Category: Columns

by Ernie McCray

The devastation and human pain
Hurricane Ian
has left in its wake,
is so depressing
and disheartening
especially since we’re to blame
for its overwhelming intensity,
as we’ve essentially
turned our backs
to more life sustaining sources of energy
like the wind and the sun,
insisting on feeding Mother Nature
fossil-fuel-fed
greenhouse gas emissions

by Ernie McCray

This democracy
of ours
is seen
as an experiment,
one where every citizen,
more or less possesses
the right to life and liberty
in a pursuit for happiness.
But one would be negligent
not mentioning that this experiment
has lacked a hypothesis
by which
America could test
probabilities for success,
this neglect
leaving some people,
from the beginning,
behind the rest

by Ernie McCray

Ron DeSantis,
the governor of the
state of Florida,
has recently been referred to,
because of something he
put some Venezuelans through,
as a “prankster,”
but I see him for what he is,
a gangster,
a human trafficker,
a pimp in disguise

by Ernie McCray

I might be in trouble
if I were in a classroom today,
approaching learning
as I did in the early 60’s,
trying to hip my students
to what was happening in their world,
first, letting them know who their teacher was
as a living breathing human being,
by telling them of my upbringing
as a Black boy
in a city

by Ernie McCray

I was just thinking
if I had stolen
a bunch of classified
U.S. documents
and hid them in my basement
and the FBI had to come and get them,
and I had the nerve
to ask for a
“Special Master Review”
of some kind

by Ernie McCray

15 presidents have served our country
during my lifetime,
all of them affecting me
in some way,
beginning with Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
FDR,
a man who gave me a sense,
even in my childhood innocence
that a president
was kind of important
as I listened to grownups rave
about the role he played

by Ernie McCray

My mind wanders to my first home,
in Tucson,
the home in which
I spent the first twelve years of my life,
a duplex adobe apartment
I’m recollecting
through sounds,
the sounds of my granddaddy and I
harmonizing gospel songs,|
or the sounds of Arthur Godfrey
plunking a Ukulele on the radio
before I headed off to school,

by Ernie McCray

A traitor
whines, and spins lies
about his “problems” with the FBI,
claiming they’re harassing him
when he had stolen from the government
boxes upon boxes of
classified information,
secrets about nuclear bombs, and shit,
serious gossip
about other governments,
and I just want to slap this fool
upside the head,
with all that complaining about harassment
when his real problem
should be arrestment,

(Opening Poem for the “Buses Are Coming” Exhibit)

by Ernie McCray

Back in 1961
the buses the Freedom Riders road
began to roll,
questioning America’s soul,
bringing to light the Southern United States’ role
in keeping Black folks
and White folks
segregated in bus terminals,
complete with “Whites Only”
cafeterias and restroom facilities,

This is the third in a series on Brittney Griner by Ernie. (Here’s No. 1 and No. 2)

by Ernie McCray

Seems, at times,
that our nation
has trouble loving,
caring,
as evidenced
by so many
people finding joy
in Brittney Griner’s
9-year sentence
for weed possession
in a Russian prison,

by Ernie McCray

So sad
that law makers,
U.S. Senators,
with all the power
in their possession
to do wonderful things,
knowing
that there are ex-servicemen and women
who have fallen ill
from breathing in poisonous air
in the battles in Iraq and Afghanistan,
chose, instead of lending them a hand,
to play games,

by Ernie McCray

“Gay Black men
are not ‘real’ men”
I heard a brother say
and all I know about him
is he’s ensnared in naivete
because some of the “realist” people I know
happened to be gay,
as there’s nothing
more “real”
than Langston Hughes’ poetry
in opposition
to the injustice and oppression
of Africans trapped in America,