Sleight of Hand
Donald Trump’s imprisoned former campaign chairman,
released to home confinement for the rest of his sentence
amid concerns that he could contract the coronavirus.—NBC News
Used to be a simple planting of 8.5 ozs
or the “discovery” of 5 plants in KY
turned a trumped-up possession
into trafficking, multiplied by X
if within 1000 yards of a school, church
or park, though everywhere in the hood
is across the street from a house of worship,
and within ten football fields of a school,
though rarely anywhere near a park.
Black lives don’t seem to matter when it comes
to stops and searches, arrests, prosecutions
and pleas, trials, and life without parole
sentencing.
Even before body cameras, that often forget
to turn themselves on when officers
are already titillated over a falling
or somehow swinging black body
fat cats and wrong-doers with friends
in high places were being released
to home imprisonment
in mansions and condominiums
while Bubba and Tyrell serve out everyday
of their 5-10 years for felony possession
of a substance that is legal in 11 states.
The Walking Dead
Week one,
you heard it was a hoax.
Week two,
they took your venti latte
with extra something or other.
Week three,
you left the room
without a phone
in your hand
—and survived.
Silver Linings
remembering you actually like
your family, love your partner
and being outdoors barefooted
finishing the unread stack of books,
cooking without using a microwave,
and writing letters longhand
noticing that watching, listening,
or playing in the rain feels
the exact opposite as driving in it
meeting the old you, the cloud-watching
wannabe gardener, before time clocks
and hurry, bills and worry made you
a prisoner, took your life hostage,
replaced it with cable,
a big screen, and a remote control
Fake News?
Conservative Court
Justices Vote Remotely
To Deny Wisconsonites
Right To Vote Remotely
Evangelicals Attending
White House Easter Egg
Hunt Witness Resurrection
of White Chocolate Jesus
According to Fox News, one
of these headlines is not true.
Combustibles
after Amiri Baraka
Who already sick and tired
of the planned new normal?
Who want change, now?
Who demand justice?
Who know they lives matter?
Who die the most
at the hands of cops?
Who speak riot?
Who “loot” and be made to look
less righteous?
Who set police cars on fire?
Who grieve with bricks
and water bottles and fire?
Who eat pepper spray,
flash bangs, and tear gas?
Who say fuck the police
and they curfew?
Who burn the Target
and the precinct down?
Who ready to be
the next hashtag?
Like Moby-Dick, but Bigger
If the Donald is indeed
this young century’s Ahab
singularly focused
on his great white self,
let people, united
be the shining sea
rising up to drown him out,
let Corona be the harpoon
that finally drags his
blubbery superego
to the surface,
let his willingness
to let so many die
for corporate profits
wash him overboard
in November.
return to poetry home