You found friction,
when so many told you
to slip down with them.

You were the safety
to a gun-wielding chorus screaming:
"Fire!"

Shoved from the Fourth
you fought to protect,
to being snowed-in,
half a hemisphere away
from the coconuts
and palm trees you fled.

Hotel room to hotel room,
the flesh from your skin dissolves,
piece by piece —
like a nation's artifacts.

Resigned to watching
a comedian's suicide
trend on Twitter —
an individual who made it easier
to laugh and forget the words:
"Liberty and Justice for All."

You should grimace.
Silenced. Snowed-in.
Unable to even say,
"America — please shovel me out."

in a stand
your ground
open carry
libertarian
paradise

Miami Gardens,
the capitol of
stop and frisk
looms as the
shape of things
to come

it doesn't
happen
all at once

it stealthily
creeps into
once wholesome
homesteads

it arrives
emaciated
always starved
for more

stark stiletto eyes
suspiciously stare
piercing
confused
frowns
worn by
flummoxed
citizens
unable to
gaze away the
maleficent days

seemingly
beginning in
innocuous
ways

they
build walls
to keep
"the other"
out

firming
conformity
to the ways
within

deep
foundations
of rigid status
quo pillars
sacrosanct

differentiation
verboten

diversity breeds
suspicion

conversations
eavesdropped

big data ears
ever listening
to between
the lines words

small talk
meta data
indexed and
algoed

down beat
utterances
classified
state secrets

certain books
are forbidden

artists condemned
art destroyed

ideas censored
shut down by
corporate
governance
social network
posting rules
and best practice
marketing
metrics

dissent
shouted down
by xenophobic
#ammosexual
group think
yahoos

in blind allegiance
to commands
of Citizen Inc
politicians
enable
a juggernaut
to roll across
the globe
fracking
to bits
anything
obstructing
its path

science is
false

history
suspicious

revisionism erases
biographical memory
we forgot how
we arrived
at this place

The History Channel
flickers cartoons
of multicolored
allegories onto
the dark walls
of our video
addicted minds
offering sweet
relief of a new
commercial fix

pandered opinion
is trafficked
as fact

inculcating
confirmation of a
stasis affirming
echo chamber

real time news
rubber stamps
the prevailing
zeitgeist of
the daily dread
a visceral
confirmation
of the World
Series Hunger
Games

communities
compel
residents
to swear
allegiance
to tribal creeds
that debase
humanity

religious precepts
shutters spirituality
with sanctioned
indoctrination
designed to
undermine an
ability to reason

ethical discernment
is arrested by moral
bifurcation

the marginalized
are criminalized

land of
the free prisons
promoted
as growth
industries
auction off
bill of rights
on low bid
altars of
profitability

a perpetual
state of warfare
marshals frenzied
legions of fear

as casualties
mount the
march of
militarization is
the only known balm
to salve the terror
welling deep within
afflicted hearts

the sun rises
on another day
in Miami Gardens
as the next shift
of police roll
through this
kingdom
of perps

Music Selection;
Dizzy Gillespie
Things to Come

6/5/14
Oakland
jbm


Miami Gardens;
Capitol of Stop and Frisk