By Antonia Alexandra Klimenko

just mindin my business
just walkin down the street
move along move along
(you lazy loot... get your black ass gone)

just enterin my home
in this hood i don't belong
don t shoot, don t shoot!!
(tough luck, kid! your color's all wrong)

i'm just eighteen
the whole rainbow all in one
i was black before my father
i'm as old as the sun
the same DNA
as the moon and the stars
the bloodstains on my pillow
are no different than yours

please officer please
don't point your gun at me
i'm not the enemy
i wasn't born i wasn't mourned to be
white chalk on asphalt
what? my own murder's my fault?

you call me the 'n' word
Martin Luther Malcolm X Mandela?!!
you call me the 'n' word
and claim you are a brother
while you in-sultt ass-ault
my father sister mother
(you mother)

beaten in our fields
raped in our beds
the seeds you sow STILL reek
of oppression and dread
of lead and rubber bullets
of pointy gnarwling teeth
you re the boogeyman from hell
come to get me in my sleep

you're blacker than night
you're blinder than blind
i'm the candlelit vigil
of your impoverished mind
the endless nightmare the sirens' scream
another brother down let freedom ring
he DIED for your Amercan Dream

shrouded in sanctified secrecy indecency bigotry
democracy? of THEE i sing?!
we choke on your hypocracy!!

i'm talkin bout YOU Mister Evil
oounting blood like money
talkin bout YOU Mister Snake Eyes
gamblin with our lives
YOU Miz Fraidy Cat
hiding behind your chagrin
tightening the noose with sympathy round our necks
just boys barely women and men
already hep to your sins
to the legacy of hate of apathy
the shudder of death
the fear of our own footsteps

strange fruit hangs from the old oak tree
roots steeped in blood and sorrow
hearts caught in throats for eternity
who knows who's next tomorrow

i'm just eighteen
the whole rainbow all in one
i was black before my father
i'm as old as the sun
the same DNA
as trhe moon and the stars
the bloodstains on my pillow
no different than yours

generations of tears
flow from ancient holy sk-eyes
mine eyes have seeeeen the glory
the injustice of our lives

you conceived in love
what are you SO afraid of
the color of my skin
or the darker matter you're made of?

deface me debase me erase me
you can4t replace me
deny me or your own humanityyy
you can shackle my dreams
but the spirit flies free
you can shackle my dreams
but the spirit flies free
you can shackle my dreams
but the spirit flies free

and
when i honor you
i honor me
when i honor you
i honor me
when i honor you
i honor me
when i honor you
i honor me

A nominee for the Pushcart Prize, The Best of the Net, and a former San Francisco Poetry Slam Champion, Antonia Alexandra Klimenko is widely published. Her work has appeared in (among others) Jazz and Literature, XXI Century World Literature (which she represents France) and Maintenant : Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art archived at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. She is the Writer/Poet in Residence for The Creative Process and the Poet in Residence. for SpokenWord Paris. Her selected poems On the Way to Invisible was recently published by The Opiate Books and is now available.

The Creative Process is created with kind support from the Jan Michalski Foundation.