years ago. This project came about shortly after I decided to leave high school. I moved to Boston and designed a course on Malcolm X’s life with the help of Michael Muhammad Knight. This was only a few weeks after Manning Marable’s Reinvention was published. I felt an urgency to dive into both Reinvention and the Autobiography and study Malcolm, someone whom I loved for his truthfulness and whose life inspired me.
For the next seven months, I did everything with the intention of getting to know Malcolm. I went to Boston and Harlem — to the places where he had been; I went to the former NOI Mosque # 7 and what used to be the Audubon Ballroom. I learned to lindy hop. I listened to Ossie Davis’ eulogy for Malcolm until I had each word memorized. I asked people to tell me about him and who he was to them. As I experienced all of this, I began writing the poems with the intention to document my personal spiritual connection with him. I wanted to have a record of how that connection deepened and evolved. And now as we approach the 50th anniversary of his martyrdom, I have chosen a selection of eight of those poems from the series that resonate with me the most in this particular time.
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