|
Parent Article: Organizer on death row to be executed |
|
A Picture's Worth: A Poem for Hasan Shakur |
by Walidah imarisha
walidahi (nospam) hotmail.com (verified) |
Current rating: 0
12 Apr 2006
|
 |
Click on image for a larger version
 |
Overexposed photos
Show you only the outside:
In front of the steel grating
Of a Texas prison visiting cage
Tall and solid
Dark eyes
Stare out of dark skin
Arms clasped
As in prayer
And contemplation
In front of a barrel of a chest
Face of stone
Because death row
Does not cultivate
Laughter.
He
Painted in prison colors
Branded with an image
Burned into the public’s vision
By racism
And too many episodes of
COPS.
But you have not seen
Him when
His child comes to visit
And a smile splits his face
As he presses his hand eagerly
Against the bullet proof plexiglass,
Hoping to feel
Some warmth
Leak through.
There are no pictures
To capture
The prison suicides he has seen,
Bodies hanging from sheets
That just yesterday
Was a breathing human being.
We have no snapshots
Of the tiers
Crying blood
Of inmates
Who were kissed
Too deeply by guard batons.
There is no image
That can sum up
Watching your friend
Be escorted in shackles
Toward the hot stinking pant
Of death.
If we could open his chest,
We could flash shutters at
A warrior’s heart
Pumping struggle and determination,
Fueling organizations
Headed from the cell
The size of a bathroom,
Organizing concerts
To stop violence
While every minute
Is an assault.
We would capture
A mind constantly on the prowl,
Head of a lion,
Proud untamed ready to protect
Its cubs
Ready to fight for its family.
He sleeps three hours a night
Because there is too much work to do
And he knows
Better than anyone
We are never promised tomorrow.
But sometimes
Photos
Are more than burning flesh
And broken mirrors.
They can press truth
Tightly between glass
Lock it in
So you can not deny
The stark existence of reality.
Because you can see,
If you look closely,
The shy tentative half smile
Of the child he was,
The serious intense gaze,
Young eyes who saw too much of the world
And yet still trusted
There was some good
Left in it. |
See also:
http://www.hasanshakur.com
|
