Gem Theatre for Colored People

 


 Gem Theatre for Colored People

  

Now Showing!

Tarzan The Ape Man

 

I pay 25 cents to see Africa.

Funny, it looks like America:

a few white men ordering

the whole lot of “boys”

to move faster with toting.

They tired.

So, a white man whips them

to give them something

else to think about.

 

The real jungle, wild animals,

and back-of-the-bus native blacks,

they just stock footage images,

rear projection scenes

for whites to act in front of.

 

The white men come for ivory

tusks from the elephants’ graveyard.

White men know where

the graves are. A lot

of black “boys” die on the way.

In fact, just whites survive.

 

The white woman, she made sense.

She cried, saying, “We shouldn’t be here.”

Of course, she’s just a white woman.

She could not stop the white men.

 

After the picture show ends,

the audience just sits there,

like maybe there’s more,

a cartoon, a newsreel, a preview.

But we get our two bits worth,

and I get the feeling that

the white man only takes

an interest in Africa

until there’s nothing left,

not even bones.

 

 

 Dan Narkevic

  

Don Narkevic: Buckhannon, WV. A retired high school English teacher who enjoys historical research. Recent work appears in Blue Collar Review, Bindweed Magazine, Solum Literary Press, and Shorts.

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