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about
This poem was commissioned by Fusion Theatre Company in Albuquerque, NM for the regional staging of Katori Hall's play "The Mountaintop." The 2010 Olvier Award winning play takes place during Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.'s final evening, set entirely in Room 306 of the Lorraine Motel on the eve of his assassination on April 4, 1968. This poem is an apology from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to Larry Payne, the 16 year-old Black child that was killed by Memphis police during the sanitation worker marches that King was in Memphis to organize.
lyrics
“For Larry Payne…” – by hakim bellamy
You were the same age I was
After my first year at Morehouse
When a bullet meant for me
Turned your young future into a dream
A sweet sixteen unfinished
A wish unwished
And I’ve been jumpy at the clap
of applause
ever since
Which is not the best thing for a preacher’s career
Stage fright
When you comfort with God’s word
People will clap at you
When you bring that word
And it’s uncomfortable
People will clap at you
And there is no ducking, Larry
You know that
You were there
“…If you stand up straight,
people can’t ride your back.
And that’s what we did.“
That’s what you did
Stood up, tall
Like the longest tree in the forest
The lightning rod during the strike
In turn,
Leaving your life the shortest
It was my turn!
I can’t forget
What it sounded like
When they
Chopped you down
I jump every time
Afraid,
The next time I have a jump that sounds like you?
My feet won’t return to this march
And I’ll fly away
See,
My heart’s gone grey
Well beyond my years
Wait and worry have been beating it to death
It’s grown from the size of a fist
To the size of a myth
And the other doctors say I’ll die young
A broken heart attack of sorts,
But unfortunately,
They attacked you instead
There is not enough pulpit poetry in the world
To bring you back
Unless Larry is short for Lazarus
And I doubt it
I doubt me, sometimes…
23 years your senior
My Kool
Is just one cigarette from a meltdown
Some days
I’m only as brave as the balls on a one-night-stand
Some nights
I’m only as driven as the next distraction
And on any given night
She helps me forget
I’m being hunted
If America is going to hell
I will meet her there, if it will pardon you
and my children
from her flames….
You remind me of them, Larry
The helplessness I felt in Detroit
Miles away
When Atlanta was firebombing my home
The King you might have been
Had you been allowed to grow “us”
The sermons you would have served us
When America showed up, every ten years or so
To firebomb our souls
I could have used you, Larry
We are losing this human race
And the baton is getting heavy
We weren’t just sanitation workers striking
Together we were cleaning up, America
Us, unafraid of her ugliness
Her, Afraid of nothing
except her own reflection
They have mocked me
Tell me “speak English”
Because I do not speak their language of violence
Only love
Marginalized me
And the other women
Said I missionary of love too much
They killed the messenger
No figure of speech
On Loraine’s balcony
Chalk outlines this figure of preach
And let me tell you what that means
It means
our sacrifice is bulletproof
It means our sermons live forever
On this side the grave, ask Jesus
It means you did not die in vain
Did not live in it either
Because you’ve been on my mind
The entire night
I can’t shake you
Like the police did until your fragile
Little 16 year old life
Broke like a strike
I wanted to switch places with you, Larry
So you’d have something to send home to your mother
Comfort her
As you watch Martin Luther King’s funeral pro-cess across the black and white screen
Finally harmonious
As the coffin needles the country together like an open wound
Heads of state die with less fanfare
And all of this
Should have been
For you.
Just know, that I
Will never forget you, Larry.
Not yet 18
You stood alongside me saying “I AM A MAN!”
When you weren’t…yet
But you were at least a king
At a time where every phone call
Rang out shots
When every flinch of the universe
Tolled for me
You were hope
You were future gone before your time
You were a dream interred
You were collapsed
Like my lungs
Then my heart
Deflated like my last
breath
Arrested
Until the beatings
stopped
Son, I owe you way more
Than an apology…
I owe you a “Thank you”
And I need to give it to you,
In person
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