Poet's Corner: "Call for Redemption"

Medgar Evers! I called you in a dream.
I called you, Nat, Martin, Stokely, and
Malcolm
for justice -- yes justice -- has to be
redeemed.
The other martyrs, I have not forgotten
them.
But I specifically called you five,
in honor, tribute, and memory of them.
Where has the hope gone? Is it no
longer alive?
Did it drown in the disunity and hatred
of our youths?
Have we neglected it? Did it ever
survive?
The answers lay hidden in the empty
voting booths!
They lay in the violent turmoil at public
schools!
They lay in the ashes of burnt church
roofs!
They lay in the lack of order, lack of
rules!
They lay absorbed in the veins of
abusers of drugs!
They lay wasted in the brains of fools!
They lay desolate in pimps, playas,
gangstas, and thugs!
They drown in the sorrow of the
depressed!
They strive in the loathsome slug!
They laugh and mock the oppressed!
They hunger for the end!
They, with their claws, compress
the soul, trying to break and bend.
This is what they do, the voice they
speak, my friends:
singing and howling the final act of this
world. Amen.

By A. Jarrell Hayes
From the book Just Another Angry Black Man

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