The guilty verdict in the George Floyd murder trial isn’t about police reform or political reform. It’s about personal reform. It’s recognizing that murder is murder whoever does it and that justice represented as “blind and balancing scales” has been out of balance for people of color for a very long time. The verdict is about individuals. People have to care enough about other people to make the right and good choice when confronted with any crime against their fellow man especially murder, the most monstrous. It may mean forgoing privilege, or turning the other cheek or simply standing up, but it needs to be done if we are all to move up, not simply forward. Some folks are extolling this a a milestone or turning point. We need to continue to work, and work diligently towards a society that recognizes and accepts equality for everyone. It’s not the line in the sand. It’s the continued journey.
What You Meant
Don’t
smell the air around me
Put your lips upon my neck
Breathe faster
when I walk into the room
Let your eyes follow me
Replay the sun
sneaking past the shades
to shine on my body
We are just friends.
Don’t
consider your hands
encircling my waist
Your fingertips
tracing my inner thigh
The shape of my buttocks
That sigh was just a sigh
Time will go by
Walk into the dessert
After all, we should be friends.
You’ve so much to do
Why consider
you hurt me or I you
All’s fair in insecurity
compromise too dear
It’s good we end as friends.
Is that what you meant?
Netherworld
I heaped my oldself
into a shallow grave
in the center
a cobblestone
under it the cross
you had given me
light years ago
on a thursday
after a full moon
the alignment of the stars didn’t change
so i built a bonfire
and tossed in my nightmares
screaming
they rose away as smoke
on a moonless night
this went on till dawn
when rosey fingers strangled
the last creature of conscience
then there was the row boat
in the middle of the lake
shrouded
I pulled the scuttle plug
as a rising tide raises all boats
a sinking ship drowns all rats
with their last ounce of courge
they held the night still
before slipping into less life
if life is a kite
why won’t mine find
the eddies
siroccos
zephyrs
as a condor might
my soar is sore
wax melted
a single feather
once part of a wing
now an ornament in a headdress.
Fried Chicken & Philosophy 