each day brings more frightening imagery
compounding hate and bigotry, free press
humanity cannot survive under such duress
the wall writings tell a simple tale needing to be heeded
there is no winning a race war on American soil –
blacks attacked will eventually fight back
and tear down any vestige of the status quo
leaving those of us with fair pigmentation
to bake and rot in the late summer sun
this, of course, barely placates the new power –
too far gone down paths of racial injustice
has America travelled to tout itself as the land of the free
from mistreated natives, land stolen and treaties broken
the poor Japanese citizens placed in concentration camps
more than two-hundred fifty years of my country
abusing, cheating, prostituting, and disenfranchising
the men and women who built the nation that hates them –
I find myself with a growing concern regarding our direction
daily, news outlets give fuel to the most dangerous of fires
working with super-human diligence and verve
they impart violent propaganda to impressionable children
babies with access to bullets, beaten, battered, and beneath
the lines of poverty so prevalent within this culture –
I sit at a dinosaur click-clacking away
behind the glass patrician, inmates of every walk
all quietly working, pencil to paper
fourteen testers with no common heritage
working together for the goal of their education
it is here, in the penitentiary, I see what hope looks like –