Billie Holiday sang for all of us...

George Meadows, a victim of lynching, January 15, 1889 (Library of Congress)

we the people are lost elemental hunting parties eating strange fruit

in order to form

a more perfect union

of spiritual freedom

does our grace sleep

with the fishes

are we black faced

are we coal soot souls

are we vapor inhaled

are we documents

tucked with blood

into comas, bullets

and ink tearing

color from our skin

our cities and country-sides

are a constant burning

we distill quicker liquors

in flicker radiant reports

that say ignorance in crackles

has been spotted along

our short waved

turn dial technology

we are anticipating

the next violent episode

every citizen is writing personal

obituaries on someone’s back pages

we maintain false propriety

and clamor for anonymity

we give our bodies

to an all consuming hunger

we thirst for justice

we are what empties

into shell game resources

we blame everyone

but ourselves for what ails us

we are a torn tattered flag nation

waving cultural landscape conflagrations

we are deviant

we are devoid of purity

we are beyond emotional outlets

we are disciples of paper

and television scribes jacking off

to the sycophantic polling data

and revisionist histories

we mill about

place to place, hoping

for retainer fee containment

everyone wants to be wanted

without a post office picture

we are attached to this desire

we walk in

the nearest bar and grill

we pay the keepers

we dive down

we fantasize between sips

and peer the heavy stones

we wear around our necks

hoping we are

almost ready to leap and

the water is not so cold and

the wind ripening our mood swings tells us

the fires are lit, beyond barrel pricing and

the air has cleaved every divisive divinity

we sing to be

one above the rest

we give ourselves 

the best cases

of the blues

here, in America

death is violent charm

and what constitutes

the news

EJR ©