Alagi Yorro Jallow: “I Can’t Breathe!!”

“I can’t breathe” George Floyd’s

Draws comparison to Eric Garner of New York

George Floyd and Eric Garner can’t breathe

Police officer Pantaleo chokehold Eric to death

Both murdered in police bestiality and racism

Police Officer Derek Chauvin, put his knee

And squeezed George Floyd’s neck

Slowly for 60 seconds,

Another 60 seconds

And then watch it kick its little legs,

And another long 60 seconds,

Until liquids would have come out

Of its little mouth.

And Derek Chauvin squeezed it some more,

Another 60 seconds. Derek squeezed it

Another slow 60 seconds

Until it would have gone limp.

Can you imagine the mind it takes to do that?

I didn’t. Never could.

George Floyd, the knee on his neck

And Eric put in a chokehold

In New York and In Minneapolis,

The savagery of their claws

Are still profoundly felt in the blighted pores

Of negroes and all peoples of color

Long dead may be racial segregation laws

But lives, their ghosts still haunt and devour

All over America intact still is the ugly picture

Of a police system so racially flawed.

However, no, to death was Eric and George floored.

Their nose was on the cold tar rubbed

Their face, against a hard surface, brushed.

Their neck, knee-pinned as he coughed

“I can’t breathe,” they yelled to all.

“My neck…stomach…everything hurts”.

They desperately sobbed and urged

Chauvinist Derek Chauv and Daniel Pantaleo

In refused to budge

Brandishing a grin implacably murderous

Arresting officers of the four killer-cops

Short in build, of Asian-American Blood

Kept a pacing watch, in sadistic pleasure

As Eric Gardner, “a lesser being” on the ladder of color.

Was being of his humanity and life robbed

For help dying Eric Garner called

As they struggled very hard to talk

Thirsty for water, he faintly called

Just like Jesus Christ did on the Cross

But the unyielding, applied arms and knee force

In the end, they broke their larynx and vocal cords

Mouth silent, eyes closed, consciousness lost

Both were pitilessly stretchered out of the world

The promise of equal treatment of all by law

The groans, the begging to breathe

Eric and George all painfully died