Guidelines



Submission Guidelines: Send unpublished poems in the body of an email (NO ATTACHMENTS) to nvneditor[at]gmail.com. No simultaneous submissions. Use "Verse News Submission" as the subject line. Send a brief bio. No payment. Authors retain all rights after 1st-time appearance here. Scroll down the right sidebar for the fine print.

Tuesday, April 19, 2022

BLACK TRAFFIC, STOP

by Rémy Dambron


The police in Grand Rapids, Mich., released videos on Wednesday showing a white officer fatally shooting Patrick Lyoya (pictured above), a 26-year-old Black man, after a struggle during a traffic stop last week. The officer, who has not been named, was lying on the back of Mr. Lyoya before he appeared to shoot him in the head. In the seconds before the shooting, Mr. Lyoya and the officer wrestled on the ground and seemed to be fighting for control of the officer’s Taser. —The New York Times, April 13, 2022


at first 
an ordinary traffic 
stop, routine
suspect 

you
stay in the car 
get back in the car
do you have a license 
your plates don’t match
do you speak english 
show me your license 
i said your plates don’t match
stay in the car
no stop
you can’t stand there
hey you can’t stand there
stand here no 
wait STOP

grabbing him 
restraining him
throwing him to the ground
with the force of the law
immunity qualified
we’ve seen this before 
too many times before
released body cam footage shows
cop shoots black man
don’t watch it
hurts 

(body camera shuts off)

he shoots 
he shot him
the cop shot the black man

(body camera turns on)

paramedics can’t revive him
because the cop 
he shot him
he shot him dead 
for what 
why
forgive me 
for being repetitive 
but another man with a badge 
shows his bad intentions and 
oh, did I mention?

*he shot him in the head

they called it a struggle
a fight for control over the taser
cop drawing the weapon first
ready to electrocute 
the man he would instead 
just shoot 
but no charges filed
the investigation is ongoing
ongoing, yes
forgive me 
for being repetitive but 
another man with a badge shows his bad intentions 
and oh, did I mention?

*he shot him in the head

his community going on 
carrying his cry for help
to the city steps in protest
to say to their reps 
please 
enough 
stop letting them shoot us
for gods sake 
jesus 
forgive me 
for being repetitive 
but another man 
with a badge 
shows his bad 
intentions and 
oh, did I mention?

*he shot him in the fucking head


Rémy Dambron is a former English teacher now Portland-based poet whose writing focuses on denouncing political corruption and advocating for social/environmental justice. With the help of his chief editor and loving wife, his works have appeared in What Rough Beast, Poets Reading the News, Writers Resist, Words & Whispers, Spillwords, Robot Butt, and The New Verse News