Can you outrun the history
Of violence and oppression

If you felt every inch of terror
That was birthed from the bombs
Every bit of anguish and loss
If you paid the same wages of war
Then maybe you to would see
The inhumanity of drones

If your stomach growled
With a pain so deep
And you could not sleep
Because of the fears you keep
Maybe you would not stand
For this poverty

If every bullet hole
Cut partly into your skin
Leaving painful impressions
If the nightsticks bludgeoned
Your beloved
And you watched your oppressors
Armor up for in house war
Maybe you would abhor
Police brutality

If the circle of kinship
Surrounded more than just this
Small social club you claim
Then maybe the pain
Of others would touch you
Something as of late
It has failed to do
Maybe you could use
A little empathy

I am not a sentimental man but
I remember the tallness of some relatives ceiling and the lights around the table where they sat.
I remember the other, squat ceiling where we lined up and my grandmother cried and in the next room there was body laid out.

It is 7pm and my uncle is giving me birthday money.
It is 3am and he's screaming, pepper spraying a man in handcuffs.
In the same way I'll walk home and see them waving their nightsticks and the boy on the corner with his head leaking.
I'll take a different route home and forget it by that evening. Later I'll suddenly remember it forever.
But I am not a sentimental man.

The thousandth breath
Murmurs within mirrors
Revealing the magic behind
The red velvet curtain

Seeing these ancestors with these jobs
Just like ours
Were just as miserable
As we are now

Some troubles don't change

Exhaling to escape the questions
Of fabrications bent for denial
We are our own creations
Watch as the movie reel turns
Only for our selfish souls

Chicken **** blood streaming in me
These are the *** marked memories of
The former man I see every now and again

He smiles and I smile
And I laugh and He laughs
And we remember ourselves, together once,
As we pause and look into the wind

These nests
They are heated from
Underneath
I trail along
See the sights
Breathe the air
Eat the food
Relish in the spirit of the towns
Stranger's faces like the
Bottom of scratched nickel's, clicking
Their tongues for reasons of judgement
They were born with

Aching
We see the night
Watchmen **** the innocent
With nightsticks

The moon trickling its brilliant crying light
Upon the damning landscape
Painted with what we've learned to accept

Ten years

Eight minutes

Three seconds

We are beckoned
To live frequent
Belligerent lives
Swinging twisted fists
Screaming in silence
Taking every drop of
Blood to the bank

Building up the fire

For the long
Cold

Winter

I am sorry,
but do not
bother comforting me.

I am crying right now
but you will not read
this poem for many weeks
after this sadness
has passed.

These are not tears
of self-pity.
The water works
are because it hurts
to see others get hurt.

This isn’t a woe is me
small set of verses
for people to see.
This is saltwater anguish
as I watch others suffering.
This is outrage
at the outright inhuman displays
that these authoritarians play
as they spray mace
in a little child’s face
while her mother is
looking the other way.

This is a tongue held so often
that my own words
can no longer soften
this brutal reality.

This is my shame,
cause I claim
to be a good person
but I am not out on the street
with other protesters
cutting my teeth
letting cops bludgeoning me
with their nightsticks.

This palace is not meant for boys, no place for toys where thy young and free minded may roam!!
Just anger stacked upon years, dream turned to fears,
Where thy counties finest are booked into every room.
No hotel mantra here,
Just walkways ,
No grass to be stepped upon!!!
All windows to be looked out on rainy and Sunshine's missed days!!!
Open thine eyes young inmate soldier,
You might misseth the marijuana extorted haze!!!!

Drug infested ways at its final content,
All stories told,
Some middle aged,
Young and old,
All money talks to pay thy hellish rent!!!

Murderees seemeth to smile here,
Sometimes even a grin!
Laughter still goes far beyond these white laced bars ,
Now its you who pays for sin!!!!

Grey boxes to keep thy finest of goods,
Nightsticks to giveth you good beatings on every corner,
Some fools get aroused, while others cry misunderstood!!!!

Surely medicate thineself here all you will,
Dining will delute you,
The speech here will pollute you,
From your own self ,
Thou might be killed!!!

Self will,

Doth thy have it old time crook?

No watery brooks awaiting us for now,


Freedom is there , I smell it!!
I taste its share,
We all will strive to fight this government stained beast!!!!

We will be free!!!!
We will once again be free...........

What does it mean
When I scream in the darkness
Place my face firmly
Into my pillow
So no one will know
That I am crying with
Rage and sorrow
How do those two emotions mix
When I see nightsticks
Used against the innocent
When bullets blaze
Not graze or stun
But ****** our young
And they are our young
Every white, black, yellow one
Is our young
This is our world
Where atrocities occurs
Ocean’s distance from here
Where fear rules
Where violence
Never ends
And bends mankind
To horrible contortions
Where squads of Russians
Hunt the LGBTQ
What if it was you
What if it was someone you knew
Eyes tightly clenched
I scream
While tears keep flowing
Still knowing
That another tragedy
Will be stacked upon
The one I just read about

I don’t want to write,
a flicker of candlelight
that dies before it ever
gets the chance to
burn bright.

Hands held high
I don’t want to see
Black Lives Matter protesters
stand up in time
to take tear gas
and nightsticks
to their soft backs.

I don’t want to hear
the heartbreaking sound
of a once proud man
brought down to his knees
as he sits in a hospital
and cries and pleas
for strangers to see
the cost of his
masklesss mistake.

I don’t want to realize
that a lot of friendly guys
that I have known
just go with the flow
and don’t care to know
about the horrors
that keep happening.

I don’t want bombs to fall,
grown adults to call
the cops when they know,
it could get a kid
shot, or
that rich people make a killing
padding the pockets
of the people making rockets.

Right now, I don’t want to
admit to all of you
my lists of things
I don’t want
keeps coming true.