oxrider

June 3, 2020

Say When 060320

By oxrider

There were so many moments

You could have stopped

If you had compassion

If you showed mercy.

When he stopped struggling

When he stopped asking

His (dead) mother for help

When he fell unconscious

When he stopped breathing

When he lost his pulse

But you continued

To choke his dead body

For another three minutes.

Was your hatred so great

That death wasn’t

Punishment enough

For being a black man?

Leave a comment | posted in author, life, mourning, Poetry, Politics, prejudice, racism, Uncategorized, writer, writing

June 2, 2020

Dear Mr. President 060220

By oxrider

Dear Mr. President,
Do you think by using
overwhelming force
against your own people,
you will accomplish anything?
You are not even putting
a bandage on a gunshot wound.

The anger that your people feel
cannot be contained
if they are forced back
into their homes
or prison cells.

There is no justification for people
to commit acts of violence
against innocent people.
It is wrong when committed
by an individual
or the government.

The problem is a racist system.
The problem is not a brick through a window.
You cannot solve the problem
by silencing the victims.

Racism exists
On city streets,
In quiet neighborhoods,
In public parks.

In the Inquisition there was a saying,
You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.
Social inequalities will not go away
unless we make them go away,
through legislation
through education
through a redistribution of wealth.

Patriots say, freedom is not free!
But neither is equality.
Neither is justice.
We need to fight for equality.
We need to fight for justice.
Not only when it is in the news,
But every moment that we breathe.

Victims have long memories.
We will remember the knee on his neck.
We will remember the plea for mercy.
We will remember the death
in a quiet neighborhood.
We will remember the call to the police.

The troops you send against us,
Will not wipe those injustices,
Or the thousand others from our memory.
Change will.

Leave a comment | posted in author, healing, life, Poetry, Politics, prejudice, racism, soldiers, Trump, Uncategorized, writer, writing