#cages
This wasn't crowd control it was a deliberate calculated menacing attack on peaceful Hispanic protestors.
Protesting is not a crime
and these people were doing nothing violent or destructive.
( No I am not saying everyone involved remained non violent or non destructive during the entire fiasco.)
I AM saying those I witnessed in these circumstances were not.
What I saw was exhibitionist intimidation.
It was a clear message from Trump.
Violent ego theater designed to terrify any person thinking of standing up.
It was precise,
humiliating,
,and meant to demoralize .
We watched it.
We recorded it.
Felt the sick weight of knowing the people doing it could claim letter of the law while committing the spirit of state terror.
A pretty youngish Hispanic lady is holding a sign near a barricade. She has it in both hands . It's raised up above her head The sign talks about her child one of the at least 1,583 still missing CHILDREN
from Donald J. Trump's
first term in office.
She’s turned away from them, sign raised .
Cameras catch her from the side and back
watching, the whole thing clear and slow like a youtube livestream nightmare
shot on bad film.
Behind her, the line of riot gear armored officers, is losing their fraying patience. . They don't issue anymore orders
They don’t shout,
they don’t negotiate.
They aim.
The first canister screams and misses.
She hasn't seen it or was distracted.
The second and 3rd follow in rapid succession and it becomes clear they are aiming them directly at her .
She flinches at the sound but hasn't looked back to see the wall coming at her. ,
keeps her sign up,
trying to get the cameras’ eyes,
trying to show the world what’s happening.
Then they fire again, and again,
each cylinder a blunt instrument launched with the intention to harm.
Finally as they close the distance one projectile slams directly into the square middle of her lower back
with a thunderous, metallic oofing impact.
She goes down hard
Her fingers slacken on the white cardboard. The air fills with her black hair
the crowd starts screaming
burning, with the chemical cloud of so much tear gas.
It's broad daylight ,. It was quiet and almost peaceful.
Before she can gather her hands to push herself up
they assault her
wrap her hair in gloved fist and yank.
They are on her now in force screaming
tearing at her simple clothing
like they are hauling away and enraged animal.
They strike and pummel and shake her .
She gets roughly zip tied finally .
They drag her face down
across the pavement
then the asphalt.
Eyes blackening and swollen, tears and snot streaming
lips busted and bleeding
skin scraping,
She’s choking and bleeding with the stench of the gas in her lungs..
No mercy. No pause.
Just deliberate, humiliating force.
Nearby, a young man who was filming with his phone also had his back to them.
They suddenly surged forward into him
He lazily keeps moving away, half trying to comply with their order,
He sadistically becomes their next object lesson.
He steps slowly begrudgingly where they want,
they shout. "DISPERSE"
His slow shuffle It is not enough.
Their cadence shifts.
A group of head to toe armored officers in black surges forward like a practiced wave.
They grab him by the backpack,
not a gentle steer but an iron twist, spin him like a ragdoll, and slam him
face and neck into the concrete.
He is not resisting.
He is not fighting.
He is trying to obey what they demanded.
Still, they press his face into the ground and
rain down baton blows,
methodical and vicious,
each strike an angry , frustrated punctuation mark
in a sentence of punishment.
Other officers join in
more hold his limbs,
pinning him as if he is a dangerous beast.
The crowd screams. His phone disappears.
The cameras record.
It changes nothing.
They had been standing there, singing or holding signs, an entirely peaceable assembly. Someone said disperse. Many did not move fast enough, by the brutality squads
arbitrary unknowable clock.
The line stopped, then, without further warning just surged with no new... or additional
anything
The beaten and brutalized
only offense was
not being able to disappear instantly
on command.
That was enough to justify all this brutality.
of course there was so much more,
but haven't I more than made the point ?
This was before Donald Trump defied Governor Newsom and sent the Marines in as well.
The Marines !
Never before in history has that ever been done !
The mostly Mexican Hispanics and other immigrants had been told that I.C.E. had come into schools and beat up innocent teachers at their jobs
for being brown,
beat them in front of the kids
the screaming confused students
and then dragged them out in zip ties.
They were also told that agents were going to Home Depot s and tackling employees in the parking lot and dragging them away too.
No one knew what to believe other than ICE was there and their neighbors and employees were being disappeared again .
Like back in 2017 , 2018, and 2019
when their children were separated from them, never to be seen or heard from ever again. Not even till this day in 2025
At least 1583 kids in cages with nothing but foil blankets for comfort
JUST ... GONE !
Sep 19, 2025
Sep 19, 2025 at 11:19 PM UTC
My gibbet is a fine and private place
where a lady may tarry of a summer afternoon
elevated and untouchable--
an ideal love just out of reach
like fruit for Tantalus, all pointless sweetness.
Allen Ginsberg appears from out of the crowd,
pink as a schoolmarm, fat as a Christmas goose
carrying his harmonium
singing about plutonium,
barefoot as any angel, toking on the Golden Blunt.
He looks up, mistaking me for a caught kite
dangling above the street in my gibbet
making other women's children
point and cry
demanding candy or weather reports.
Someone climbs up and ties tin cans
to the bottom of my gibbet
in an atmosphere of giddy holiday.
I die and begin to stink
pieces falling away like confetti.
Here I sway to this very day, high above
the Emily Dickinson Parkway
a paragon of virtue and demure reserve,
dead as hell
black as a bowling ball
ring still on my finger, an ingenue of the afterlife,
until gentrification when they'll take me down
because gibbets are out, they're upsetting,
like poetry,
like dead dodos
like buskers in the subway, beautiful, buried, irrelevant.
_______
Jul 24, 2025
Jul 24, 2025 at 3:22 PM UTC
I
c//r//a\\ck\\ed
my
ribcage open
((because the love))
(((((my heart carries)))))
(((((((((((((((((grew it)))))))))))))))))))))
and now it
doesn't fit
any
more
Jun 14, 2025
Jun 14, 2025 at 8:36 AM UTC
next to the flat
the neighbourhood
tabby swatting at
the drain.
sinewed fur-lined,
feline; finding
some poor animal
in a cage
outside its making.
i can’t see
below the earth.
the poor thing,
fighting.
Dec 18, 2023
Dec 18, 2023 at 9:35 AM UTC
constantly
corrupting
correcting
correctness
combining
comparing
contrasting
canning
catastrophe
creating cages
claustrophobia
can't control
can't counter
can't contest
can't clean
can't cry,
can cry
cancel culture.
Dec 2, 2021
Dec 2, 2021 at 2:53 AM UTC
While daydreams reverberate
Off of blockade brains
We sit in wooden cages
Our painted faces
Plastered in melting windows
We watch pale skies
While waiting for rain
Or maybe the atom's apple
To break the monotony
Of thinking about the end
©KNL
Jul 8, 2021
Jul 8, 2021 at 12:22 AM UTC
Last night a young poet’s voice
tore so deep within
that it ripped my soul apart.....
Her words of birds and cages and gravity
and what human does to human
brought me back to wind swept hills
where the was sky blue enough to drown in
and vast enough to blanket all corners of the earth
where I, as a boy, worked and wandered
wandered through words
words spoken in telling
and words raged in rage
As I pulled the implements of grain through the soil
I learned to think
the dust I raised drifted across the land
bringing with it my thoughts
passed horizons, passed the hills
to distant lands
torn by the pains of love, of war, of loss
and
of what human does to human
His rage was the desperation of a soul shredded
by war
by what human does to human
he was caged
between what he had seen
and that he should still posses some hope
between witnessing the destruction of a world
and believing in a world
But deep within him I had always heard a voice
a voice buried deep beneath his rage
a voice..... he could no longer hear
but I
could always hear
“no matter how long I am caged
no matter how long the gravity of ignorance and hate,
the gravity of hubris and destruction binds and
holds down my soul,
I was alway meant to fly,
we were all....meant to fly....”
Jan 23, 2021
Jan 23, 2021 at 8:56 AM UTC
They say they savor my poetic rhymes
They say "bars!"
But plenty people 've got more bars than mine
My innocent cousin's upstate doing time
My neighbor's niece, pobrecita sleeps
In a cage for kids; She's only nine
My great grandma's in the hood, first floor
Bars blanketing her windows and her doors
Peep! plenty people've got more bars than mine
Meanwhile our nation's on its ninth bottle
Building more bars, so we will ALL drown our sorrows
'Cause of colorful communities countrywide, whispering:
"Hush Baby, don't you cry;
Say 'yes, Sir,' and comply."
"I have a dream-if-I
Simply show 'em how we sing-ify,
Sacrifice, and speechify,
Maybe they'll realize..."
We can't break the bars trapping our cries
In these cells alive
Until they break the bigoted bars trapping their minds
In those braincells of lies!
Hold it! Wait while I rewind
Imma
Erase and
Retrace
My rhyme's third line:
I say plenty people've got more bars than minds!
Plus many ***** minds mastermind more bars than mine!
Which is why...
My innocent cousin's upstate doing time
My neighbor's niece, pobrecita sleeps
In a cage for kids, she's only nine
My great grandma's in the hood, first floor
Bars blanketing her windows and her doors
...Bars!
~@peacocksecretspoetry
Dec 16, 2020
Dec 16, 2020 at 2:15 AM UTC
created by Mortals, or simply
an act of the mind.
generated by intentions dark,
entered by the unaware and made to
shackle Monsters.
Jul 20, 2020
Jul 20, 2020 at 11:31 PM UTC
In a dream,
I see the raven
fly into the night;
his dark song beckoning
from his beak.
Shiny black wings promise
flight,
but to where?
I watch as the
pair of doves bellow
their songs of love
and with a rush of
angels wings
fly heavenward.
I hear the
bluebirds and
sparrows little hum of
hope fade softly into
the afternoon sun,
and I wonder,
what does it all mean?
Then I see them, and
many other kinds of
birds, with beautiful bright
colors,
Parakeets and parrots,
eagles and herons...even
a dodo and they are
all rotting in cages.
Some of the cages are
open,
others are closed,
but all the birds are
lying on their sides,
sad dead eyes,
staring blankly,
finished and flightless.
and I get it.
May 5, 2020
May 5, 2020 at 11:22 PM UTC
The grim face of chaos
sets in as the world gets
chained to the cacophony.
Speech of silence is unknown,
The silent tortured in their mental cages.
Apr 8, 2020
Apr 8, 2020 at 3:13 AM UTC
Dispensing Keys
by Hafiz aka Hafez
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
The imbecile
constructs cages
for everyone he knows,
while the sage
(who has to duck his head
whenever the moon glows)
keeps dispensing keys
all night long
to the beautiful, rowdy,
prison gang.
Keywords/Tags: Hafiz, Hafez, translation, imbecile, cages, sage, duck, head, moon, keys, night, prison, gang, prisoners, inmates, felons
Apr 1, 2020
Apr 1, 2020 at 2:33 AM UTC
How strange a tide… apathetic to its core.
Novichok in the system — we’ve already hit the floor.
Not without warning for the interested few.
Sure, indigo on the spectrum, but black in our view.
Our prophets are wary, lamenting for the lot.
The glass thicker than ever: they’re forced to watch them rot.
Let’s not dilute it over biscuits and tea.
We’re addicted to passion; it drains both you and me.
Quit cold turkey; we’ll wither and die within the week.
We blew past the sabbath; so muddle on and be meek.
Telephone the skies, but the network is full:
We put off the harvest — our calls all but null.
“Don’t think just breathe and wait for the pull of the plug.”
There’s a way, truth, and life; but deafness is the most popular drug.
Our water is muddy; the dolls’ overjoyed.
Reject all the falsehoods; their eyes shimmer from the void.
I’m here to remind you there’s more than you think.
Dead end paths are common; they want you to sink.
Exist behind ego and you’ll miss the horizon.
Perspective’s a gift if you’re looking to wisen.
Races aren’t games for an aspiring professional.
Throw out your excuses you don’t need a confessional.
There’s anguish in the conviction; you’ll be forced to commit.
But sleep-walking is pervasive; few actually submit.
Nov 28, 2019
Nov 28, 2019 at 1:41 PM UTC
I am encased in oppressive flesh,
Tissues that restrict my transcendent nature.
If it weren’t for this burdensome cage
I’d evaporate and roll over the city with the clouds.
Nov 16, 2019
Nov 16, 2019 at 4:27 PM UTC
This wicked world,
Is where I grew up.
Hated the crowd,
But I don't give up.
People stab me right in the heart,
And act like they are hurt.
Feeling this for ages,
Been living in the cages.
Jun 29, 2019
Jun 29, 2019 at 2:22 AM UTC
Your mind is confined in cages built by your own insecurities.
Jun 19, 2019
Jun 19, 2019 at 1:36 AM UTC
Hearts are wild creatures. They don't do well with rules and are rarely willing to compromise. They are illogical in what they feel. The emotions they bear are quite intense. They break easily, but can be difficult to unearth. They can be gentle, compassionate, understanding, comforting, and delicate. Other times, a raging storm, burning with passion, aggressive, cold, and unforgiving. The emotions wage war and can be deadly. Maybe this is why hearts are kept in cages
Dec 9, 2018
Dec 9, 2018 at 10:37 AM UTC
Dark curly hair, swirling brown eyes, flawless face, perfect features.
It was beautiful.
But like all beautiful creatures it was caged and tormented.
Tested and abused.
Till finally it was internally broken and scared.
Now it’s considered normal.
Jan 13, 2019
Jan 13, 2019 at 9:41 PM UTC
oh, little ones
if I could build you a worthy city
to keep you safe and dreaming
I would crush the hope I had left
into a powder,
mix it
with all the things we grown couldn't be
and lay the slurry out to set,
harden it with sun and air
not hate
forming a foundation
where futures could be built
oh,
but my tools have no power
I dented them in fury and shorted them in tears
before they could be used to build
oh, little ones
if ever I find safety in this homeless land
I'll wrap you in it
in a heartbeat
Sep 16, 2018
Sep 16, 2018 at 11:24 PM UTC
Do you hear them too? he asked.
the soft whispers of the abandoned
the musings of a memory long forgotten
the promise of a hope that’s yet to come.
Do you hear that wailing?
the sound of shattering dreams
tearing the skin, marking its presence
another drop in the ocean, another scream.
Walk away from it all, leave it behind
this is not a place one should visit
but how far can you go away
when it is your prison, you are in it.
The sunlight passing through is a lie
fettered to the sky, like you and your bars
close your eyes, but the wailing doesn’t stop
cut everything out, but that feeling won’t pass.
The strange fear in your heart will grow
choking, till you breathe in that pain
till you open those eyes and see
the misery that this life is the new mundane.
Look back and remember the past
Were you ever free? Ever able to fly?
If you were, would you just be like Icarus?
Shot down, with no one to hear your cry?
With each passing moment, the fetters will grow
till you forget what they really were for
with each passing moment, the cage will shrink
till you forget what you had lived for.
The Garden of Eden was never the truth
a memory simply woven out of sand
when the sea of time had waited enough
the tides washed away the promised land.
Jun 26, 2018
Jun 26, 2018 at 4:36 AM UTC
though speaking is forbidden
thoughts are not
though love must be hidden
it is they who call the shots
we get no choice
no voice
no freedom
to do what we want
and where
they all preach freedom
they all claim equality
but where is freedom when you're bound by restraints
where is equality when you're shunned by your race
you can't change your heart, your mind, your path
you can't change your sad, your happy, your wrath
when it all comes down to it
it is up to them
what you do
when you do it
and where
you can't spin around and twirl in your favorite dress
for there are restraints and that's disrespect
you can't laugh aloud and smile real big
for there are restraints and that's completely rigged
restraints, restraints
i want you to be no more
my heart is bleeding from the label: you *****
my body is sore,
let me go
let me free
i want to soar like the birds above the trees
spread my wings and fly real high
if i falter, i'll just have to try
again and again until i get things right
i'll never stop, no not out of fright
i wont give up without a fight
all i want is to be free
to say goodbye to restraints
hello to the breeze
but that's not okay is it?
to want to be me
rules and regulations
they rule this world
society itself is a huge firebird
that plows through the cities,
fire on its wings
burning through the houses and girls' confidence
society is cruel, no not fair nor just
there is no freedom of speech or rights
restraints they are there
forever in a day
they tell you what to do
and they tell you what to say
and if you rebel
punishment will come your way
they take away your little freedom and send you into dispair
so you must play their games and deal with the rules
just count down the days until you can absolve into a big crowd and say goodbye
to this life you once lived with no freedom or life
one day their restraints will no longer contain you
you will be a bird in a cage with the door wide open
so wait little birdie
keep your strength hidden away
for one day you'll spread your wings and set to the sky
away and away from this terrible life
full of restraints,
no voice
no choice
no freedom
wait little bird
for your day to be free
May 22, 2018
May 22, 2018 at 10:50 AM UTC
I*nside the cages
The freedom
is the heaven
In the chains
any change
is welcome
The outside prison
is calling out to you
the invisible chains
binding everyone on earth
who go up, are falling down
it is just like what is in this home
Still the ravens are up
true to their wing
and we are in a place
to go nowhere
Yearning to feel
to breathe the fresh air
get an experience
to be unbound
get the heartbeats
to beat back to the music
The time when all
the shackles are broken
The time spins
and we have nowhere to go
but we run
towards the sun
But we can't fly*.
Apr 15, 2018
Apr 15, 2018 at 3:53 AM UTC
"Would you look at
all these free souls
carrying their cages
wherever they go?"
People are free. their minds free. their speech free. free from slavery. free. but are they truly, free? They have built cages for themselves. They never want to come out of them. We pray to God. unquestionably. unfailingly. but why do we fail to question the real reason why we pray to God? why are we searching for him in statues and people when we know he left this place a long time ago? and if he didn't leave, why do we celebrate what he created and not question what he destroyed? why do we fight to save someone we can't see or feel against the very people he created?
Until people come out of the cages, we may never get the answer to these questions.
Mar 2, 2018
Mar 2, 2018 at 10:24 AM UTC