Welcome to WNIJ's Poetically Yours. Poetically Yours showcases poems from northern Illinois poets. This week's poem is by Bear Wolf.
Wolf is a Shawnee Gypsy Jew social justice humanist who lost count of his tattoos somewhere around 20. This world makes no sense to him, so he makes music and poetry.
Here's his poem "Wake Up Call, (Blue Horizons Are Just the Beginning.)"
Blue may have won
But America is still lost
The cost of living
Is making a killing
Rampant racism
Races through our veins
The stains of red
Reigns
Still flood
The unfortunate
True equality is still being pushed
To the back
Of the Bi-Partison party bus
But ain’t nobody gonna be able to stop us
If we actually work together
Division has to go
For this victory is hollow
If we have nothing to show for it
If we are truly going to rise
Then we have to be wise enough
To recognize
That we have to rise above this entire mess
I must confess
That I’m still a bit worried
That if we hurry through
This need to
Declare victory prematurely
Then we are surely in for
More
Red stains are still reigning
Shame in many places
And fear on many faces
If we are truly going to recover
We need to rediscover
Each other
We must not let freedom
Allow us to become numb
Otherwise we are merely
Free(to be)dumb
I mean it sincerely
When I say
By all means
Enjoy your celebration day
But the true victory
Is still quite a ways away
- Yvonne Boose is a 2020 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of the GroundTruth Project. It's a national service program that places talented journalists in local newsrooms like WNIJ. You can learn more about Report for America at wnij.org.
