Breezin' With The Shadows
Tameron Colbert 1995
Juke jams and silent lambs,
The black boy runs
Sweating, dying, and singing.
Speak to him,
As the roots and vines spiral the whips on his back,
His soul echoes a spiritual
While staring eye to eye
With the white cloak, stalking from the shadows.
The dirt from his nails
"Why ya skin dirty?",
The curl from his wail,
"Momma why it hurt so much?"
Feeds the pavement of devastation,
As the shadows dance to a jazz tune
Around him.
"To be you must be close to despair,
You must remain a shadow in,
In our skin-head society."
Speak to them,
Sing it in a way only dem Negros will understand
"Here boy, take dis here cotton flower,
Dis is ya place on the world."
Juke Jams and Silent Lambs
A little black girl cries with a flower
In a field surrounded by piercing suns and silent petals,
Don't cry, your tears must turn into a song.
Coltrane tunes in the breezy afternoon,
Dries her tears blazing a monsoon
May the cotton wash their sins away
Because tears do fade away
But them scars on their skin
Will forever dance in the fields.
About this poem
The poem is recounting experiences that I have seen and watching my students and feeling what my ancestors felt.
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Submitted by tameron_c on September 10, 2022
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:16 min read
- 1 View
Quick analysis:
Scheme | A x x x x x x x x b x x x c x d b x x e x A e x x c c f f d x |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,068 |
Words | 256 |
Stanzas | 31 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 |
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"Breezin' With The Shadows" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/139132/breezin'-with-the-shadows>.
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