Our Father’s Flag Is Quite Different

Posted bySynnika Chizoba LoftonPosted inmailbox weekly, PoemsTags:, , ,

Freedom and liberation
hop and skip down broken
boulevards and polluted

streets. Decay is decay,
no matter how one explains
it. Metallic rhetoric chips

the air. Only valid when
the right complexion is
involved. It is cute to burn

flags. “That man is exercising
his rights!” They say. Such
an act is hostile when darker

hues decide it is just or
when they sport large afros
or tight cornrows and take

knees. America is racially
charged up. Complicated
by faulty design, a failed

ethnostate for the wealthy
kids yields to DEIJ, like the
acronym invades spaces,

buckles revolutions,
shifts culture, like Coltrane
warming up in a smoky

nightclub. A social system
should not be built on
manipulation, violence,

and control. Fat cats
fill pockets, flipping money,
standing on the backs

of bluesy workers,
smiling. We two-step
and show off for the

cameras, just rebels,
dancing beneath colonial
creed, knowing our

father’s flag is louder
than they will ever
know.

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Published by Synnika Chizoba Lofton

"Synnika Alek-Chizoba Lofton is an award winning poet, the president and CEO of Guerrilla Ignition LLC, host of a Nationally Syndicated radio show, and an educator, teaching literature at Chesapeake Bay Academy and English courses at Norfolk State University. Lofton has recorded more than one hundred and fifty CDs, albums, CD-singles, and mixtapes of poetry, including his highly praised debut, The New Breed. He is the author of twelve books and the founder of Riot Speech, a musical genre combining performance poetry with traditional musical forms, such as Rock, Jazz, and Hip Hop. His poems have been published in Experience Reality Magazine, Quay: A Journal of the Arts, UpStreet: A Literary Magazine, and, in 2014, Lofton has been featured in Blind Sided Magazine. He is a regular on Virginian television programs such as The Hampton Roads Show and Chesapeake’s Thinking Out Loud on WCTV. He teaches World Literature, British Literature, and Composition, while touring the country, performing at literary festivals, musical festivals, poetry readings, open mics, concerts, high schools, and colleges."

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