May 3, 2015 Current Affairs / General Interest, Original Poetry

They Will Not Die (Elegy #2 for Freddie Gray)
By Vijaya Sundaram
©May 2nd, 2015

Freddie Gray is dead,
Voice-box crushed,
Back broken in a
Nickel-ride homicide.

Was there hope for Freddie Gray,
Gray in a grey world?
Nebulous justice rules, a
Cloudy truth in the world of
The makers and breakers.

Hope is crushed, lowered
Into the ground,
Back in the box whence she came.

Yet, voices outside speak aloud
Angry and proud, people stand
And march, and … then throw rocks.

For, when words don’t work, what’s left?
When actions born of peace
Lead to laughing contempt,
Blank indifference, grudging handouts,
What’s left?

When blinded eyes, blinded mouths,
Blinded hearts, blinding fears
Rule the rulers, and crush
The ruled and the damned,
What else is left?

And a city burns,
Children cry out, eyes stretched wide
And injustice rides
Comfortably, now in blue,
Shielded by certainty
That they will not lose
This game, their game.

For they own the weapons
They own the power
They own it all,
But they will never
Own the truth.

And Justice will come
For they do not own her, either,
Just her simulacrum.

And they will receive just desserts
And face an eternity
Where unending despair
And hungry remorse will
Claw and gnaw at their vitals,
And they will not die.

And Freddie Gray
Will live, if we let him,
If we remember.

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Tags: Baltimore, Freddie Gray, Police, Race, Remember