STUTTERING JUSTICE

My dream disturbing:

Grand black pianos dropping from the sky

Missing bodies frolicking in an otherwise calm, moonlit ocean

Black men still being killed with impunity

I awake Channeling E.B. White:

“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”

It is hard to plan a day when civility is aligned along

A white fence facing down the barrels

Of hatred, ignorance and a blind lady justice

Hard to enjoy a world when one does not believe

In an organized God

Armed with the biggest guns

Millions of magazines spitting volleys of pain and grief

Days of drought, drones, and death

If I believed

I could commit the supreme act of

Cowardice by putting it all in

His (not Hers?) hands

Walk away ‘enjoy the world’ in a

Disney fog of happiness

I would have around my neck

That talisman

That password

That should admit me to the club of believers

If I believed

If I believed I wouldn’t be naked

But (just the same) I would have no clothes

I know the difference – now

If I believed I would not have to scramble

In my silver rage through the

Glove of darkness

This faux life wearing the liar’s smile

Fingering the cross

Idiot grinning

At other Xanaxed smilers who wonder

Why I am so nakedly angry

And I wonder what my last words will be?

Pleas for help?

Declarations of love?

Regret?

Will it matter?

Who will be the last to hear my voice?