Manchild in the Promised Land

~After Claude Brown

for Yusuf Hawkins, Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown

“For where does one run…when he is already in the promised land?” ain’t hard to tell that we’ve adapted and are here until Judgment Day

Even though po-po (or 12, as they’re often called now) in a position of authority they are allowed to patrol and control and shoot to kill at will, as if they were overseers of a peculiar institution situated in a land stolen from its natives by upholders of our so-called Manifest Destiny, back when it was commonplace to see strange fruit hanging from a tree; yet, America still insists her dream is for everybody.

“How can that be?” when you so easily extinguish the fire in young black men’s eyes, as though you were reaping dreams in your no black male show.

Both quotes in the poem are from Claude Brown’s novel, Manchild in the Promised Land.

2021 MDSHall is a poet living in Illinois, writing in association with the Writes of Passage, “forged on the wordwrights’ anvil,” and the Muse Echo Collective, Purveyors of the Poet Tree of Discoursing Drums beating by any dreams necessary.