"Mind the Gap" I'd always wanted to hear*
I've dreamed of those words recorded and told
every passenger boarding London trains
Chicago kids didn't ride fancy trains
New classroom job at the college waited
On the road to boyfriend's house, "Mind the lanes"
"Job, travel, crazy cop uthfollowing close"
Hadn't signaled changing lanes pulling over
Got smart with cop, arrested me, then jail
Miserable time in there--I hanged myself
I will never ever hear, "Mind the Gap"**
* "Mind the Gap," a British saying meaning watch out for the gap between the pedestrian platform and the subway car door, i.e. "don't stumble on the car ledge or fall down into there onto the tracks."
** A TRUE STORY. Of course it was not me, it was a young Black lady, Sandra Bland. It all started with a change of traffic lanes to allow the police to go around her. SHE DID NOT SIGNAL THE LANE CHANGE and was pulled over. It turned out to be a trap by this officer, he had used it for a stop many other times. He has been fired, the County has settled a lawsuit brought by the family. Her sister was on the NBC Today Show for June 18, 2020.
YOU CAN READ THE WIKIPEDIA account in the linked reference below.
_ _ _ _
- Poem Copyright, Jimmiehov 2020, All Rights Reserved
- I am linked with
Magaly Guerrero with
Wednesday Scribblings #24, at
https://poetsandstorytellersunited.blogspot.com/2020/06/weekly-scribblings-24-when-all-else.html
-
Magaly's words for today's write, "... I invite you to write poetry or prose where speakers or characters
(or us, in the case of Slices of Life) fill in the blank in the phrase “
When all else fails, I _____”. You are not required to make the actual words/phrase part of our contribution. I would just like for your new poem or prose piece to be about what happens right after all else fails. Be funny. Be serious. The choice is always yours
-
This is a true story, embellished just a little to fit here, Read all about her plight and final jail cell hanging,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Sandra_Bland
- It happened here, just up the road from Houston at Prairie View, Texas.
Sandra was
a problem-set Black young lady, ready for a new job at the college. The police up there were/are terrible about harassing college students (a former all Black school there) and young folk, just like they were when I lived at Lincoln, Nebraska, before going into the Army.
- And finally I wrote in as form sort of new to me, the '
Elevensies', introduced by
Rosemary and used here earlier on these pages. The poem, or two stanzas grouped, have elven lines with the title in the middle as the sixth line. (
http://jimmiehov6.blogspot.com/2020/05/a-morning-poem-couldnt-be-helped-woke.html )
Labels: Poem, Poem forms, Stuff to know, Syllabic Form, Things to know, Weekly Scribbling
