Summers and winters

Summers and winters

Like a simmered down blast of cause,

From that boundless space called ‘unknown’ and the ‘accepted’ ethos;

Hurled into being :

Like summers of quest and desires glowing red in the horizon,

Like winters of reticence and fear coated yet brazen,

Between adjustment and permanence,

Searching the ‘why’ of ‘what’ of ‘here’ and ‘then’;

We are summers and winters of existence’s sojourn.

።።።።።።።።።

You’re killed for your own Protection!!!

You’re killed for your own Protection!!!

Where bullets fly bold in a shy-fearful sky,

And prisons crowd with voices who dared to ask ‘why?”

And repression is a second nature for the declared democrat,

Who in ‘labeling’ finds a ‘hot-served-meal ‘as a favorite;

‘Democratic Dictatorship’ is mystified in definition:

Where the killer dictates the terms of your mourning with infantile jubilation:  

That claims 'the killed are killed for their own protection’.

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Tariku Abas Etenesh

(For all those who are killed in the hands of those who should have protected them.)

I just naively wondered

I just naively wondered 

In Ethiopia: 
Looking at how systemic violence is taking roots under the clouds of fear; looking at how the supposed protectors of the gate of justice rewrite their job description from gate keepers to keeping the mass at the gate; looking at how those employed and paid by the people, titled political leaders, financed by the tax from each citizens pocket to run development projects, turn themselves into demigods who shout  ‘development’ as a hostage takers demand; I just naively wondered: 'Could there have been any revelation  that I have missed which equates Construction Boom (should go) with Repression’s Doom?'

May be,they don’t hate you; they are Afraid

May be..they don’t hate you; they are Afraid

-Tariku Abas Etenesh-

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What is veiled like hatred,

Could have a story to tell,

And before you claimed “I am hated”

Please PAUSE

And allow the dust of emotions settle;

    

When, in the land of ‘the free’,

Integrity grins at your peril,

And the laws trample your feet at will,

When the media reports you ONLY as a brute,

For all the pains you suffered for being decent;

Remember,

When the ‘hater’ stares with bloodshot eyes,

Puffed with choreographed-wild-confidence,

Surrounded by vexed tongues,

Ululating derisive rhythm:

Marshalling a prejudice to glorify a systemic shame,

Pigeonholing your experience into a lazy definition,

That derives your humanness out of the color of your skin,

Or the language of your arbitrary kin,

All the system did is –hide- its fears from your gaze;

Remember

When you look at the ‘hater’s eyes’ -look also through, 

For it mirrors a fretted soul with a catalog of guilt,

Raged as told and not of offence,

Struggling to hide its bewildered state,

Of not knowing the cause he was hurled to protect,

Except for being told that you constitute a threat,

He is a victim too.

Remember,

They don’t hate you; they are afraid,

In their heads –shame is imprisoned;

Hatred is not fate, it is a wobbly existence informed by fret,

What you see surfaced through language of abhorrence,

Is the lingering shadow of a stable body that lurks,

In the power structure of the system,

Cemented by economic prowess.

Let's not be fooled.

When the op-ed pages of the daily papers,

In their social-politic-analytic-gimmicks,

Measuring human value per the number of ads per sponsor,

Count your corpse as they would for statistics in abattoir,

Tallying your demise as a pleasurable slip in video games,

When quotas are legalized for prisons,

With ‘you’ as the imprisoned in the legislator’s mind,

All is but aimed at chipping profit from your captive demeanor;

Remember,

The system knows no emotional currency of love or hate,

It has been-and it-is and will-always-be about profit,

Before you wonder ‘why do they hate me?’

And dissipate your struggle into emotional mime,

Stand and gaze at the ‘hater’s face,

There you will see the dollar sign tattooed in his eyes,

Saying: I want to reap from your captivity,

While raping your social standing and liberty,

But please, remain by the delimited territory of emotions,

As that is the greatest thing this nation needs for ablution;

And a please give me dividends for my enterprise

And we get fooled once again;

Remember,

Never is respect what you seek from others, but gain it,

Never is love that you garb it from others, but give it,

Never is a bill paid by food stamps-though imposed- but by sweating,

Never is history learned through forgetting, but by knowing,

Let's not be fooled,

They don’t hate us; they are afraid

In their heads –century old- guilt is imprisoned,

Hatred is not fate, but cowardly existence informed by retreat,

What you see spelled out through the language of abhorrence,

Is just a shadow that keeps track of its real body in economics?

Yet, this we should know my folks,

What informs their action is cowardice;

Cowardice to face their culpability;

For the four century of imposed servitude,

That turned our ancestors into financiers

Of a new project called: ‘The land of the free’

And for the check our ancestors signed in sweat and blood,

For the wealth and comfort the ‘hater’ now claims to have;

Living in ‘the home of the brave,’

Yet, facing the truth is bankrupting,

So they only slumber under the weight of reality,

And escape into ‘legal shooting rampage’;

And blame you for the width of the hole in your head,

That their bullets made passage;

Remember-

They don’t hate you; they are afraid,

In their conscious –guilt is imprisoned,

Hatred is not fate, it is a wobbly existence informed by fret,

What surfaced through language of abhorrence,

Is just a shadow that keep track of its real body in economics,

Let's not be fooled.

What language is that I hear from you dear brother,

While sweating to relieve yourself and your child of pain,

That prolonged for years- Twenty Scores,

Don’t condemn yourself to relive it any further,

Through emotional take of the systemic violence,

Love and hate is a personal choice reveled,

Yet your situation is not an accident but designed,

Where every unintended pace you thread,

Would cost you a thousand set traps ‘legally’ insulated,

As the prophet Malcolm X once said:

“We are trapped, double trapped, triple trapped,”

That could only be undone through speaking the right language

Of self respect, of controlling own destiny,

Through the first step of controlling your own money;

So now I hear you say they hate me- once again,

Echoing the voices of 60s and before,

As if it were your situation’s core,

But how many ways are there to be fooled;

And how many ways to fall for it while lamenting “we are hated?”

The system knows no emotional currency of love or hate,

It has been-and it-is and will-always-be about profit,

Let's not be fooled,

There are questions, by the deprived masses,

That keep coming through the ages:

Like: why are we stuck in a reality every bit laced with nightmare?

And there are answers that remain intact through the ages:

In a world that runs on the fuel of monetary exchange,

with designed dispossession and abuse;

Chanting moral slogans shall help but heal symptoms;

Only souls that strive for just power in economics,

Shall break a deprivation-bondage,

Remember,

Never is respect what you seek from others, but gain it,

Never is love that you garb it from others, but give it,

Never is a bill paid by food stamps, but by sweating,

Never is history learned through unlearning it, but by knowing,

Should you need respect?

Create economic might, by respecting your ‘dime’s weight.   

  

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(To Michael Brown and all those souls wrongly accused, jailed, stereotyped, labeled; and also those who are denied decent education, denied the dignity as human beings, arbitrarily killed, arbitrarily defined and economically disenfranchised.)