(Tammy Gomez, photos from [1] her website and [2] by Michael Nye)
Today’s poem you oughta know about if you don’t already comes from the amazingly prolific blender of arts and politics, Tammy Melody Gomez. We used to be KO.OP radio and WATER sisters, as well as poets on the Austin beat. Tammy energizes the muse in others as much as she creates her own, which is an incredible feat. Her website is at http://www.hyperweb.com/tammyg/gomez.html
MANSLAUGHTER
I heard it was homicide
on the homey side of town
(that's East Austin to you). But look around, it doesn't
really sound so implausible:
3 ingredients made it all possible:
you got a stereo, you got a woman, you got a fist?
Burt had all 3 and found a reason to
get pissed.
I heard it was manslaughter;
man's laughter in the distance:
"Huummmppphh--one less bitch in my life,
one more stat on the files."
I read how Burt made her hurt
multiple blows on multiple nights,
Her quote said, "I don't know how many times my head
flew from left to right, and right to left, and left to right.
But she finally used a knife on his face,
'cause it was either fight or flight, hit or run, strike or cower;
she rose up & showed him her self-defending power. (Not enough.)
Cause I heard it was manslaughter
man's laughter in the distance:
"Huummmppphh--one less bitch in my life,
one more stat on the files."
And, y'know she didn't call the police department
cuz she thought they'd drag her out the apartment and
carry her off to jail for putting off putting in
the mail the cash for her outstanding traffic tickets.
And the Austin American states that "Burt's a villain"
but some believe she triggered the killing,cuz a
good girl doesn't get all uptight, raisin' fists
to fight. But hell, both were doomed to lose; neither of them are white (shit!).
I heard it was manslaughter
man's laughter in the distance:
"Huummmppphh-one less bitch in my life,
one more stat on the files."
(And I believe) it was history that subdued this woman into silence:
We know how rarely cops will give protection from the violence--against Black victims
She was Black and so she flinched, thinking maybe she'd get lynched--in trouble for a lesser
crime,
she thought she'd have to do a little time,
even as Burt beat and beat and beat her.
Better that her man than the cops mistreat her (Right..?)
I heard it was manslaughter
man's laughter in the distance:
"Huummmppphh-one less bitch in my life,
one more stat on the files."
Tammy M. Gomez
Spring 1993
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