From his balcony above a man watches down on a little town in Missouri,  
he pinpoints a bleak silver container as it slingshots into the darkening shadows above.

It yells to him,
"help, get me out of this awful place."
A trial of slate grey smoke follows the container as if it were it's overly attached mother and within a second pulls it back down into the atmosphere.
After descending the container skids across a schoolyard, rolls off the sidewalk and crakes into minuscule pieces.
From the cracks tear gas spills out in all directions covering the once quiet little down in terror, relinquishing it of any tranquility that remained.

The man on the balcony sits and observes the events that have unfolded.
From his perch he can not tell black from white.
He can not tell man from women.
Turban from top hat,
child from elder.
he can not see if interlocked hands declaring their love and denouncing death that blares from police megaphones, are hetero
or ****.
He can not see who's pride is enflamed by blue uniforms
or who's mouth's are covered by dew rags to prevent themselves from speaking a death sentence.

The gas covers it all.

He can only hear footsteps running away,
guns shots following the footsteps,
and unfinished prayers as bodies stain the side walk.

In this moment,
the chess game of life becomes not black versus white
but human versus human.
And the man wonders, from his balcony above,
why it must take weapons that destroy equality,
to make us see each other as equal.

I remember the sound of her scream.
Echoing like the sound nails make
when scratched against a chalkboard.
I remember the smell of her blood.
Smelling like her last drop of life left.
I remember the way her hand trembled...
as she pleaded me not to throw another punch, with her hands raised and shaking like those of a man's suffering from Parkinson's.
I remember the way her son watched.
His eyes growing tears,
only fifteen,
but his hands were stained by the blood of his mother
with his death like plea,
to let his mother flee,
because her breath was starting to grow thin.
I remember.
The way her olive skinned face felt pressed against my bullet proof shield
and how her gentle hands wrapped around my wrists,
hoping for me to feel the humanity slipping from her finger tips.
I remember how she never showed aggression.
How the only hand she raised before mine,
had *******,
reminding me why she was here.

Of course Michael
Brown
But we livin' a post racial society

Keep close enough to them,
That they cannot throw their gas;
Always run against the wind,
The pain too shall pass;
Once you've come into contact,
Rinse with milk and never water.
Keep fighting for your basic rights,
Keep fighting for Micheals slaughter;
You've thrown open the police force,
Now the world has to inspect,
So to Ferguson with all my love,
To Ferguson with all my respect...

I have the portable blues;
chained to the screen
or else out on my knees,
looking for that whiskey shot,
or the next new-age way
of getting high.
I tie my shoes,
walk away from the evening news;
an outsider looking in
on the rhythm and blues,
the irregular heartbeat
of looted city streets,
and the army knocking
on every front door.

They're selling Coca Cola
for half the price of running water.
Close the borders,
regulate the ******
and lock up your daughters,
to save the ****** from temptation,
and politicians from scandal.
There are vandals
sending misinformation
to a nation of eaters and sleepers,
fair-weather preachers claiming cures
for cancer, toothache, and weight
gained through the menopause.

Let's whitewash the wall,
whitewash the streets;
dreams of white faces,
white people,
and white snow at Christmas.
You can send laminate cards
of ghost-written love
to every person that you meet.

I take my writing to the coffee shop.
Surrounded by books,
it is the only place left untouched
by the angry mob.
They are looking for that
advertised freedom,
running away in those
brand new sneakers,
popping pills and stealing tablets
to replace their food,
to light up the room,
and heat their child,
still sleeping in the womb.

And then the newspapers come
to doctor a sight,
to write-off rubber bullets
as a pinball machine,
a Whoopee Cushion intervention
against the unwashed masses.
They're growing lazy on benefits,
cutting school,
shooting pool
in broken bars:
the virulent, violent
lower classes.

The church choir pretends to sing,
heads bowed in prayer
for an incoming message,
a silent ring
from their half-stalked lover
who is drinking white wine
in paradise
and rolling the dice
of couch-surfing travel,
leaving a trail of half-written blogs,
and photographs of
every single meal.

I hear you can rent a folk-singer,
string him up
like a marionette,
watch him hang himself
with his guitar strings;
his five-day stubble
and Four Winds rings
ready for auction
at the next B-list convention.
There are black men
on Fox News, smiling, fat,
and drunk on the price
of their suits.

They are blaming colour,
religious fervour, and foreign lands,
for the turning sands
in the timer, as more brothers
slip through society,
crushed by the weight
of ***** and drugs,
and those that follow behind them.
They refuse to bite
the white hand that feeds,
that threatens
to exclude them
from the excursions of oil
and Monsanto seeds.

The summer ended
with Parkinson's and wine,
an ill-timed suicide
of a laughing face
and crinkled eyes.
No tide can be turned,
only bridges burned,
and yet still brothers converge
to sing a verse
of improbable change,
and poetry in silence;
an antelope bounding
across the shooting range,
hopping a fence,
and dodging a bullet,
in the hope of a friend,
a better tomorrow;
a safe place to mend
beyond all of this sorrow.