Why so much violence
Why can't we find peace
Why are you protesting
causing so much destruction
is that really better ?
Breaking windows
spraying hate upon
these walls
Your destroying
people's lives
your turning our
city into a ugly ****** up
mess
How does that get your message across ?
Grow the **** up
and look up protesting
see it's meaning are you reading the meaning ?
It's about using your voice and standing up
Your all acting like brats
hurting others
acting like bullies
that's not protesting
your not getting attention
Your getting us *******
I hope you get to feel the
damage your causing
You belong in a cell
Where you can't destroy
and steal and throw
temper tantrums
Where you can't spread
your ugliness
and we can find peace
and find our way ahead
It has to stop
your not proving anything
I know you must be stopped
it has to end
it's no longer about
race or hate
It's about adults who are
acting like children
You need to learn
the meaning
of protesting
You need to build others
up and help people see
there is a way forward
So stop just stop
We can handle this
You need to be taught
a lesson and karma
will handle you soon
I just hope sooner
not later
© Jennifer L DeLong 🦏
4/17/2021

Someone whispers to him “calm your heart,” but the crimson streaked flesh that beats soft wet palpitations hastens his impatience to face what’s coming. He has no armor or weapon only the determination to do what is right.
      Four chambers are thudding like the boots a coming. Men in black garbs marching with fully loaded chambers, clear plastic shields up, and black sticks ready to bludgeon. Their anger is oppositional to their opponent’s fog of fear, fatigue, and determination.

“Breath my child,” a gentle voice says. A sharp pain pierces on the back of his head. A thin line begins to ride down his neck. Someone yells “get down!”
One row of men raise their hands, eyes turned upward. The soft voice in his head says” be strong.”
Billows of grey smoke spew from a black canister. Strangers and familiars choke and gasp, eyes watering. Dreams of a bygone era play out in his mind. A tall thin brown sweaty woman smiles, moving down the road while singing we shall overcome. Dogs snap viscously at her compatriots. A fire pushes her siblings back with skin scraping pressure. A few of them fall, and couple falter in the struggle but most keep marching. Her brother, who is tall slightly bulky but wears the well-earned muscles of a man who labored hard all his life, clenches his fists, preparing to strike. She pulls him back. “Be strong, and gentle baby brother.”

They continue to sing “We shall overcome.”

       In his mind the young man sees his mother smiling, saying “"Be calm, saith my heart. I am a warrior. I have seen far worse than this." He smiles through the pain stands up and chants “Hands up don’t shoot. Hands up don’t shoot.” Another brother rises behind him yelling “Black lives matter. Black lives matter.” A thin nerdy pale white guy cries we shall overcome, not in a singing tone, but it still rings beautifully. The struggle continues.

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.