Buried Voices
The next generation
Is being plucked off one by one
On the streets, in schools and in prison
Little ones snuggled
In small coffins
Buried voices have many stories
Voices from down under
Have a lot to say but no one bother to listen
Buried voices speaking in harmony
They want their justice
Hunting the soulless
Young spirits creeping in the minds of the old and wary
Their hit list is endless
Years of abuse
Caught up And can't get loose
Black, young and disabled
Always been labeled
Home was not stable
Elders set in their ways
They want to lock us away
Can't teach old dogs new tricks
Christopher, Seth and Dion
Blacks disabled boys can't grow up to be Black disabled men
Buried in mainstream news
Buried in the community
Can't breath, can't hear, can't see
Layer after layer
Ism after ism
Wrapped up like a mummy
Buried voices are singing in the cemetery
voicing their short and painful history
Buried voices rising with the sun
Young disabled corps walking the earth
Talking back and heading north
Now everybody is scared
Running in fear
Cause judgment day is here
Parents, teachers and politicians
Listen to the voices
They demand your attention
Buried voices
Are always with me
They are in my head guiding my pen
I write with the blood of disabled youth
I'm their agent
Writing and speaking their messages
And they told me to tell you
Many are still in pain
Bullets and fists falling down on them like pouring rain
Poems can't bring them back from the dead
Do you hear that, buried voices want me to speak the raw truth
This poem wants you to think with your heart first then your head
The truth hurts
But it also heals
We need to get real
But I feel the tension
Every time I mention the reason
Why I wrote Buried Voices
Leroy Moore, "buried voices" from Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry, Vol. 6, Issue 3. Copyright © 2012 by Leroy Moore. Reprinted by permission of Leroy Moore.