Summer Headlines:
Heavy From the Weight (1993)
There are no birds in West Philly
(Discounting pigeons,
since the homeless have
been eating them for sustenance.)
And a girl screams
as a subway lurches doors
closed
fresh drops of blood
drip/drop
staining the neck
below the lobes.
Watching helpless
as someone runs pass
clutching “gold”
and her earrings
(too damn big
to start with)
surreal in the blur.
There are no birds in West Philly
and the street man
mentally ill and homeless—
thanks to government
cuts—
he had
no place else
to be,
‘cept on the corner
throwing bottles at the cops
bound to defend
his last personal refuge—
the very space
he stood in—
to the death!
It took a bullet in the chest
from a “pissed off”
pig
to prove him wrong.
There are no birds in West Philly
so for the young girl
fourteen and in the wrong place,
there were no sweet, Spring
distractions
from the robbery
she walked in on.
And the scream—
it just “up-chucked,”
gut-uttered
from a place
she knew not where,
nor whence it came.
And when she realized
her mistake and turned,
caught a bullet in the back—
lesson learned.
There are no birds in West Philly
so the gun shot
blasts
in the day,
night,
day in, day out
everyday street life
is just another
“noise”—
except for the crazed mother
crouched low to the ground
clutching
the fragile remains
of her four-year old son’s
head
cuddled to her lap
spilling blood on the ground—
contrast to a satin blouse.
There are no birds in West Philly
so another drive by
ricochet
hellish day in the ‘hood
just
might leave one neighbor
nursing wounds
“chumped” on scars;
another household
barely held
shot full of holes;
others, diving for cover
on the floor of bars;
shot-gun carrying gunmen
making withdrawals—
while a Town Watch,
forgetting to blink,
stares
in disbelief.
They only wanted them
the dealers,
the pimps,
the ones with the guns
to stop selling “crack”
at least, on their stoops—
front, back
and in their face!
There are no birds in West Philly
(Discounting those few
meager pigeons,
roughed and ready—
the homeless eating—
dining out
no little dignity
left.)
And the headlines grow
heavy. . .
Heavy. . .
heavy from the weight
of a mixed up world.
So if
there are no birds
in West Philly
then
the daily music that
you’d likely hear
can’t
be a sweet song.
--Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon
A Buppie Awakening #1
So there you are
three piece suited-down, Brown
and well kept—
Rolex,
skin shoes,
skin pocket book and
briefcase, full of briefs—immaculate!
Hair done,
nails groomed,
jewelry, just right;
nothing out of place!
Because, you see,
you’d finally made it
up that corporate
ladder of success;
defied the glass ceiling,
scaled the heights
struggled through the ghetto
that is
America.
Earning with it
the “perks” and credentials
to get “Esquire”
behind your name.
And, by God,
weren’t you, finally,
really
starting to believe
“anything” was possible!
So, you walk into the consultation room one day and, across the conference
table from you he sits—
a brutal,
cold-blooded,
nine-millimeter-holding
shot ‘em up
(no less than eighteen times,
mind you)
bullet-riddling killer;
smirking—
of all things
“smirking”
behind the face of a child!
And in your heart of hearts you know.
This boy ain’t never known
love. . .
ain’t never known, kindness
or humanity—
much less, care
or a black “fair share.”
Gentrified, negrotized ghettocized
and victimized
by just plain, old being
“abjectly poor”
all the damn time!
And you’re repulsed somehow.
The mirror inside you
cracks,
shattering reality
into shards of bitter truth.
You realize this “man-child”
will never know goals
that seem attainable;
will never know the euphoric
highs
in earning something of value;
will never pass any test
of greater importance than the
rites of passage
in the gang-style “Pop. . . Pop”
of killing someone dead.
Instead,
you know.
He was written off
long before he was ever
born,
named
and then, maimed
by his condition.
Yet,
this ten year old’s “latest” victim was another mother’s sixteen year old child—
equally caught in the vice grip of
“no way out”
violence in America!
So suddenly,
all too suddenly,
the briefcase seems heavier;
the shoes pinch a might
and the pocketbook, now
is “way” too cool a shade
for you.
Your weary soul picks
its teeth
with once-mirrored, shattered glass
and, from this moment on,
you finally stop
STOP! . . .
believing in dreams—
fancy fantasies
of fairy tales
that will never be.
Not for real!
Briefcase snapping open
with a new found cynicism
all your own:
“All right ‘little Man’
cut the shit!
Let’s get down to cases. . . !”
--Kimmika L. H. Williams
© 1999
Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon, B.A. (Journalism); MFA (Theater), is currently an Adjunct instructor in the Theater Department at Temple University. Kimmika is a Future Faculty Fellow in the Anthropology Department, also at Temple, finishing up a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology.
The 1999 winner of the DaimlerChrysler “Spirit in the Words” National Poetry Competition at Seattle, Washington’s Unity ‘99 Conference and the DaimlerChrysler Regional Poetry Contest for Philadelphia, Kimmika Williams also received the 1996 Lila Wallace Creative Arts Fellowship with the American Antiquarian Society and was a two-time returning playwright with the Minneapolis Playwright’s Center and Pew Charitable Trusts Playwrights’ Exchange. She was Arts Producer for public radio, WXPN-FM 88.5, reporter and columnist with the Philadelphia Tribune and television editor for the Chicago-based Maceba Affairs Media Review magazine. As a journalist, Williams’ articles and essays have appeared in the Hammer journal, Dialogue, the Philadelphia Real News, Poets and Writers Magazine, The Other Side, New York Guardian Newsweekly, The Daily Muse, Black America Magazine, Philly Beat, High Performance Magazine and the Philadelphia Daily News. She has received numerous community service awards, including citations from Philadelphia City Council, the Goode administration, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and the key to the City of Scranton, Pennsylvania by Mayor James P. Connors in 1992. She is a contributing poet to several anthologies including: Sunlight on the Moon (Center for Appalachian Studies, 1998), Hard Love: Writing on Violence and Intimacy (Queen of Swords Press, 1997), Erotique Noire: Black Erotica (Doubleday, 1992), New Black Poetry (1988), Say That the River Turns (1987) and Concerned Poets on the Move (1986).
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