NEW YEAR RESOLUTION

by Geoffrey Philp

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued level 4 and level 2 travel advisories for Jamaica which sees them strongly warning against travel into the country due to several factors including Covid-19 and violence which has plagued some areas. —YardHype, January 12, 2022. See also CDC, January 10, 2022

The CDC has updated their travel advisory

to Jamaica due to crime, the spread of Covid,

and a lack of police presence in the county.

 

They’ve suggested avoiding public buses or secluded

places and added to statistics of robberies and break-

ins, a rising positivity rate. Fully vaccinated,

 

boostered, and up-to-date on flu shots I’ll take

my survival odds on the island this winter.

You see, America, I need a long-deserved break

 

from my daily rehearsal of answers to policemen

with the tiresome, “Who are you? Why are you here?”

usually by some rookie hoping to make his bones

 

with an exotic trophy in the trunk of his squad car

where he’ll pose with his first kill of the New Year.

Geoffrey Philp is the author of five books of poetry, two collections of short stories, three children’s books, and two novels, including Garvey’s Ghost. His poems and short stories have been published in The Oxford Book of Caribbean Verse, sx salon, World Literature Today, The Johannesburg Review of Books, The Oxford Book of Caribbean Short Stories, Bearden’s Odyssey Poets Respond to the Art of Romare Bearden, Rattle: Poets Respond, and Crab Orchard Review. A recipient of the Luminary Award from the Consulate of Jamaica (2015) and a former chair for the 2019 OCM Bocas Prize for Poetry, Philp’s work is featured on The Poetry Rail at The Betsy—an homage to 12 writers that shaped Miami culture. His next collection of poems, Archipelagos, is forthcoming from Peepal Tree Press.

PONDERINGS OF A HALF-DECENT (MAYBE) WHITE MAN

by Michael L. Ruffin

The White Man (1907) by Lyonel Feininger

I'm so very tired
of the injustice.
I wonder how
exhausted I'd be
were I its victim.

I'm so very tired 
of the racism.
I wonder how 
exhausted I'd be 
were I its target.

I'm so very tired 
of the misogyny.
I wonder how 
exhausted I'd be
were I its prey.

I'm so very tired
of the privilege.
I wonder how
exhausted I'd be
were I not its beneficiary.

Michael L. Ruffin is a writer, editor, preacher, and teacher living and working in Georgia. He posts poems on Instagram (@michaell.ruffin) and prose opinions at On the Jericho Road. He is author of Fifty-Seven: A Memoir of Death and Life and  of the forthcoming Praying with Matthew. His poetry has appeared at TheNewVerse.News, 3 Moon Magazine, Rat's Ass Review, and U-Rights Magazine.

WESTERN BLUEBIRDS, AMERICAN ROBINS

at the Peace & Justice 2020 (virtual) Fair (Vancouver, U.S.A.)


by Gwendolyn Morgan

Gwendolyn Morgan reads her poem in this video.

this is how it begins
first Light: cheerio song of Robins
loops of blue sky between stars
Eagle whistles before anyone wakes up
prayers in Arabic, Spanish, Hebrew
Chuukese, Cambodian, Russian, Swahili
100 languages spoken here as
the alphabet arcs toward aleph
alleluia of red-breasted Robins
golden dome of Sikh temple
Celtic Cross of Catholic, Presbyterian & Unity Church
Methodist or Lutheran hymns, so many Christians
the Bahá'í and UUs have every symbol represented
even the Pagans are putting peanut butter & raspberry jam
on whole wheat toast before you
who is putting honey on sopapillas, honeycrisp apples,
drinking Masala chai or sweet tea?
who has lost their homes due to fires?
looking at privilege:  who was evicted this week?
who was arrested?
Break it down like the U.S. census
the unmarked car outside the housing complex
“No solicitors” sign outside the apartment door
“I’m not soliciting” the ICE agent says
flashes a gold star or badge with implicit bias
scan the skin color, then license plate
drinking an Americano while they wait for you
Wait! this isn’t justice
the peace & justice fair is on Saturday every year
Sabbath day of rest for everyone
who goes to a synagogue or is Seventh Day
Rainbow Flags flying next to Black Lives Matter
upside down Americana
the Western Bluebirds gather at the river
singing their own prayers, plain song
1000 languages, songs of other species, intersectionality
the watershed of white fragility, white supremacy
unspoken privilege of having more than enough
when the child in front of you hasn’t had breakfast
no money in the purse for groceries, no savings account
no internet access, maybe a chrome book from school
with a sticker of a white llama on it
this child is hungry for more than justice
losing their breath for peace
this is how it begins.

Gwendolyn Morgan is a Pacific Northwest poet and artist who serves in interfaith Spiritual Care in a medical center in the midst of COVID19.  The Clark County Poet Laureate 2018-2020 in Washington State, her third book of poetry Before the Sun Rises is a Nautilus Silver Winner in Poetry. Gwendolyn and her spouse Judy A. Rose focused on poetry and music during a Winter 2020 Centrum Artist Residency. As a multiracial family in a multispecies watershed, they are committed to equity work and inclusion for all.

PASSAGE

by Daniel Brown

in memory of victims of the

 16th Street Baptist Church bombing,
Birmingham, AL, September 15, 1963

They crossed the river of Jordan early.

They went across the water
walking down Sunday school stairs.

Adie Mae Collins
Cynthia Wesley
Carole Robertson
Carol Denise McNair

Never made the passage of age
to young womanhood or Motherhood

They are remembered this day
and will be each year.

Hate is able to merely explode
it has no other course.

Passage that is abruptly destroyed
leaves us empty

So we demand rites of passage
the grace of aging for peace and justice

To cross the water with dignity when time comes due.

Daniel Brown is a retired Special Education teacher. He began writing poetry for his own pleasure but is now interested in sharing his work. He reads regularly at CAPS (Calling All Poets) in New Paltz NY and has been published in Chronogram Magazine and TheNewVerse.News. He resides in Red Hook, NY.

THE CHOKER-IN-CHIEF

by Jack Powers





The virus is just like hitting a few bad shots. It happens. You just have to keep your head down, you know, stay positive, play through it. Suddenly you'll be hittin' beautiful drives again.

People dying from the virus is like losing golf balls. You're gonna lose a few! Everybody does. Everybody. I mean, you can't waste time hunting for 'em. You gotta play on!

And these protesters! A bunch of punks leaving their divots and driving their carts on the green! Not raking the traps. No respect for property. They're ruining our beautiful course! Where are the rangers? Where are my rangers?

All these marchers chanting Equality! don't get it. You've got golfers. You've got caddies. The golfers are doing the caddies a favor, really.

The stock market is just like the scorecard. Everybody hits a couple of bad shots. You miss a putt or two. But did you make the big ones? Did you win?

All I'm asking for is a mulligan. One mulligan! What have you got to lose?


Jack Powers is the author of Everybody's Vaguely Familiar. His poems have appeared in The Southern Review, Rattle, The Cortland Review, and elsewhere.

THE RUT

by Pepper Trail





They are coming out of the hills into town
Young bucks, spiked with peachfuzz velvet
Old bulls, necks thick and haunches heavy
Veterans of the autumn brawls of many years

They enact the understood rituals of threat
Send signals of dominance, await submission
This has worked among themselves forever
In the sparring, none got hurt, usually not

But now, nothing is enough for respect
Not the bellow, the big beard, the big arms
Not the waved flag, the holstered sidearm
Not even the AR-15 - nothing is enough

So there will be trouble - how not?
Baffled by the strangers in their way
Hearing only challenge in the voices raised
They lower their heavy heads and, blindly, charge


Pepper Trail is a poet and naturalist based in Ashland, Oregon. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Kyoto Journal, Cascadia Review, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. His collection Cascade-Siskiyou was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry.

THE OLD FACE WE SAW

by Ryan Schaufler

AP Photo, 1956

Jacob Blake is not dead, yet.
The 7 bullets tried to kill him.

He’s just paralyzed from the waist down
Chained to a hospital bed.

Guns don’t kill people
People kill people.

Police are people.
Police tried to do what they do:

Kill a black man by shooting him in the back,
Where they normally kneel on a neck.

They feared for their lives.
They feared for their lives.

August 29th. 2020.
The Black Panther is dead.

The year has knocked the wind out of us.
My wife & I decided to take a walk.

We drove to Port Washington.
We had lived there happily for 9 years.

That was before T***p.
Before a 17 year old thug from Antioch

Drove to our state with an AR-15
The good ole Smith and Wesson

30-round magazine loaded & ready
Protecting businesses, right?

Protecting the right to kill two & maim one.
Just like a video game. Hands up & walk away.

“Need a bottle of water?” I know you’re thirsty!
For blood. “We appreciate you!” White supremacy.

Recorded for posterity:
The voice of police.

Armored vehicles pass by
The privilege of a white boy with a big long gun

Survives
As the crowd pleads: He shot them! He killed them!

They feared for their lives.
They feared for their lives.

We lived here before all of this.
Before the plague.

Port Washington isn’t the same now.
The country is not the same now.

None of us are now. We walked by the lake.
75 degrees. Blue sky. The moon, peeking.

A playground. Deer in the distance, peeking.
The lake breeze reveals the stillness of rage.

White People frolicking under the sun.
Away from Milwaukee or Kenosha.

A Truck pulls up behind us.
Us. A white man. With his Black wife.

Truck. filled with boys. that look like
Kyle Rittenhouse. Glassy eyed. Smiling

Crooked. They slow down
Their heads out the window.

Their faces mirror the gleeful hate
60 years ago

As white pro-segregationists
Battered the bones of Freedom Riders.

Demonic smirks directed our way
A familiar evil. Just as familiar as the beautiful park

We walked. Our eyes connect.
“Boo!” A boy shouts. His face

Cold, hardened with ignorance
Smoldering with hatred. He blows a kiss

Flipping us off. I respond, instinctually, “Boo.”
Blowing a kiss back. I do not flip him off.

My wife quickly whispers to me,
“Stop. Don’t engage.”

She instructs me to cut across the park.
Away from the truck. They fit the profile.

Internet militia gang. Radicalized. White.
Militant. Seeking blood. An uncivilized war.

“You got to listen to me. They don’t see you.
They see me. You can’t respond like you want.”

She’s right. I can’t see clearly. Their rage
Enrages me. My white privilege doesn’t work here.

White people continue to picnic and laugh
Unaware of the terror. We keep our eye on the truck

As it slowly cruises the park. Are they armed?
Will they stop? Will they canvas the area with AR-15’s?

We did not call the police.
We could not call the police.

Will they shoot us for existing? They have been incited.
Trump has released the underbelly of America.

We feared for our lives.
We feared for our lives.


Ryan Schaufler lives in Milwaukee and received a BFA from California Institute of the Arts in Acting. He is a professional actor, special education teacher, theatre teacher, playwright, director, photographer, artist, and a father. His plays and poetry have been published in such journals as Southern Indiana Review, Rise Up Review, and Clockhouse. His photography can be seen in Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, Elizabeth Horan’s 2019 Chapbook Fem Box, Moonchild Magazine, Pithead Chapel, Riggwelter, The Perch, and Cream City Review among others. @schauflerized

FOR JACOB BLAKE

SHOT BY A COP, PARALYZED, AND SHACKLED TO A HOSPITAL BED


by Margaret Rozga

As Jacob Blake was freed from handcuffs in the hospital, the Kenosha police union said Friday that Blake put an officer in a headlock moments before being shot in the back. Since Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, was shot seven times in the back by a White officer, local officials have not discussed many details citing the ongoing investigation led by state investigators.

On Friday, the Kenosha Professional Police Association took issue with the public narrative, saying that he confronted officers, put an officer in a headlock and carried a knife that he refused to drop when ordered to by police, the union said. For Blake's attorneys, the police union's narrative is merely a tactic to justify the officers' actions. "I think it's the common strategy that police departments use in these type of circumstances. It's always trying to justify murder for misdemeanors," attorney B'Ivory LaMarr told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Friday. —CNN, August 29, 2020

Who made the decision to shackle him?
Who shackled him?
Who is the nurse who cares for him shackled?
Who is the doctor who does the surgery? Surgeries?
Was he shackled during surgery?

They did not say shackle. They said restrained.

What words minimize, hide, disguise, mask:
who uses words like this?
What words for this?

His father said handcuffed, handcuffed to the bed.
His father’s words leave the bedside, leave
the hospital, hit the air, hit the air waves,
hit the heart, cry out for release, cry for justice,
words that restrain other words, words that free.

Still to be told:
the nurse’s story, the nurses’ stories
the doctor’s,  the doctors’.

The decider, the deciders, hold a press conference,
are pressed. Pressed, they leave. They leave questions
opening like unacknowledged wounds,
lingering like ghosts of the dead they cannot shackle.

Margaret Rozga is the current Wisconsin Poet Laureate.  She writes poems from her ongoing concern for social justice.

WEIGHT

by Judith Terzi

Emmett Louis Till was kidnapped, lynched and brutally murdered at age 14 on August 28, 1955.

"Emmett Till was my George Floyd. He was my Rayshard Brooks, Sandra Bland and Breonna Taylor."—John Lewis, New York Times, July 30, 2020

Emmett Till shot dead at fourteen. Two men go free.
George Floyd suffocated at forty-six. By a brutal knee.

          George ran out of breath. Suffocated at age forty-six.
          They sank Emmett, strapped him to a cotton gin fan.

No gun to sink George. No river, no machine, no tree.
Simeon Wright saw the men point the gun at Emmett.

          Saw the men point the gun, pull his cousin from bed.
          His words weightless against the two men's. No video

then. The world saw the cop's knee press into George.
Saw three more cops. Over eight minutes of complicity.

          Four cops. Eight ears sealed shut for over eight minutes.
          Sixty-five years gone by since Emmett lost his breath.

Three months passed since George no longer breathes.
Emmett Till shot dead at fourteen. Two men go free.


Author of Museum of Rearranged Objects (Kelsay), as well as of five chapbooks, including Casbah and If You Spot Your Brother Floating By (Kattywompus), Judith Terzi's poems have received Pushcart and Best of the Web and Net nominations and have been read on Radio 3 of the BBC. She holds an M.A. in French Literature and taught high school French for many years as well as English and French at California State University, Los Angeles, and in Algiers, Algeria.

BLACK LIVES MATTER

by Bart Sides





Where I grew up: KKK ruled, in shadows,
Friends’ parents joined, in secret,
Crosses burned, in fields,
Shrouded apparitions danced, sweated, hated—
Where I grew up.

Where I grew up: Sears had two bubblers, near off-limit restrooms,
One said, “Whites Only, in block letter print,
One said, “Colored,” polite for the day,
Each, unquestioning, “knew its place,”
Where I grew up.

Where I grew up: Confederate flags flew, proudly on buildings,
Licenses read, “Hell, no, I won’t forget,” on cars,
Whites put bars, on windows,
Loaded guns waited, in corners, under beds, in drawers,
Where I grew up.

Where I grew up, sharecroppers toiled, over cotton,
Workers sang, in hot summer sun,
Heavy bags dragged, between green-white rows,
Jim Crow weighed the balance, against “free” run-down shacks,
Where I grew up.

Where I grew up, shacks lacked paint, near fields,
Newspapers stuffed cracks, in walls,
Sacks covered floors, over gaps,
Lanterns flickered, in rooms,
Where I grew up.

And that’s why “Black Lives Matter.”

Where I live now, racists retort, “All Lives Matter,”
And vote “NO,” on healthcare and schools,
And cash government checks, at banks,
And drive unmolested, in cars,
Where I live now.

Where I live now, some plant signs: “Blue Lives Matter,”
Prisons overflow, with poor black men,
Sentences lengthen, for all black men,
Police harass, for minor offense,
Where I live now.

Where I live now, racists tweet: “All Lives Matter,”
Police budgets soar, for weapons of war,
Law kills black, twice more than white,
No judge, no jury: modern-day lynching,
Where I live now.

Where I live now: “All Lives Matter,”
Black man jogs, then hunted and killed,
Open season lasts, in the land of the free,
Another lynching, four hundred plus years,
Where I live now.

Where I live now: churches declare, “Hate has no home here,”
And members say, “I like that,” before a golden cross,
And white satisfaction comforts, ignores privilege,
And no cop kills, shoots, smothers, arrests, for THEIR color,
Where I live now.

AND THAT’S WHY “BLACK LIVES MATTER.”

Bart Sides is a fly fisherman, teacher, and occasional poet. Southern by birth and New Englander by choice, he resides with his wife in Currier and Ives country with his wife of 46 years and 5 cats.

JACOB IN KENOSHA

by Marilyn Peretti






 Now it’s Jacob

and his little boys
    saw it all
    from the back seat
the 7 shots
    to their Daddy’s back
as he got into the car

7 shots
    into the lifeline
    his spine
and he cannot walk

Now it’s Jacob

Whose Daddy will it be
    next week?


Marilyn Peretti, poet near Chicago, dreads the news every day.

SEVEN BACK BITING BULLETS

by Peter Witt

Bullet One—man trying to open a car door
so he can bring comfort to his children

Bullet Two—cell phones record the images
in disbelief

Bullet Three—kids are in the car,
wondering why their daddy
is lying on the ground, not moving

Bullet Four—policemen coordinate their stories
so that what we see with our eyes
are simply alternative facts to truth

Bullet Five—nights of social unrest
turn to violence, Fox news
preaches law and order

Bullet Six—late night hosts mock police
with not so subtle jabs at their
let's wait to see the facts excuses

Bullet Seven—fathers have another discussion
with their black sons about how to survive
another day in a dying while black world


Peter Witt lives in Texas, writes poetry about a variety of topics including issues of social justice.

BEFORE AND AFTER

by Judy Juanita

before

We stood on garbage cans to watch the assembly line

at the Chevrolet manufacturing plant on 73rd ave

See the USA in your Chevrolet

America is asking you to call

Drive your Chevrolet through the USA

America’s the greatest land of all

We paid our parents no mind at all

when they said Dinah Shore was passing for white

Oakland had white-only garden apts. on 66th ave

housing UC Berkeley grad students

young dads in Bermuda shorts 

moms in capri pants

a 99 year covenant kept us out

the little children called us niggers

if we took the shortcut home

Those apts. became the site of the 1980s drug wars

The would-be Coliseum was a swamp

BART was a developer’s dream 

to bring suburban commuters to SF

Oakland be damned

We had to fight to get Oakland stops added

The boys across the street were from Georgia 

Their mother welcomed my brother to peepee 

in their bathroom but insisted he poopoo at home

I thought white people pooped white poops

And we pooped brown 

Wave after wave of Ohlones, Mexicans, Chinese, Portuguese

Oakies and Arkies from the Oklahoma and Arkansas dust bowls

coloreds and whites from Louisiana, Texas and Oklahoma 

migrated for munitions and troop movement work during WWI

Our parents and grandparents came in droves

planting their families and dreams 

in the fertile soil called California 

after

We’re all Panthers now

The Black Panther Party did not backfire

It was an early warning system 

for this entire country/world 

about U.S. oppression

the ravages of imperialism 

the rampant police-as-occupying-force 

in the black community

As the vanguard it did exactly 

what 

it was historically tasked to do

it woke people up 

What people choose to do now

under this near totalitarianism

is up to individuals and groups

We don’t need Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, Denmark Vesey

Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Fannie Lou Hamer

MLK, John Lewis, Huey P. Newton, Eldridge Cleaver

Sojourner Truth, Rosa Parks, all our people

who fought to the finish

They came, they saw, they served

It’s up to the living to stand up and be counted

Judy Juanita’s poetry has been published widely. Her poem “Bling” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2012. Her semi-autobiographical novel Virgin Soul is about a young woman who joins the Black Panther Party in the 60s (Viking, 2013). She appears in Netflix’s Last Chance U: Season 5, Laney College where she teaches.

DEMENTIA TEST

by Gus Peterson

Person, woman, man, camera, TV.
A thousand names written off today.
Now who will speak for me?

Phase-10. Skip-Bo. Niece, giver, EMT.
Eight shots. No more cards to play.
Person, woman, man, camera, TV.

Mentor. Driver. Athlete. Father, see:
he took a knee. Nothing more to say.
Who will speak for me?

In Portland, Chicago, New York, DC:
the unnamed, the masked, gassed away.
Person, woman, man, camera, TV.

George. Tamir. Trayvon. Sandra. Bre.
No one said their names today.
Please, someone speak to me.

Thoughts come, they stay, they flee.
A thousand more names to say.
Person, woman, man, camera, TV:
speak for us. We can’t breathe.


Gus Peterson lives in Maine.

TEAR GAS AND WOAD

by Peleg Held

A nude protester—dubbed later “Naked Athena"—faces off against law enforcement officers during a protest against racial inequality in Portland, Ore., on July 18. Credit Nathan Howard/Reuters via The New York Times.

Omnes vero se Britanni vitro inficiunt, quod caeruleum efficit colorem. —Julius Caesar, The Gallic Wars


She fingers the blue on slowly, feralled in its wake;
she counts the steps from inside out the fenced-in fields of grace.

A vitrumned likeness wavers, a cats-lick from the rim,
in the tea cup in the circle of the saucer's closing ring.

Let the tongue tip shape the watchword in the shallows of its bow;
let sentry sleep and serpent sing beneath the shuddered vow.

Here is where their end is born; there is nothing at the gate
but ink and skin, the sylph herself: the cunt-directed state.

Caesar may misread you in the peripherals of his glass
or more likely overlook you, a needle in the grass

but as you plunge into his heel he will see the face
of what gives womb its dark and what gives blood its taste.


Peleg Held lives in Hiram, Maine with his partner and 21 chickens led by the world's tiniest rooster, Gavroche-That-Lives.

IT IS DIFFERENT IT IS NOT DIFFERENT

by Sarah Sarai

32 mug shots of
Freedom Riders

arrested 24 May
1961 and jailed

Jackson
Mississippi.

John Lewis is
third from right

top row.
CT Vivian second

row
second from left.

In
Louisville KY

435 mug shots
of

as many protestors
jailed

saying her
name

(Breonna
Taylor)

are not yet
released.

Add 400
more

Freedom Riders.
I can’t

find them
all,

those
solid of will.

Sarah Sarai’s poems are in DMQ Review, The Southampton Review, E-Ratio, and others. Her second full-length collection is That Strapless Bra in Heaven (Kelsay Books). She lives in New York.

A PESSIMIST TAKES STOCK

by George Salamon

Darkness & Light Art Print by Zeke Tucker

"Pessimism is a conscious filter which disarms ideologues and frees us to act in a practical manner.” —John Ralston Saul, The Doubter's Companion

The air all around our leader echoes with shouts,

His Tweets can not put the tiles that fell off the

Roof of his political temple back up, the storm of

Coronavirus has come and its furious waves grow

Denser, it bursts through masks and measurements

As it rages and more than 142,000 lives have gone down.

Our leader is concerned only with the quadrennial

Cockfight staged for us as Democracy while too many

Among us have lost touch with first things,as bands of

Rebels, marginalized and mocked, try to restore it,

In their own fashion, forcing us to see the state of our

Union from the short view, pitch in, waiting for the

Long view to stumble and stagger close enough to

Lead us to the light out of the darkness we chose.

George Salamon took to pessimism when he was a refugee kid in Switzerland during World War Two and the Holocaust, but he has not let it sour into cynicism. He lives and writes in St. Louis, MO, and most recently has contributed to The Asses of Parnassus, One Sentence Poems and TheNewVerse.News.

HE GETS IT

by Wayne Scheer

My neighbor wanted his five year-old to understand
why so many people,
including himself,
were demonstrating
for George Floyd.

After explaining
what had happened,
he took his son
to a demonstration
near downtown Atlanta.

When his son saw the crowd
he said,
“All these people
think people should be kind.
Cool.”

He gets it.

Why do so many others,
including the president,
find it so hard to understand?

Wayne Scheer has been nominated for five Pushcart Prizes and two Best of the Net. He's published numerous stories, poems and essays in print and online, including Revealing Moments,  a collection of flash stories. His short story “Zen and the Art of House Painting” has been made into a short film.

GEORGE FLOYD'S LEGACY

by Crowfeather

George Floyd by Sam Dunn

One life ended
by an unyielding knee
and ice-bound hearts.

One man’s private death,
ghastly and obscene,
stunning millions.

Not just another death,
but maybe a catalyst
for change.

Crowfeather is a 72-year-old woman who writes and tells stories in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

GEORGE FLOYD ELEGY

by KP Liles 

German artist Eme Freethinker has painted a portrait of George Floyd on what used to be the Berlin Wall to honour the unarmed black man killed May 25 by a white Minneapolis police officer, who knelt on his neck for almost 10 minutes.

George Floyd
George Floyd
George Floyd

And so many
buried unheard
we now cannot unhear

Nor can we ignore
revolutions’ anthem
I can’t breathe

Impossible to unsee
George Floyd
that pressing knee

Ahmaud Arbery
jogging Glynn County
Georgia George Floyd

Breonna Taylor
sleeping Kentucky
Less than a meme’s life apart

Eric Garner New York City
Michael Brown Ferguson Missouri
Nia Wilson George Floyd

Oakland California Trayvon
Martin Sanford Florida
Tamir Rice Cleveland Ohio How

many George Floyd George Floyd
until name becomes flood
spilling all the killed Black folks

into brightly lit kitchens
until the dream’s ghost
upends breakfast table

until No
No Some risks George Floyd
do not resolve in mind

So if it is not for me
to lift your body or name
let mourning

be pallbearer
to token grief
minstrel solidarity

Head bowed shouldering memory
let us at long last George Floyd
carry outrage ‘cross that bloody river

end this procession
where we face off
the uniform night

KP Liles has penned two poetry collections, Singing Back the Darkness (NYQ Books) and Spring Hunger (Plain View Press). He currently lives in the New Orleans metropolitan area.