Tuesday, December 16, 2014

poem of the day 12.16.14


everyone is a victim

inside the bagel shop
the protest marches are on the morning news

there are a pack of cops watching them
while men behind the counter are hopping to it

buttering cop bagels and toasting cop muffins
fixing cop coffee and making cop smoothies

we are a sea of white men on a sunday morning
a shop full of america’s least desirable overlords

there is one woman amongst us
a black woman

she’s the only person not watching the tv

she’s trying to get a scone and an orange juice
but the bagel men are talking to the cops about the protest

how a couple of anarchists went after cops
with bags of hammers

an alleged attack, one of the cops spits

that could’ve caused brain damage,
the head bagel man says

with cops…how in the fuck could you tell?

the night before, my wife and i were down in the protests
we marched for half a mile or so

from the book store to the wine store

chanting about taking back the streets
how racist all of the cops are

it felt like a shining moment walking down
the middle of broadway
a sea of different people united under a common cause

but you could sense the futility of it all

if you looked to the side at the thousands of cops at the ready
slouching, smirking, hands on their holsters

police vans by the dozens

it let you know whose streets these really were
and all of the blood you’d need to take them back

but in the bagel shop this morning
the cops are still the good ol’ boys, the big heroes
the only lives that matter on this block

their every whim is taken care of by the bagel men

strawberry tarts and cream instead of whole milk
a complimentary copy of the ny post

as the black woman sails between a sea of blue
asking behind the counter where the line starts and ends

running late….church, she mutters

as one bagel man looks up at the television
rolls his eyes and says from one cop to another

you ever notice how
everyone is a victim these days?

                                                           

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