What's Happening
by Robert Westley
It is not necessary to wait long
To see it happen -
Happening in the streets
Red with black blood
Happening in hallways
Littered with semen stains
Happening behind doors
Where babies loll on the floor
Scream with pain and tear each others hair.
It's happening right now.
A young girl surrenders her secrets
To the boy she loves, but
When they rise from her bed
Nothing remains between the sheets but
Vaginal secretions, some dark decaying spit
No love and not even a condom.
Everything she will know of him is inside her now
Her bones are light beams
Her arms are wings
And if the bedroom widow won't do for a fall
The butcher knife is in the kitchen drawer.
It's hapening.
Happening, by the way, in your neighborhood
You of the fresh-dew flowers
You of the scornful looks who hide
Behind your money it's pulled
Not just your petty crimes
Like murder or theft
A simple toke of some smoke or coke
Cheap sins that wash off on Sunday
Someone's abusing your mind
Fucking your son
Deceiving your daughter
Filling your house with shit
As if I care
You could take the dare
End the affair
Eat a pear
Turn to prayer
Stare into reality like a basin
Full of heavy water
And cleanse your skin
Of the evil that's within
But forget it.
You are not what's happening.
Westley, Robert. "What's Happening." The Road Before Us: 10 Gay Black Poets. Ed. Assoto Saint. New York: Galiens Press, 1991. p. 136-137.
Bio from The Road Before Us
Robert Wesley was born November 10, 1962. "I am a native of New Orleans where I spent my first seventeen years. I graduates from Northwestern University in 1984 with a B.A. in philosophy. I attended graduate school at Yale University for the following three years, and then started law school at the University of California, Berkeley, in f1987. I am currently working towards completion of my dissertation in philosophy and the final year of law school. My career plans include teaching, law practice, and economic development in the black community."
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