Showing posts with label anti-racism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anti-racism. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 1, 2020

Read and See

re-posting one from 2017

("Aspiration," painted by Aaron Douglas, 1936, oil on canvas, 60" x 60", Fine Arts Museum of
San Francisco)


Black chained hands rise. They have
become the shears of history and cut
through evil. Tilting, layered stars
share a central point that rests
on the right shoulder of a reading,
seeing Black woman. Read and see.

Two Black men stand on an indestructible
foundation. It goes by many names.
Read and see. The men's broad
shoulders defy the past and square
up with the future. Their jaw-lines
assert. One man points through
a spectral sun at pale green towers
and 36 lit windows on a mountain.

The lightning bolt is permanent in purple
skies. It portends the death of White
Supremacy, the Master Depravity.
The men carry necessary tools,
the most necessary of which
are spirit, body, mind. Read
and see. Aspiration is a prophecy.


hans ostrom 2017

Monday, June 15, 2020

Narrow Present

No, you can't close the future
to make repairs. The past
is always open but people
tend to bring back the wrong
things from it. I find the present
to be very narrow, choked
as it is with ignorance and hatred.
Maybe now it will get the airing
out it has forever needed.


hans ostrom