Thursday, August 14, 2014

FERGUSON MISSOURI - AUGUST 2014

by Steve Lavigne





Every morning
     the electroejaculated goats
scream
     my wife texts me from work
          complaining
and on the twitter feeds and facebook posts
     Ferguson Missouri burns -
You don’t think supplying army (military) grade equipment
     to the police was unintentional do you?
That any conflict in the world between police and protest
     looks exactly like this?
That anyone taking pictures, especially reporters, recharging
     their equipment in the local McDonald’s
     wrenched from their seat, their head jammed against
     a cement wall by an ordinary lug saying oops
     before being taken in and arrested
     because they didn’t show their i.d. fast enough
You don’t really still think this is about race or
     race wars like the bigots and racists do, do you?
You don’t think the government had plans for this,
     their contingencies for “growing inequality” Can you say
     pharaohs and slaves, bitches? (No really, in mathematical terms
     you have to look at the modern world’s inequality in those terms
     or even larger)
That we live within a two tiered justice system
     that the effects of climate change have now been brutally calculated
You don’t think they’re worried
     that now the white shit, not just the brown and the black
     is starting to hit the fan
And you don’t think Ferguson Missouri is still
     just a small town in the middle of the country,
     do you?
What? you expect me to say that unless things
     change it’s your hometown next -
     it’s in your heart -
     it’s the whole damn world - boom?

maybe


Steve Lavigne runs a local poetry group in Champaign Illinois - cupoetry.com. It meets weekly to discuss, create and share poetry in order to build community through the power and practice of poetry.