By Kelene Blake
Response to Somebody Blew Up America (Amiri Baraka)
Look at this mess…
The rubble, the ash
The dust that was a city
The crater that was a home
The hollowed out husk of a place
where barefoot children ran
and echoes of laughter bounced
off once-solid walls
I’m tired of asking
Who blew up America?
Who torched this town?
Who bombed this city?
Who confiscates land in poor countries
to build bases and prisons
and post soldiers who use native daughters
as bed warmers?
Who still wants to know
who decimated Hiroshima
and silenced Lumumba?
Who still has to ask
who tried to dehumanize the cradle of humanity,
who stripped earth’s richest lands,
who keeps all dark peoples in the dark?
Why bother asking answers?
Everyone can point out the bully
on this playground.
Why waste time calling for blood
to drip out from a stone?
Don’t wait for it.
That apology does not give us our dignity.
That admittance won’t help anybody
… so don’t wait for it.
The cities built on the backs of the oppressed
are shaking.
The beast holding them up for hundreds of years
is waking.
Amidst the creak and crack of sinews and joints
slowly straightening, seeking relief from
centuries of cramped oppression
Who is ready to stand?
Who’s gonna rebuild America
and all the places and peoples
that perished in her inferno?
Who’s gonna clear the rubble
and help Sundiata to his feet?
Who’s gonna teach princes how to thread
on paths that kings have walked?
Who’s gonna teach the daughters
how to don the queenly cloth?
Who’s gonna dig up our history
from the mud, and ash, and bones?
Who’s gonna weave human dignity
into the tapestry of the unknown?
Who’s gonna break the chains
that have broken so many backs?
Who’s gonna start a new story?
Who’s gonna lay some fresh tracks?
Who’s gonna crush this apple
that has poisoned so many minds?
Who’s gonna break this system
that has ruined so many lives?
Somebody blew up America
and spread its putrid ash around the globe.
Who’s gonna rise from the ashes?
That is what I want to know.
