One Hundred Percent of Nothin’s–Still Nothing

Right. Write. Rite. Richard Wright.
Was a Black Boy.
Mother made him fight.
When he came home crying
they beat him up that day.

White woman.
Soft hands, soft feet, thin skin.
White as a sheet.
Has never even seen a fight.
Must be her eye sight. Site. Sigh h h t.

He faces
family, religion, communism, racism, poverty,
meritocracy, stereotypes, critics, hunger, elements, the
CIA and the FBI
he fights for rights with write

She faces
a wall, a clock, herself
her privilege.  She battles only her fear
of nothing
in a fight for the right to write

His battle won
and the right will say the war too, but
if he were here
Wright would write what she knows 
about their wrong

there is a vibration in the peace
where the men in this land promised
to right the wrongs
where there is still no stillness from the drums
of war

He gave one hundred percent and won
They gave one hundred percent of none
She writes of her heart, not a percent
and rights no wrongs in the new silent
war 

 

Response to 2012 PAD Challenge Day 4 on Poetic Asides: I’m behind on these prompts, but I’ll pick and choose them as I see them.