Wanda Coleman - South Central Los Angeles Death Trip, 1982
1
jes another X marking it
dangling gold chains & pinky rings
nineteen. done in black leather & defiance
teeth white as halogen lamps, skin dark as a threat
they spotted him taking in the night
made for the roust
arrested him on suspicion of
they say he became violent
they say he became combative in the rear seat of
that sleek zebra maria. they say
it took a chokehold to restrain him
and then they say he died of asphyxiation
on the spot
summarized in the coroner's report
as the demise of
one more nondescript dustbunny
ripped on phencyclidine
(which justified their need to
leave his hands cuffed behind his back
long after rigor mortis set in)
2
stress had damaged his thirty-nine-year-old mind
more then he could admit but he was trying
to make life work as well as it could
for a father with three children praying
dad will pull through
where the butcher knife came from
no one's sure. they say
he held off ten riot squad patrol cars
for forty-five minutes outside that 109th street
church. they say the cops had stopped him
because they didn't like his looks.
they say something fragile inside his head
snapped. they say it took twenty rounds of ammo
to bring him down they say he took five
gunshot pellets & thirteen bullets
they say that was a lot of outrage over
a case of misconstrued identity
3
she was fed up that day with
everything. now here they come turning off
the damned gas so she went and chased the service rep
from the yard before he could carry out the
disconnection order. by the time
police officers arrived she had lost what was
left of her common sense
had grabbed up & brandished an eleven-inch
boning knife to back up her mouth.
the two officers complained she threw
that knife at them. and they were so terrified
they didn't consider a wounding. they
simply emptied both guns
into the thirty-nine-year-old hefty female.
it took twelve shots to
subdue all that treataniggahthis and whitesonofabitchthat,
they said, and killed it.
4
strangely he was dodging & ducking,
bouncing & rolling,
tipping & slipping
(as if dangling from the end of it)
in and out of traffic in from of the sheriff's
station, embarrassing them, causing a modest jam
for no apparent reason
therefore they arrested the twenty-six-year-old
descendant of slaves and booked him for
this queer behavior, their spokesman said
because there weren't
enough terrorists, assassins or irate taxpayers
to keep them busy that Wednesday afternoon.
he was handcuffed
and left alone in his cell and fell inexplicably
into unconsciousness in a mere three hours,
they said. he was
rushed to a nearby hospital still in cuffs
where he died withing twenty-two minutes.
cause of demise as unknown as ever
5
Without evidence to support the supposition
They swore the twenty-one-year-old
Consumer was involved in the robbery of the popular Manchester Avenue chicken shack,
And not just another hungry-but-innocent bystander
He was assumed guilty, if not the brainiac
Perhaps the getaway driver. He was captured during
The fray before questions could be asked or
Players & slayers identified. That he was unarmed
Was not a pertinent issue. That he was ignorant
Decidedly was. They handcuffed hum and made
Him lay on the ground in the middle of the fray
Where, unfortunately, his ignorance got
Him killed by police gunfire. They say an officer
Yelled freeze and this inexperienced
Young black hoodlum being unfamiliar with the
Procedure of how one freezes while being held face down
On the sidewalk, hands cuffed behind one’s back
Could not do so. Therefore the inability to freeze under these conditions cost him his life
6
Exhausted after working the nightshift
He was so dead on his feet he couldn’t
Hear ‘em ramming in his door, so they broke into
the sepia-toned man’s apartment by mistake
(it was supposed to be the one downstairs).
Officers swarmed his bed as he opened his eyes.
Officers were on him like maggots on foul meat.
Nevertheless he managed to free himself long
Enough to run into the bathroom where
He was ultimately subdued without ever knowing why
The coroner reported this
As death due to heart attack
Brought on by advanced arteriosclerosis
In a twenty-eight-year-old black male
7
He was bound for college but was caught
standing on a street corner blocks from home
maybe, like they say, he had recently scored some
dope(which could not be found) or maybe
minutes earlier he’d been snaking on that
ham sandwich mama made for her nineteen-year-old
sure is handsome find young black man.
Maybe there was nothing to it at all, not even
That missing piece of aluminum foil the officers
claim they saw him pull out of his trousers
as they happened to be cruising past. It made
a mysterious metallic gleam
which they mistook for the glint of steel
which is why there was all that draw-and-fire
which is why
mama went to his funeral instead of his graduation
8
All of twenty-six, the ebony diabetic had
No stead job and lived with his parents.
He was a young man with mental & physical
Problems. He began to act strangely, they say
Although no one noticed him brandishing
That piece of radiator fan belt or that
Kitchen knife in the middle of the street.
Perhaps some car somewhere had broken down
Certainly, he had, enough to make the sheriff’s
deputies approach with caution and order him
to freeze, he turned toward them and even
though he was fourteen feet away from them his
turning toward them inspired so much fear
in the armed men one of them emptied his
Smith & Wesson service revolver into the
Young diabetic who died from three slugs
9
That night bob came blaming on her door.
She had just gotten home from working
The register at the club and her feet were
Killing her, now here come some numbskull
Sayhisnameis Bob knocking the damn door
In with some okey-doke about “here come da
Police, hide me quick!” so she got something
For bob’s jive probably-drunk ass, that .22
Caliber rifle she uses regularly to scare off
The riffraff, then she cracked the door a taste
But before she could make her melodrama move
It slammed open and she was blinded by the
Flash as she took a shot in her left breast.
The bullet entered her right rib cage and killed
The 8 ½ month old baby she was carrying.
All this behind a supposedtobe drug bust where
No drugs were found by the officers in charge
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from the Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, edited by Alan Kaufman
I scanned the pages from my book and passed through a software to turn the images into rext
copyrights belong to Basic Books, member of the Perseus Books Group, New York.
