When Killing is not just Murder

My body
My black body
Black body everywhere
Everywhere I turn
I ache in all corners of me
Of the trauma of looting
This body has suffered
The land don’t care or share
Let’s call it what it is
A killing not murder
We call it murder
[Insert legality]
Like there’s a right to kill
& we need evidence to justify
This hate in the third degree
My pain in this street
Burn of hate-pride in your knee
Hand in your pocket
Watching me beg
For life you drain
With your drainpipe of hate
What’s it gonna take
for you to see
This hate ain’t blood
It’s the red you don’t see
for you & me.

*

We’re still here

Time says                    when this is over, rona
the pigeon stalls                                  for pieces of bread
you & your hook-red mask                                 run between eyes
                                                     who knew you’d take it so serious?
acting delirious all over the place
goading audacity to run free
                                                     flooring the world with no mercy
                                                     exposing living rooms to war
                                                 turning lives into frayed cubicles of panic
                                                 raising death tax from hands touching you
mooring lungs to extinction
                                                   robbing bodies of air to be here
mask us nose & mouth in fear                      but we’re still here
standing with time                                              we’re still here.