Arrested Anger
They arrested my anger:
my fingertips, they ink painted
These defiant ebony eyes
were given a sideway rearview
racial profile
A police photo shoot,
criminal style
I became a most colorful, unwanted poster child
for the rabid redneck white crowd,
who were firing their burning blue metal barrels
hatefully loud —
Colt-45 liquid anger
white lightning moonshine proud
Waving their patriotic hostility —
raging river flag moving the mob
At their Wild West campfire pow-wow,
they were bomb fuse sparking
a tar baby effigy of me
Putting a viral vex on their personal celly-ies
and cyber telly-ies
Got several death threats from the skin heads
Aryan Nation neo-Nazis
How is it that my anger got arrested,
while their’s got out of jail free?
The blue devils cuffed me
for non-violently speaking,
not bending a Wounded Knee
Or giving a whipped-dog look slave master bow
This earned me my prison stripes
room-and-board free
Got a felon record for simply
giving the fascist police a ghetto hardship scowl
Now labeled a rebel convict:
I can’t get no cotton-picking union job,
or no southern hospitality northen beans welfare
Living on the cliff ledge is hard, when you can’t blend in
Yellow tin badge hollow justice
gave me a white-hot iron brand hex on my charcoal skin
Then they bum wrapped me in a cement bubble
And an old enamel kangaroo in a long black lynx robe
said I was white rabbit lucky
I didn’t receive a volley of bullets for my trouble
But, I got a swollen-face good break, I was told
Tell my mama this cancer piss pack of hard spit sympathy lies
She died on the inside that awful sentencing day,
and my papa’s fears aged dog years in a bad way
They both knelt stone cold six-feet under,
while I was hell-roasting
in a 20-by-20 windowless solitary bunker
There were no encouraging letters sent from the grave
I’m sure my arrested anger
is gonna get released also, one calm and serene day
But a pardon ain’t forthcoming
any time soon
for these brooding hairs fading in penitentiary gray
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