Justice/Harvest Moon

Justice/Harvest Moon

Full Moon, October 1, 2020

A key factor in the perpetuation of white-body supremacy is many people’s refusal to experience clean pain around the myth of race. Instead, usually out of fear, they choose the dirty pain of silence and avoidance and, invariably, prolong the pain.

—Resmaa Menakem

 

We must be brave.

 

Dirty pain

courses

through

the body

of America—

scouring

militarized

impoverished

cruel

ox-bows,

weird

disfigured

unnatural

bounce-backs,

historical

aphasia,

emotional

strangulation

& morbid

gaslit waking

dream

as coiled trauma

seeks release

in positive

feedback

loops/arcs

like spirochetes

writhing

death-binge curls:

hunger begats

taking begats

hoarding begats

vanity begats

shame begats

rage begats

violence…

 

We must be brave.

 

This

harvest

moon

again

will rise

for eyes

willing

to allow

clean pain

egress,

which is

a Latin

word

for a

way out—

a chance

to glamour

for justice,

to let

wind

blow

through

the myth

of race

forever

& make

plans

afterword

to love

the world

as if it

were

the strangest

lover & most

beautiful

free river

we will

never meet

twice.

 

 

Poem by Qayyum Johnson

Painting by Suiko McCall — suiko.art — The Front and Back Foot in Walking, 10×20″ diptych, ink on paper.