Long Hot Summer

by toritto

Do you think we’d see the light
if sunshine cost the wealthy something
or would we live in blackest night
outside the gates and out of sight

while stepping over homeless vets,
passing the line at the free clinic
the junkies riding horse
the cops, the dealer, the blond crack whore
the schizo-cynic screaming on a corner?

Passing the hungry in our streets
leaking pipes and rusted beams
inhabited by human dreams,
ghosted by the ailments of our time.

How hard to be poor
a stranger in the promised land
your neck bent, as if cut at the nape
sauntering about in your great freedom

It’s a hot Summer in Ferguson
in Detroit, in New York
up on tar beach or on the fire escape
at night, in your underwear
brown back pressed against the brick

sleeping under the stars obscured by distant smoke
listening to the lullaby of the sirens
the clatter of tanks, Desert Storm uniform
still softly singing that American dream.

.

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photo: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/08/14/militarization-u-s-police-dragged-light-horrors-ferguson/

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