Sankofa: In Memory of Gil Scott Heron Now Eight Years Gone

Warn me to battle not monsters, Gil
You gazed into the Abyss
And now you have become it.

I see you shining as I gaze at the Abyss also gazing

And trying not to become what I see.

Your body was dust and into dust it has returned.

Now I can hear the stones singing
Whenever I put my ear to the ground.

Songs of revelation and revolution
Rebirth and regeneration
I too am dust
Your poetry breathing life into me.

Earth

A million people in the streets of Hong Kong hear your songs
Umbrellas and heart
Verses bear spray and ballistic shields
Rubber bullets
And heavy riot sticks
For now their government listens
I mean
Could a million Chinese be wrong?

Trans activists reading the names of the fallen of their community
Telling their stories of hidden violence
Hear your songs.

Strike a pose for the Latinx who died on Rikers Island
Because she couldn’t raise $500 in bail money for a misdemeanor.
Her kindred also found dead on the streets of Texas
And beheaded on courthouse steps in Mexico.

Choiceless families of choice, don’t forget them after Pride month.

Speak no evil?

Larry Kramer already told us that silence equals death
Don’t forget how to act up.

It is good to go back to get what has been forgotten.

Names of kindred on heart shaped Stones
Left on Potter’s Field on a New York island
Or sewn on blankets presented on the National Mall
Now archived in Smithsonian Museums.

Remember the names
The stones
The blankets
And, most importantly the people.

Angry protestors in Tennessee hear your songs
The heads of 24 policemen provided the percussion section
Another officer involved shooting.

Let the earth be my weapon before it becomes my womb
Let me be judged by twelve
Before I am carried out by six.

Water

Thirsty people seeking asylum hear your songs
So do the the Samaritans on trial for leaving them water in the desert
Facing 20 years in prison for acts of federal felony compassion.

For compassion’s sake they chant “No More Death”
A deadlocked jury still can’t decide between the spirit of the law
And the laws letters.

The dying continues:
The body of a six year old girl from India is found in the desert.

How did she get there?

And, who have we become?

Japanese Americans say history is repeating itself.
Interment camps reopening
With the same justification
National insecurity.

Mr. Sulu, we are still a long way from the Starship Enterprise
Our four-year mission is just to get an Orange Man’s foot
Out of America’s assAnd to boldly get back to
Where we were before.

It wasn’t good; but it was better
And better is good
Shout out Barack Obama
I understand you better now.

“Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you got‘
Til it’s gone.”

To those out there who still know how to throw a rock,
Light a fire
And make a gas mask out of
A wet handkerchief and human saliva I say:

Teach the children
They won’t find these skills on YouTube
Or Instagram.

Presenté, keepers of our memories.

Can you dust off your light sabers one more time
In this inelegant age of random blasters?
As the dying continues.

See no evil

Laura Engram defending white nationalisst on Fox News
While American war criminals are considered for presidential pardons.

But no one yet found guilty of polluting the drinking water in Flint Michigan.No one guilty of the deaths in our border prison camps.

5200 ICE detainees are quarantined with suspected cases of Mumps and Chicken Pox

The Hieleras becoming hot zones.

Fire

And just who blew up the oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman anyway?
Are we being prepared for an October surprise in June?

Who will harvest that bitter fruit come September?

Men set themselves on fire in Washington D.C.
And I think of Buddhist Monks in Vietnam in 1963
And lately Monks and nuns witnessing for Tibet
Middle Path adherents taking the belief in the impermanent
To an extreme
You only get to do that once!
Burn baby burn.

Air

I hold up this candle next to your sun, Gil.
All of the songs you sang still work.
Which means how we are living here in America doesn’t.

Justice is blind still holding the scales of Libra.
But she is standing on an inclined plane
The pan that represents me and mine
Always the lighter of the two.

Once the question was:
Are there two separate and unequal justice systems in America?

Now the question is:
How many unequal Justice systems does America have?

Or, Is that just me being optimistic?

Avoiding the question
Is there a justice system at all?

Pardon my chagrin
Pardon my skepticism
Pardon me while I have to explain to young black men
That there is no pardon for playing with toy guns in a city parks.

Or selling loose cigarette to make ends meet.

Pardon me while I tell women that rape can be used as a tool of war Without an international outcry.

Or if I say Excusez-moi — will you think me more educated and therefore less of a target?

Na!

Camo-hiding Huxtable affectations do not work better then
A Kevlar vest
A helmet
And a good gas mask.
You could ask Sandra Bland
I mean, if she were alive.

Pardon me when I question that our answer to gun violenceis not reporting the shooter’s name on the news.

Hear no evil.

Pardon me when no matter how hard we try to prevent copy cat killings The killing continues.

I guess the non-copy cats must think they have come up with an amazingly original idea!

Pardon my invective.

Pardon my anger.

And pardon me for taking a bite out of you, Gil
To write this poem
There are no new ideas
Just ideas that are well stolen
From the past that is prologue.

Or, call it Sankofa looking back as I fly forward through time.

I feel so lost.

I’m just reaching back to help me on my journey forward.

May justice stand on a firm foundation.

May there be a level playing field to calibrate the scales of justice.

Take your thumb off of the scales
And keep your foot off of the earth’s neck
So we can all breathe again.

Hear no evil.

Why do I forget what I should remember
And remember what I should forget?

Hermann Hesse said that if I listened to the blending of all the outcries
I would hear OM the word of words.

I’m not that good yet.

But I can still hear you, Gil
In the rocks and stones and from the Abyss.
When I put my ear to the ground.

(Image Credit 1: OkayPlayer) (Image Credit 2: Berea College)