state sanctioned violence poems

The Affair | Shelly Blankman - Read Poetry Online by Talented Contemporary Poets

The Affair | Shelly Blankman

You’re in bed with the NRA,
shades drawn, door locked,
no one can hear, no one can see,
but we all know it’s lust that drives you.

Dollar signs glow like gold as you gaze
in their eyes, entangled in covers, flushed
in their web of deceit, blinded with promises
of cash with your tricks.

Your web spreads past the walls of your
tryst, where schoolkids are killed
while you’re getting paid and dams of tears
burst while you seal the deal.
Blasts of gunfire by the mentally ill
still ring out like some sick New Year’s
welcome as you toast your new flame
with wine the color of blood.

When the War Comes | Tilla Sonrise - Read Poetry Online by Talented Contemporary Poets

When the War Comes | Tilla Sonrise

When the bullets start singing
where will you be,
humming tunes
in your canopy under your
juniper tree,
when the buildings go a blazing
like blunts and bongs
will you still be singing those freedom songs?

The war is coming
revolution is on the rise
it’s them against us
and us against them
you better open your eyes.

The war is coming
revolution is on the rise
it’s them against us
and us against them
you better open your eyes.

When they drive tanks
through your neighborhood
and trample your
hopscotch chalk
are you gonna bust back
or are you full of talk,
when they bomb your homes and
murder your babies
what are you gonna do
when they
take your bags lady?

The war is coming
revolution is on the rise
it’s them against us
and us against them
you better open your eyes.

The war is coming
revolution is on the rise
it’s them against us
and us against them
you better open your eyes.

When the law
breaks the law
they are under themselves
freeze mister officer
this is a citizen arrest
we’ve been watching your
police state test
you’ve been planning martial law
since 1999
this land isn’t your land
this land is mine.

The war is coming
revolution is on the rise
it’s them against us
and us against them
you better open your eyes.

The war is coming
revolution is on the rise
it’s them against us
and us against them
you better open your eyes.

Civil Servants | Langley Shazor - Read Poetry Online by Talented Contemporary Poets

Civil Servants | Langley Shazor

Blue lights
White skin
Silver cuffs
Black wrists
Blood red
Protecting and serving
Whose interests?
Violence begets more violence
But why do the opposite
Meet the same demise?
On both sides
Lines drawn in the sand
Barriers made in streets
Standoffs and showdowns
“Put down your weapon”
Which one’s drawn?
Hypocrites

A Familiar Truth | Gil Hoy - Read Poetry Online by Talented Contemporary Poets

A Familiar Truth | Gil Hoy

For so long as the NRA
controls Congress

With its pumping

Mutant
Pecuniary
Poison
Lifeblood

Corrupting souls
Buying silence

Innocents will
continue to die

From high-powered
Weapons of War

Bought in America
like a bag of groceries
from a grocery store

While Wayne LaPierre
Scribbles his want list
for Republican

Bought and sold
baby-kissers counting
their bankroll gore.

If Congress had lead balls
in its hearts, brains
pelves

If images of dead
school children grew
so palpable, so intimate

That their fever
opened a passageway

To eternity and back
Would the madness
Stop then?

Would lone wolves
Still sing their rancid
Noteless songs

A Witch’s Brew of shrill
staccato tempo

Tentwentythirtyfortyfifty
Pigeons intheblinkofaneye

That numbed ears
don’t see anymore

That tastes forgotten
and too familiar
anyway.

Baltimore's Son, Freddie Gray | Najwa Kareem - Read Poetry Online by Talented Contemporary Poets

Baltimore’s Son, Freddie Gray | Najwa Kareem

Would you have guessed you’d be next?
Perhaps you said so to someone close once in a text. Your suspicions concerning the police kept you running.
Did you ever consider that maybe you were too stunning?
That maybe your continuous smile was too bright.
That maybe your face was filled with too much light.
That maybe your comings and goings, your daily visits to Mom were too much.
That perhaps your happy, cheerful, respectful demeanor could reach out and touch.
That maybe a look into your eyes, they were blinded by the sun.
That surely at the ripe age of 25, your life would be done.
An act of racism I ask?
An act of brutality I ask?
An act of inhumanity I ask?
An act of injustice I ask?
Where in police school does one learn that a young black man standing on the street makes him a suspect?
Where in police school does one learn wearing Prada makes you a
prospective criminal?
Where in police school does one learn that having a nickname Pepper
makes one a target?
Where in police school does one learn that a citizen’s lead
poisoning makes him a magnet for a 6 police officer raid?
Where in police school does one learn that having no knowledge of a
man carrying a knife makes him the next chase?
Where in police school does one learn that being a human officer
entitles one to act unjustly against a human person?
Who are you or I to say because he couldn’t read as well as you or I his life didn’t matter?
Who are you or I to say because Freddie lived like many in low-income housing he didn’t deserve a chance at a better life?
Who are you or I to say because he had been arrested for drug
possession in the past he didn’t deserve to live out his dream?
Who are you or I to say because he liked to sing and make others laugh he didn’t deserve a life of dignity?
Who are you or I to say he didn’t have the right to continue
visiting his dear Mother, Mrs. Gloria Darden?
Who are you or I to say he shouldn’t have had the privilege to
continue walking Baltimore’s streets?
Now Freddie our hearts grieve your loss.
Now Freddie my heart grieves your uncalled-for death.
Now Freddie your prideful city has simmered down but it still feels
the pain.
Now Freddie my warmest sympathy to you, your family, your friends,
your supporters, and the city of Baltimore.

Voiceless | Carl Wade Thompson - Read Poetry Online by Talented Contemporary Poets

Voiceless | Carl Wade Thompson

55 people shot this weekend,
quick start to the New Year.
Seems like old news in Chicago land,
place where the random get killed.
What does this say about us,
that it happens on our watch?
Not far from home, another world,
but right here in our back yard.
Why are there no marches,
no talks on Capitol Hill?
Why does the President not react
when blood is spilled in his own burg?
Democrats, Republicans,
no one takes the mayor to task.
Emmanuel instead turns his back,
as the suffering reaches a screaming pitch,
a banshee’s call for the dead.
All I know is no one cares,
as long as non-whites are shot.
Just let them kill each other,
our very own urban onslaught.
I don’t know what to do,
so tired of the death.
Just have to bear it down,
until I watch next weekend’s news.

An Unjust Law | Gil Hoy - Read Poetry Online by Talented Contemporary Poets

An Unjust Law | Gil Hoy

Can’t get that execution
out of my head, damn.

Took 26 minutes to kill
him, some new-fangled
poison not the usual,
a half-baked horror show.

Sour drugs flowed through
blue veins, the prisoner
strapped to a gurney gasped,
vacant eyes staring,

rattling,
nose snorting,
choking almost guttural–
like food stuck in your
windpipe
on and on, convulsions.

By all accounts, he was
a horrible savage man

25 years ago,
raped, tortured and killed
a young woman with child,

just married, still to live
and be enjoyed.

So nothing cruel or unusual
here, an eye for an eye,
a tooth for a tooth,
Lex talionis, as prophesied.

But this death, more
like a Macabre blunder
at a public square picnic
hanging from days of old,
when the man’s head
in the too-tight hemp noose
might come clean off.

Minute after lingering
minutes, following terrible
60 second minutes
Strangling from the inside,
a mammal gasps for breath.

Heard that his blood in the
crowd had to cover their ears
and wipe their tears from
soaked ashen faces,
I say listen up, after what he did.

If you agree, show the
video play-back to your son,
so he can see what we do,
Though slow suffocation
is not for the squeamish,
something to Hide?

Murder: premeditation
and unlawful killing,
the state does you one better,
premeditation and ceremony.
Who are we to tell
the state what to do,
sounds A-OK to me.

Much ado about nothing.
Throw to hungry lions
crush them with fat elephants,
devoured by wild sweaty-toothed beasts
does the trick.
Tear them apart by Galloping horses,
burn him like an over-cooked
headless turkey for your Thanksgiving roast,
crucifixion, decapitation, boil until cooked.

Firing squad? Pass the loaded Gun
please. Stoning? A duplicitous
contest to see who casts the first
stone. Disembowelment, OK,
dismemberment, tie him to a
cannon and set the charge, so cool

your mouth just drips with blood
like a stale English Pudding.
Gas, hangings, electric chair,
That covers it.

But somewhere I read and
believed to the marrow, now
shaking terrified: Turn to him
the other cheek also, or we
will all be Toothless and Blind.

No one’s listening or caring
anymore.

Blood red Hearts disgorged on a
winding cobblestone trail that leads
to a distant dream.
That our eyes don’t hear anymore
and that tastes forgotten anyway.

I Had a Nightmare Last Night | Gil Hoy - Read Poetry Online by Talented Contemporary Poets

I Had a Nightmare Last Night | Gil Hoy

I had a nightmare last night,
A nightmare deeply rooted
in an American nightmare.

Where churches and schools,
theaters and city streets
were dying.

Where military weapons
were firing into unsuspecting
innocent crowds

Tentwentythirtyfortyfifty
pigeons intheblinkofaneye.

I awoke in a terrified sweat
as bleeding children wailed
and cried and screamed.

While those to protect us tasked
slept soundly in their beds.

A nightmare deeply rooted
in an American nightmare,

I had a nightmare last night.

A Simple Truth | Gil Hoy - Read Poetry Online by Talented Contemporary Poets

A Simple Truth | Gil Hoy

For so long as the NRA
controls Congress

With its pumping poison
mutant lifeblood

Corrupting souls,
buying silence,

Innocents will
continue to die

From high-powered
weapons of war

As lone wolves sing
their rancid noteless songs:

A witch’s brew of shrill
staccato tempo

That our numbed eyes
don’t hear anymore

and that tastes
forgotten anyway.

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