Let My Voice Be Heard

My pearls cast before swine seeking to soil my soul
Breaking up headstones of my ancestors
Sowing seeds of discord and deceit,
Disillusioned youth sit idly by as right and wrong fade into obscurity
As rights
Fade into obscurity

Unaware of the cost
Hard fought and wrenching tears of my great-grandmother
Taking a long walk home instead of a back seat
So we could dine inside
Making the front doors and seats of this nation ours

Hours pass as we wait words of comfort
For mothers whose only induction in this movement
Come through injustice and loss

And justice is loss
Out of reach for those who can't pay
But haven't we paid enough
This nation's soil soaked with the blood of slaves
Never offered an option on a middle passage that tore them from home and country
Language and identity

How can we be anything but American? When we never had a say
And now I say
Rise up and take the land that your fathers toiled
Change has come 
Cooke's prophesy,
Martin's dream,
Malcolm's zeal
Poured out on this people
Our people
Your people

We hold these truths to be self evident that ALL men
Never meant me
My sons, my daughter
So I refuse to stay silent
Til equality rings loud as wisdom in His word
In a nation desperate for change
Let my voice be heard
Let my vote be counted

E. Glover, 2016

Dreams

Longing whispers deep into dark spaces of my mind
Secluded and void of contact
they wither
Like fruit left out on a summer's day
The sweetest honey becomes grapes sour enough to pucker
lips left unkissed
Hands unheld grow cold
Touch a fading memory
Like Polaroid cameras and cds
Outdated and useless
Is love without sacrifice
Committed only to selfish ambition
Dreams crushed under the weight
The wait
Too long
I long
Til my dream's nothing more than an apparition
Til resentment is all I have left