Bell bottom hip huggers
And my Frankenstein shoes
That had stack soles and heels
That I could only barely use.
A crop-top sleeveless tee shirt
With a superman emblem on it
And diamond ring on my hand.
In case I might have to pawn it.

Because we were picketing
Downtown at the City Hall
And at some police stations.
It was the seventies after all.
Our parents raised us to acquiesce
It was their America they protected.
And it was just exactly this blindness
That we, en masse, all rejected.

We failed to understand them
The generations that came before
That prized prejudice and bias
And celebrated sending us to war.
We felt there was another way
To go about sweeping social change.
We saw beating and fire hosing
As nefarious and more than strange.

We got beaten ourselves and jailed
For just pointing injustice out to them
And watched our sit-ins and love-ins
Turned into scenes of ****** mayhem.
We heard them call us all criminals,
Long haired ******* was a favored taunt.
It seems we were entitled to our opinions
As long as we didn’t chose to flaunt.

It felt so very much like **** Germany
Including storm troopers and jack boots
And the local politicians were obviously
At least agreeing if not in cahoots
With the police in their fear of rebellion
And protecting their good paying jobs.
So, they beat us and vilified the students
Calling them ***** communists, and slobs.

And, yes, some of us were getting high
Back in our homes and apartments.
Sometimes it seemed the only way
We could deal with the estrangement
Between what our country said it was
And what it turned out it really was.
It was hard to realize our land wasn’t free
And there was no social Santa Claus.

These words you speak
These words you spin
Have infinite meaning
A definitive substance
Inject my mind
Flipping the norm
Unravel all the lies
They fed to us


Unlock my mind, unwind my eyes
Take me out of this boxes, boxes
Erecting all around me
Untwist my tongue, deject my terms
Pull me out of the sinking crane
Piloting all around me

Who gives the ****?
Just give me a fact
All 7 billions souls unique
This linear life is meaningless
Fictions to act
One day I am frog the next a beauty

The mystery of the dark
All shrugged in blanks
They say its locked in your head
A crazy existence
Dehumanised to decay
The police can’t even help

To the starry eyes who wink in the night,
lurking over empty solitary roads--
groaning pleas locked in impalpable shackles.

I unsteadily balance fear and prayer--juggling them
over each bony knuckle protruding
from ghostly white skin.

As I anxiously pull the wheel,
spry eyes dance between the hungry road
and the speedometer...

I fear the patient embers waiting to ignite in the darkness--
shall the chariot of fire roar from the gates of Hell tonight?
(I feel the weight of earth's calamity and Man's eternal sinful nature

amass atop my vessel,
sagging through the invisible tier,
mashing me farther and farther
beneath the wheel--
til I'm grounded meat within the gritty boulevard.)

And the embers snicker and flicker in the shadows of the endless night;
they prey on my fear like red-eyed vultures perched on scraggly branches--hunched, crooked spindly necks
crane menacingly into my windowpane.

But you, oh winking eyes of innocence who silently approaches me,
dragging across the gravel path on ****** knees--you like the presence of God in the burning bush, and I the meek shepherd in the wilderness!

Your urgent warning comes to me,
eclipsed within a single gesture--
in the brief moment the road swallows you up in darkness
as you shyly close your humble eyes in sincerity.

(The embers they know not of your betrayal,
with your back erected sternly towards them.)

In that instant I hid my face from you
and removed my sandals to stand atop holy ground.

Darkness soon broke, as your eyes again opened,
and in its radiance, an irrevocable axiom:

It is when a person walks at night that they stumble,
for they have no light.

It was then that I saw the light;
and in doing so I weaved the vitriolic embers--
those desperately seeking my spark to their ignite.

The one friend I had has just been stabbed
Over something meaningless, petty and sad.
A life has just gone to waste
It has left the earth with all other than grace
What possesses one to commit such a heinous crime?
What choice, what idea, what thought will force this
man to do time?
I stare at the spot with a tear in my eye
Why is it you of all people that had to die?
My best friend, my brother, my partner in crime
I will always remember you, and I'll think about
you
all the time.

Revolt is not Riot
Appropriate reaction to state violence
80% unemployment for black youth
Poverty has its roots
In Slavery
Victims of death by ******
Unnatural
He did it himself they say
He died
His neck snapped
And broke the silence
Disturbed the peace
Inciting violence
Sparked Light
Of resistance
In the hearts and minds
Of the confined
And fear in the hearts of those who don't matter to mind
Modern lynchings
At the hands of police
And they call us thugs?
When we're killed for making eye contact
Or walking home from a store run
By maniacs with or without licensed guns
For having the nerve to shop in Walmart
Or playing with a toy gun
You know,
Cops and robbers?
But what happens when cops are now robbers of lives and justice in our communities
Then all too often they shift the narrative to you and me
Of why unemployed and underemployed thugs are stealing food from the grocery
Occupied like Syria and Iran
For failing to purchase
With dollars they don't have
In a store like CVS that is insured by the flag
How will order ever be restored?

Spy on us
Lie to us
Shatter our dreams
Betray our trust
Being good
Ain't good enough
Working hard
Won't earn u much
Thinking too much
Can leave u stuck
Detached
Alone as ****
Not thinking enough
Can leave u stuck
Out of place
Without touch
It all falls down
When the bubble busts

Not once but the number of stars on their shoulder
I wish miracles existed 'cause he'll never survive
Is this what is meant by laws being bolder?
Taking the life of a youngster holding just a knife?
Live ammunition shot by fatuous brains
Bury our bodies but our soul remains

Once, far away, Andalusia of time.
Was I, this dreamer, this student of crime.
Devouring textbooks with a gluttonous glee.
Of masters I conversed with, with lives like movies.
FBI-profilers, psychopathologists.

Faces carved from paleo-lithic stone.

The hearts of sailors betrayed by Triton.
Their ill-fitting suits an anarchists cry.

Oh blessed hearts long since buried in the plots,
of victims whose killers would never see man’s courts.
Who knew the world and hoped to teach I,
this fresh young prey with a predator’s eye.
This fresh young prey with a predator’s eye.

Sat I with the masters, in those secret little rooms
where the dead are shuffled to have chosen for them a grave.

And it’s never more real than when the beast sits still.
In the agonising ordinary glow of the halogen buzz
that shines on guilty and innocent alike.

To reduce us all to such pathetic things.

That if not for the debt, this creature’s crimes
one could pity being on such obscene display.
If it were not known to me, in great detail
the river of misery and depravity he had left in his wake.

As a mugshot robs the aura, so too the well lit room.

And I understood why it took a much colder mind.

As even though I possessed all the faculties which
could follow and track and trap the prey;
the predator must also ****.

And being in those secret little rooms
I knew I could not see it through.

I left it to those stronger than I
and leave my mark through other designs.

We come before you Almighty God,
Policeman, Fireman and EMT
to say a prayer before we go
Our ways to each his own Duty

Together now we've come to pray
In case we forget to
During our busy day

The Policeman steps forth,
“Dear God above
Keep us save
and also those we love.

We pray for your unending favor
that we never need use
the rounds we chamber

Our Vests that we wear
for our own protection
please keep 'em bullet proof
and our safety never question”

The Fireman steps up, and then takes a knee
“Dear God above I need you now
I know you're always watching me

In the Fires of our Hell
or on the highway to there
Please keep us from hurt
and not singe a single hair

Give us the strength to lift a wall
or tenderness to pick up a tiny child
give us peace when others are losing it
and peace if the scene starts getting wild”

The EMT takes his stand
“God I guess it's my turn
Not really safety out there
or the protection from a burn

But rather Lord I need your help
let me make the right decision
on every patient that I care for
Their lives in my hands I've been given”

Then all Three stand together
with their heads all bowed low
Dear God above, to all of us
please your mercy would you endow

Keep us safe and bring us home
to our wives and our children
And each time a truck roles out
let it come back safely to it's building

Violence--
that is the term we like to throw around
when two people are brawling out in the street
Violence--
is a domestic dispute between two ill crossed lovers
who no longer can see eye to eye
unless their eyes are swollen shut.

Violence is not a fleeing person
who has to run from their protectors.
When protection means ****
it's hard to find the difference
between police officer
and criminal.

We're not shouting for them to stop speeding bullets
or to be our guardian who shields us from all
our pleas are for a chance
to live freely and safely in the world.

For them to understand that bullets do not prevent problems
and hiding the truth under a tower of corpses
will never keep their blood from seeping into the ground.
The ground where  too many people lie
from their protectors protecting too much.