Black History Of Music
by Vandana Kumar / December 26th, 2021
The black men
Once sang in caves
With lanterns
They had nations to rescue
They produced saltpeter
For their gunpowder
Look at them now
Holding snowballs
Holding them tightfisted
As though it makes them
Any whiter
In a white man’s winter
They don’t want to change
And yet..
When they live in white district and town
The sun goes down on them
The white men go to the sea coast
For an extra designer tan
Beer and laughter
A few racial slurs
On their return
The black men stop singing
Too much noise
For one place
The night goes still
Very still
On the dark men
Vandana Kumar is a French teacher, translator, recruitment consultant, Indie Film Producer, cinephile and poet in New Delhi, India. Her poems have been published in national and international websites of repute like ‘Mad Swirl’, ‘ ‘Grey Sparrow Journal’, ‘The Piker Press’, ‘Dissident Voice’, ‘Borderless Journal’, ‘Madras Courier’, ‘Outlook’, ‘Ink Pantry’, ‘Backwards Trajectory’ etc. She has featured in literary journals like ‘Fine Lines’ and anthologies like ‘Harbinger Asylum’, ‘Kali Project’‘But You Don't Look Sick’ etc. Her cinema articles appear regularly in ‘Just-cinema’ and Daily Eye. Her debut collection of poems ‘Mannequin Of Our Times’ was published in February 2023. The book has been awarded The Panorama International Book Award 2023.
Read other articles by Vandana.
This article was posted on Sunday, December 26th, 2021 at 8:02am and is filed under Poetry.
