blacks on the block

they created race
when they came to lay claim
then justify the trading
of humans as slaves
before we were blacks on the block
we all had african names
now we can’t remember
the nation from where we first came
throughout north american history
black lives never mattered enough
for our presence in society
to ever mean that much
and once we were legally free
we were jim crow’d and minimized
terrorized, beaten and brutalized
the years go but the beat goes on
today too many black folks die
feeling oppressed and defeated
looking at the world
through impoverished eyes
too many black lives
meet an early demise
due to racism, redlining
from guns and drugs
and being criminalized
we’re victims of police brutality
cursed by the lips of history
we’re blinded to our own truth
then bounced from auction
to city to chopping block
by those who want us
to throw our hands up
say, we surrender, what’s the use?
they convince us to gamble our futures
asking, what else do you have to lose?
no matter what, at the end of the day
we’re still blacks on the block
battered and bartered from auction
to city then prison cell upstate
isn’t it a pity that we keep
reaching for the heights
but too often get the hate
makes you wonder,
will we ever get
our fair slice of the pie
so that someday, not far away
we’ll no longer be begging for crumbs
because we’ll be wielding the knife?

(This poem appeared in his book of poems titled
Unrested by Gregory Pond, Vagabond Books, 2024)