TheNewVerse.News : MEN OF COLOR

Friday, June 05, 2015

MEN OF COLOR

by Phyllis Wax

Prison has replaced the plantation

Pick him up for loitering
Handcuff him for a driving offense
Jail him when he can’t pay his fine
Harass, kick ass so he knows his place

Young men rant in solitary
Molder for penny-ante crimes
Or felonies they didn’t commit
In private prisons
Profitable enterprises
The public chooses not to see

The bullet has replaced the rope

New York, Saginaw
North Charleston, Cleveland
Sanford, Milwaukee

Amidou Diallo, Trayvon Martin
Walter Scott, Dontre Hamilton
Tamir Rice, Milton Hall

Black bodies in their own foyers
Chalked on sidewalks
Slumped in stairwells
Bodies sprawled in city streets

Cheap lives, death at a discount

Phyllis Wax writes on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan in Milwaukee, WI. Her work has appeared in many anthologies and literary journals, both online and print, among them Out of Line, New Verse News, Verse Wisconsin, Ars Medica, Naugatuck River Review, Your Daily Poem. When she’s not writing you might find her escorting at a local abortion clinic.

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Friday, June 05, 2015

MEN OF COLOR