Star Spangled (what?)
It’s time to pick a side
(& the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air)
Someone said they shouldn’t have been there
(gave proof through the night, that)
Shouldn’t have been there, knee to neck
Shouldn’t have been, tear gas & flare
Shouldn’t have, knocked down head open & split
Sides picked in the havoc of spit
& fake twenty dollar bills, someone shouldn’t have been
There killed, someone who shouldn’t have been there
Stoking rage, black bible in hand upside down
(on the shore, dimly seen through the mist of the deep)
(where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes)
In dread silence
In dead silence
In dead
Someone shouldn’t have
Been there.
Run Fast Comrade
Run fast. The old world
is behind you. Corona
knocking on the front door.
Trump lye-ing out back.
Run fast comrade, run fast.
Strapped Up (too)
It’s come to this COVID
Bullets & bazooka guns
riding bare back in the
land of the free. Whose
back? Who’s free?
Strapped Up
It’s come to this COVID
the beach or bust (your hold on us)
Liberty civil or not
sick of your choke hold, we’re
strapping up, bracing
for the best, expecting
the worst. Get over
(yourself) Sit your ass
down.
Raging Riffs
James Panera’s review of the exhibition entitled “Riffs and Relations: African American Artists and the European Modernist Tradition” at the Phillips Collection is an interesting read if you like intellectual musings and “disses” by arm chair critics on derivative (blk) art – see comments. Sad to read (but not too surprised) that MAGA land and the white aggrieved can’t take a “high fa-lutt-en” pun. https://www.wsj.com/articles/riffs-and-relations-african-american-artists-and-the-european-modernist-tradition-review-intriguing-history-hits-a-sour-note-11584391554?shareToken=st2194824728e14eb5b2b7bbab11259a1c
Shred
I hold anger
in hand
paper shreds
bits of this & that
get the vacuum
suck then
toss calamity
like tissues & phlegm
Awake
Morshawn dreamed
himself awake
flowers in porcelain
toilets & tubs clogged
fair warning
something was happening
Flip Turn
mixed media
If it weren’t for pop-ups, run-away-ascents, I’d be diving instead of speculating fictive rhyme schemes (abababcc).
Surfacing
I’m re-entering Surfacing. Free diving – the extreme sport. Epic poem as metaphor. Really ready to reenter where it began. Flicking away the pretend – afraid to lose consciousness during this ascent. Rhyme scheme ottva rima (abababcc).