It's just poetry, it won't bite

I Saw the Klan Today


05.10.11 Posted in today's words by

Charles Clifford Brooks III has had work published in The Dead Mule, Eclectica, Gloom Cupboard, Cerebration, Underground Voices, Alba, Zygote in My Coffee, Prick of the Spindle, Conversations, Unlikely 2.0, and The Cartier Street Review. His poetry has been featured on the Joe Milford Poetry Show and 15 Minutes of Poetry. He has several poetry collections in different stages of the publication process and will provide details as they are known. 

I Saw the Klan Today
By Charles Clifford Brooks III

Morning headed to Bell’s,
Klansmen haunted the courthouse.
I was eight.
Virginia seethed,
Some folks like to live ugly.
Her almond knuckles
pale on the steering wheel,
our car sped up.

She had wild eyes
on those violent phantoms.
In wedding white,
faces tight
behind a bed sheet,
they were chanting. 
Virginia patted my knee,
Don’t even look at ’em, baby.

At home I laid in her lap.
She hummed Go Tell It on the Mountain
praying I grew into a man
who witnessed wrong
and became a blade against it.
My mahogany mother
squeezed me, smoothed my hair,
sad at the state
of our world.





One Response to “I Saw the Klan Today”

  1. Heartfelt. Unfortunately, some things haven’t changed.

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