{"id":103155,"date":"2020-06-03T16:25:47","date_gmt":"2020-06-03T23:25:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=103155"},"modified":"2020-06-03T16:26:08","modified_gmt":"2020-06-03T23:26:08","slug":"tears-of-blood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/06\/03\/tears-of-blood\/","title":{"rendered":"Tears of Blood."},"content":{"rendered":"

Asoka Weerasinghe 2 June 2020<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

(for Lowell, Nirmal and Chem)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just now a cloud
of screaming black ravens
flew over Minneapolis,
perched on the leafless trellis
of branches
of trees at the Powderhorn
Community and shed tears of blood
from their paining red eyes
and I sighed
O my brother George<\/em><\/strong>
O my people<\/em><\/strong>
It was no more a faceless horror
that got you
it was a knee of a white-man
in a khaki uniform who
\u00a0forced pressure
on your neck
Please<\/em><\/strong>
Please <\/em><\/strong>
I can\u2019t breathe<\/em><\/strong>
Mama<\/em><\/strong>
Mama<\/em><\/strong>
I can’t breathe.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is this irrational white-terror
O my God<\/em><\/strong>
I can\u2019t breathe<\/em><\/strong>
don\u2019t kill me officer,<\/em><\/strong>
Come on man<\/em><\/strong>
I cannot breathe.\u201d<\/em><\/strong>
And the clock keeps ticking\u2019
every minute,
it is \u00a05…6….7
who finally caught up with
Him and he couldn’t run.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where is Oprah Winfrey <\/em><\/strong>
Martin Luther King,<\/em><\/strong>
Barak Obama<\/em><\/strong>
\u00a0are you not going to give me<\/em><\/strong>
a spoon full of water?\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

O my brother
O my people
What have you done to meet
\u00a0this whiteman\u2019s savagery\u2019
in a country that you too
helped to build.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018It\u2019s my face man <\/em><\/strong>
I didn\u2019t do nothing serious man<\/em><\/strong>
Please, please man<\/em><\/strong>
I can\u2019t breathe.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The clock counts minute 8
and George Floyd is gone.\u2019
He is dead!
I join the ravens singing
from the trees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We shall overcome<\/em><\/strong>
Some day, <\/em><\/strong>
we shall overcome <\/em><\/strong>
some day,<\/em><\/strong>
O deep in my heart,<\/em><\/strong>
\u00a0I do believe<\/em><\/strong>
We shall overcome <\/em><\/strong>
one day.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the ravens flew
\u00a0away cawing loud
in an angry black cloud.
Brother George Floyd,
\u00a0watch out for me, when
I will meet you in heaven,
Keep me a comfortable nook
and I promise I will look
forward to share my ration
of the spoon full of water.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Asoka Weerasinghe 2 June 2020 (for Lowell, Nirmal and Chem) Just now a cloud of screaming black ravensflew over Minneapolis, perched on the leafless trellisof branchesof trees at the PowderhornCommunity and shed tears of bloodfrom their paining red eyesand I sighedO my brother GeorgeO my peopleIt was no more a faceless horrorthat got youit was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asoka-weerasinghe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103155\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}