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MERGE LITERARY MAGAZINE
TWO POEMS 


KWANSABA ELEGY
       FOR MICHAEL BROWN
__________________________________________________________
By Charlois Lumpkin 
_______________________________________________________________                                                           
Tear gas shrouds police in mist trust
 
as tempers smolder, releas’n smoke curls of
 
wild hairs in turgid river, refus’n to
 
be tamed.  Eyes flash forward to place
 
where long stemmed roses line Ferguson divide,
 
mark for, ever in memory, the angry
 
hallow’d point of Mike Mike’s last stand.
 
 
On August 9, 2014, Michael Brown was shot and killed by a Ferguson Missouri Police Officer.   Michael Brown was eighteen years old and unarmed. 



CUFFED AT THE CURB
 
 
careful
kick’n it down Canfield Drive
listen up
this ain’t no jive
 
 
don’t
talk smart
                                                but don’t be too dumb
 
don’t
look angry
                                                or hav’n too much fun
 
don’t                           
hang with too many
                                                but don’t walk alone
 
don’t
walk too slow
                                                n’ for God’s sake don’t run
 
 
 
 
“Cuffed at the Curb” first appeared under the pen name Mali Newman in the anthology Crossing The Divide, from the poets of St. Louis published by Vagabond Books in 2016. 
 

 


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