Poetic adjustments

hands up

don't shoot

i can't breathe

this keeps happening

black lives matter

excepting, of course

mike brown ferguson

eric garner new york

kaijeme powell st. louis

ezell ford los angeles

tamir rice cleveland

(12 years old!)

and so on and so forth.

the mayor of new york said

black lives matter

and to have to say that

here in 2014

smacks of absurd bizarro jeez

as in wtf is the prob, people?

it sounds like something

the mayor of new york

might have said in 1876.

i wrote a year ago

about all our wonderful progress

in racial relations now that

blacks and whites sit together

integrated peaceful no big deal

at concerts and sporting events.

that column now feels

like so much hokum

like so much jerkoff flapdoodle

pollyanna licking the cute

goody two shoes worn by her

whip wielding dominatrix.

yes yes yes,

there are loads of good cops

blah blah blah

we know we know of course.

but now we're reminded

plenty of jittery fearful and

super pissy racist cops too.

and they're out there fucking up.

so let's cut the crap.

you know i know we all know

one job of the d.a.

is to take care of the cops.

got it?

he achieves this through a

handy little secret council

called the grand jury.

murkier than swamp water

these unknown people do

the d.a.'s c.y.a. handiwork

let trigger happy cops walk.

nobody can find these jurors

so nobody asks why or how

and the d.a. gets to say

“hey, it's the system at work

i did my job they did theirs

and they did it well

like common decent folks.

heh heh heh.”

grand juries indict 99% of cases

99 fucking percent!

yet both juries fanned

in ferguson and new york?

gee, uh, wotta coincidence.

all we are saying

is give us a trial.

nobody said guilty

nobody said innocent

just how about a trial?

america responds

fuck you

shut up

be peaceful

watch football

go to the mall

fuhgeddaboutit.

string yer lights

clean yer guns

happy holidays.