News Print Poetry 2012: Call for Justice for Trayvon Martin

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Call for Justice for Trayvon Martin

Tragic and horrific.
The death of Trayvon Martin.

The slaying

of an unarmed black teen;
shot to death
because he was black.
The shooter—
not arrested or charged.

People packed the pews,

coming together in the name of justice,
standing as Trayvon’s voice.
"If there is no justice,
there is no peace."

The teen was visiting family

in the gated community.
He was confronted by Zimmerman.
Zimmerman shot Trayvon.
This is not in dispute. Self defense?
The shooting was not self-defense!

This is a wake-up call

for the State of Florida,
and for any racist who has a gun,
and thinks it’s a license to kill our children.
What could happen if this killing
has no repercussion, no justice?

Trayvon Martin came to visit in an airplane.

He went home in a casket.

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I wrote this with a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes. A teenaged boy walks to a 7-11 to buy candy, and is walking home with a bag of Skittles in his pocket. Zimmerman thinks he “looks suspicious” and calls the cops. Then Zimmerman goes into the street and confronts and shoots the boy. The boy is dead because he was “walking while black.”

Zimmerman claims self-defense, but an eyewitness says it “could not have been self-defense.” It seems to me if someone is walking down the street and you run out of your house and wave a gun in his face, only the person being accosted can claim self- defense. Zimmerman must be arrested and tried (and hopefully convicted) if only to send a message to these “trigger-happy vigilantes” that there will be consequences when you recklessly kill someone.

I send my condolences to the family. I wish I could do more than just write a poem.