Photo from the New York Public Library
Contributor Notes
donnarkevic
I stole a book by James Weldon Johnson
from the high school library,
stuck it down the front of my pants,
walked out like an unbeaten boxer,
belt tight around the waist
until I got inside the bus
where I sat in the back with Weldon
on the cover, a young black man
with short hair, moustache, and bowtie,
a Malcolm X without the glasses.
Makes me wonder how he survived.
Weldon wants us to sing,
hard to do when you can’t breathe
or you running down an alley at night
where heaven is nowhere,
just firing fists, the crushing baton,
face flattening against the pavement,
tears and blood continuing to shed
for Liberty and the dead.
But Weldon drags God out of hiding
from behind stars, begs us to stay
on the right path. God, I can be high, too,
on meth, heroine, and weed,
but for bowtied Weldon
I sing a song of myself
like that bearded, wild-haired white boy
whose book I stole last week.
donnarkevic
I stole a book by James Weldon Johnson
from the high school library,
stuck it down the front of my pants,
walked out like an unbeaten boxer,
belt tight around the waist
until I got inside the bus
where I sat in the back with Weldon
on the cover, a young black man
with short hair, moustache, and bowtie,
a Malcolm X without the glasses.
Makes me wonder how he survived.
Weldon wants us to sing,
hard to do when you can’t breathe
or you running down an alley at night
where heaven is nowhere,
just firing fists, the crushing baton,
face flattening against the pavement,
tears and blood continuing to shed
for Liberty and the dead.
But Weldon drags God out of hiding
from behind stars, begs us to stay
on the right path. God, I can be high, too,
on meth, heroine, and weed,
but for bowtied Weldon
I sing a song of myself
like that bearded, wild-haired white boy
whose book I stole last week.