Kent State taught us that white deaths matter more
than Black students shot at Jackson State the week before.
Will protests-to-come under attack by armed and masked militia
teach us that Brown and Black people under attack is indicia,
within the borders of a nation dedicated to the proposition
that all men are created equal to the oppression,
of rich men of ill will in hiding from congressional oversight
and protected by the US Supreme Court’s judicial might?
I see the writing on the wall, not graffiti, after all,
but executive orders illegal and ill-tended to destroy
the hoped-for dreams of every American girl and boy
not born into wealth, in no need of human labor
to offer enough cash to create a way to savor
all that life could offer a middle-class caste
now turned in serfdom, as in decades long past.
We are not in a culture war.
We are in a class war.
We are in war we thought civil war had ended.
Yet, we continue to watch the republic untended
by leaders who did not see the need to fight
and believed compromise with bullies was right.
Workers sold out over and over again.
Blocked in every effort to build strong unions.
Students sold out over and over again.
Blocked in every effort to get a sound education.
Children sold out over and over again.
Blocked in every effort to find safe protection.
None of us now treated with human affection.
None of us now safe in our streets or our beds.
None of able to take a breath without dread.
Whether you voted for this, or not.
This is what you wrought.
Now, this is what we’ve got.
annarino writes 
FIGHTING WORDS
Poetry has fled.
Art hides in plain sight
behind clouds of flame,
beyond winds of change,
before plutocrats take the stage,
no longer waiting behind the scenes
which hide their rage.
Words have lost all meaning
when facts go unchecked
flung too fast to sustain truth
and belief in its power to right wrongs
for the weak and the poor,
tossed aside by courts which cower
fearing loss of wealth and power.
Which words are safe when lies procure
the party in power’s silent vote to score
total control of each life, each thought,
each breath threatened by dirty schemes
to pollute the earth, water and air?
Words cannot be spoken, claimed by death
of the rule of law.
No words exist to describe the depravity
some of us saw
as our words lay dying
first inside
then outside
where meaning can be lost.
Words remain frozen in heavy frost,
weighed down by cold hearts
and dead souls
seeking total control.
Freedom resides in words
which too often remain unsaid.
Words too softly spoken to wake
those asleep, escaping, all hopes dead.
Too few words of truth must compete
with an onslaught of unchecked lies.
I listen and watch, lost in thought.
I write and I plead against what we have wrought.
Poetry, I fear, carries too-little weight.
Poetry, perhaps, has waited too late
to escape the threat when so many lies
have buried the truth for power and greed.
Money has always been the creed
clothed in religion and faith
which grants God’s grace
to those who deserve to see His face
on dollar bills and hung on towers.
False gods seek our praise as they devour
a country whose best citizens
refuse to use their power to remain free,
and would rather lose their democracy.
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