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# "tell him we are yesterday" by Robert Gibbons
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/tell-him-we-are-yesterday-by-robert-gibbons/
- Published: 2014-12-04T17:03:23.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:43:45.000Z
- Description: Our poetry editor, Joe Pan, has selected a poem by Robert Gibbons for his series that brings original poetry to the screens of Hyperallergic readers.
- Author: Joe Pan
- Tags: Poetry, Hyperallergic Poetry, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:08 (2014, 2015, part 2)

*Our poetry editor, Joe Pan, has selected a poem by Robert Gibbons for* [*his series*](http://%20/) *that brings original poetry to the screens of Hyperallergic readers.*

\* \* \*

![Dread Scott performing "On the Impossibility of Freedom in a County Founded on Slavery and Genocide" under the Manhattan Bridge, October 2014 (photo by Hrag Vartanian/Hyperallergic)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/10/dsc_0881.jpg)

Dread Scott performing “On the Impossibility of Freedom in a County Founded on Slavery and Genocide” under the Manhattan Bridge, October 2014 (photo by Hrag Vartanian/Hyperallergic)

## tell him we are yesterday

“I say who will name this Renaissance; who go tug the elbow of Langston Hughes; tell him we are yesterday again to McKay and Cullen and Hurston Walker and Baldwin; we doin’ it again.”  
—Ruth Forman, *Renaissance*

we are under the experience  
of a renaissance  
a look back to move forward, a call of our being  
to sankofa, a shift, a brother and

the time unfavorable, the moon mops  
the floor with the blood  
our ancestors know this must be, so the way  
will be clear for generations, their fear  
and trembling, limitations unhinging  
a march, a call, a demonstration, open  
the dusty books, when we thought it  
acceptable, but this struggle  
is in motion, in perpetuity, under the influence

of the renaissance, a penance and a  
prayer, water hoses and dogs and Charles Moore  
and citizen councils are still here, the doors  
barred and locked and chained with  
changed names and generational curses

the influences are fear, as it shifts  
with the sunrises and inequality  
in droplets, the signs of executive order  
and disobedience, keeping us far from  
the goal, this renaissance, still fighting  
still to ignite the dream dreamers savor  
left behind in the foot holes and strong holds  
of power, with guard and police  
and suspension of disbelief, the markets  
of justice, graver, markers of James Chaney  
and Ruby Bridges, all the world in stitches  
tell them we are yesterday again

to explore we go back, to the ciphers, the  
pipelines crude and rude and bait them  
and rate them on a Pew scale, and tell them they  
made it, and we really have not cannot tend the ivy  
the ceiling, the towers, the power  
brokers funding the plantation

the renaissance has not patience but rations  
and pockets of redistribution, the pollution of street  
corners becomes mourner’s benches, teddy  
bears and libations, the flame inflames the tree stumps  
and rump of a back street, a hood  
a flood of mistrust, and musty dance halls the only  
place to feel at peace

tell them we are yesterday again, we are porters  
then barterers then carters  
carriers of the hate and decision of a dead president  
that led with executive order, fought  
alongside them

yesterday again while porters sleep  
on the backs of Plessy versus  
Ferguson, Dred and Coretta  
not all are free, until all are free  
come the judgment

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Robert Gibbons is a poet-performer living in New York City. His first collection of poetry, *Close to the Tree*, was published by Three Rooms Press in 2012\. Other credits include the *Black Earth Institute*, *Turtle Island Quarterly*, *Paragram*, *Deep Water Literary*, *Suisun Valley Review*, *Fruita Pulp*, and *Killer Whale Journal*. Information regarding his collection can be found at [www.threeroomspress.com](http://www.threeroomspress.com/?ref=hyperallergic.com).

*To submit poetry to Hyperallergic, email 3–5 poems to Joe Pan: poetry at hyperallergic dot com.*