A SONNET FOR GEORGE FLOYD AND MANY MORE

by Scot Slaby

Old white knights sit atop white steeds
believing blindly that their deeds
are God-ordained—a Christian right-
ness coupled with systemic white-
ness—ancient notions from the West.
They claim their weapons are the best.
Their helmets shield us from their faces.
Do they protect and serve all places?
Black knights have seen this all before:
refusing to bow before a Moor,
white knights wage wars to hold their power.
They raze our homes; their flames devour.

We must resist. We know it's right
to kneel. To raise one fist. To fight.

Scot Slaby's chapbooks include The Cards We've Drawn (Bright Hill Press, 2013) and Bugs Us All (Entasis Press, 2016). His poems have appeared in The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics Including Odd and Invented Forms, Arcana: The Tarot Poetry Anthology, Like Light: 25 Years of Poetry & Prose by Bright Hill Poets & Authors, unsplendid, and elsewhere. An international educator, he divides his time between Shanghai, China and Minneapolis, Minnesota.

MY FLAG

by Marilyn Peretti

At the mic on the sidewalk
some kids say justice
is the meaning of the Fourth,
some say fireworks, some
some say cookouts,
but some say justice.

Did they mean fairness,
decency, moral rightness,
equity, abiding by law?
Is this taught to children now?
Fourth of July means justice?

Maybe these wise children know
that the Fourth does not mean
burning churches of black folks,
battering a man in a police van,
giving up on finding prison escapees,
denying the poor health insurance,
or shooting pray-ers inside a church.

I wave my American flag
for what the children have learned.


Marilyn Peretti, Glen Ellyn, Illinois, is published by The New Verse News and by various journals; nominated for Pushcart Prize; and publishes poetry books on www.blurb.com/bookstore. She writes with fellow poets in Chicago's western suburbs.