czvasser Fried Chicken

Domestic Enemies

 

A malnourished Somali child is wrapped in an American "Stars and Stripes" cloth at a therapeutic feeding center at Dagahaley camp

“I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic. . .so help me God.” – United States Oath of Allegiance

 

Domestic Enemies

Hands washing hand
over hearts saluting a flag
hiding busted leather knuckles.

Hand over hand
hoisting domestic violence to new heights
Calling patriotism picking strange fruit.

No one washes the feet of Jesus anymore
9mm sin and shame
revisiting ropes and shackles.

The middle passage continues
internment masquerades as prison
privilege divining men and women as morsels.

Waiting for the next coming of Christ
and the 2nd civil rights movement
in redlined skyscrapers and subdivisions.

The 2nd act played
they’ve moved to bobbing for apples
and applesauce.

And you, Brutus
one of the domestic enemies
swaddled in blue.

Agreed officers are overseers
of the good public
slaying myths, beasts and colored people.

We fix blame as always
not children of Ham
proved by cranial cavity.

You call it home
tombstones the prominent monument
unmarked graves the foundation.

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czvasser Fried Chicken

The Hitman in the Hallway

united-in-diversity-logoSiamese crocodile left breast
rises like an afterlife
and falls taking buckets of time.

Eye-beams through the keyhole
Gotham on the ground calling for super heroes
to repair the damages of democracy.

Breath huddles inside brown paper bags
until the count reaches someone missing
then the ready or not begins.

The bedroom turns anticlockwise
to match
the crystal knob’s protection.

Lotioned hand holds spoons of demise
and projectiles of painful alternatives.

Cut umbilicals leave pools of aftermath
quicksand that becomes acne on the face of god.

Unintended thoughts told frantically
to curved lovers
are braided into hangman’s rope
leaving petechial hemorrhage.

The boogeyman here now
has greater weight here after
prayers, spells and talismans
imperfect protection
against the hitman in the hallway.

czvasser Fried Chicken

A Meal Unfinished

Leave the glass
There is an impression
Her lips left
And a ticklish swallow of escapees.

Leave the plate
Her vegetables are
Always after 9
Her fork tines on the rim
Her knife under it
She steals silver spoons.

Yes, leave it
She may come back
After she has danced a bit
After powder in her nose
She may need to sit
A whirlwind to begin
A dervish in the end

Coffee and desert
Why
Yes
She likes a little sweet
And new meat
Sorbet a particular treat
Foreplay
The waiter brings the tray
A new meal
kisses to steal
Numbers exchanged
In a bathroom hallway.

Leave the fork
There is a morsel more
Needs to be impaled
A meal unfinished
Could become first
Course to love or less.