Best Police Poems
A field of wheat cloaked in dewy silence
the orchestra tunes up with avian arias
bullfrog basses and a choir of cawing crows,
xanthic sunflowers turning their heads to better see,
the daylight trajectory commencing with lazuline layering,
a breeze glissandoes on harps of oak leaves
tomorrow is now today,
and I am grateful.
An officer of the law taps on my door
my breath and heartbeat screech to a sudden stop
preparing for the next-of-kin speech, or
where-were-you-on-the-night-of-the-23rd interrogation,
instead she informs me my car is ten inches in the red
and with a smile suggests I move it before I get a citation
pulse resumes as oxygen reunites with lungs,
and I am grateful.
A mask sitting by the front door; my ticket to commerce
the media replaying riot scenes, lockdown measures,
sporting event cancellations, worship restrictions,
death tolls, closed restaurants, and drive-by graduations.
Yet I am virus-free, housed, gainfully employed,
surrounded by family and electronically socialized,
I have my necessities: I am well-fed, well-loved,
and I am grateful.
written 30 Aug 2020
I'm afraid
So afraid
Of being arrested
By the thought police
Their rules are many
Think this
Think that
Don't diverge from the normal
Stop playing on the street corner of tomorrow
Let sleeping dogs rest
Do not question
Do not burn on passionate bonfires
I watch as they ready their weapons
They display arresting warrants through clouded glass
Fifty shades of bland
Cuffs dangling from bulging belts
Bound in self rightous blunder
They wait outside my door
Screaming bull horns command me to exit my paper freedom
I am blinded by search lights, forced to use my third eye
Fearful of their uniformed presence
How long will they be held at bay?
I hold their preconceptions hostage
They cannot see beyond their script
Trained in the warfare of ignorance
They say "who are you, to question our authority?"
I answer
"I am the poet
The one who dreams beyond here and now
My words push through yesterday like a plow!
Yet I am gentle like the rain
Equal parts of pleasure and pain
A powerful detergent
I remove ancient stains
With my words I shake the ground
I will not be stopped by another's sound
Arrest me, yet you can't stop what I think
Within my mind I determine what I drink."
The thought police
Turn to another
The writings of our sisters and brothers
They wait, with cuffs in hand
Unable to understand
The few
The many
Who have joined hands
The poets
The thinkers
We take a stand
Inspired by Eileen Ghali's poem "The Hidden Woman"
Catie Lindsay's Heart of the matter contest.
No Loitering, Skating, Skateboarding or Cycling.
Do you ever see me?
I see you every night.
I see your lifeless body under the street lights.
I hear you mom screaming let him be alright.
I see the gunshot wound going through you like butter with a knife.
You blood keeps pumping with no end in sight.
You stair at me with a look of dead eyes.
You ask me for help, but why?
I didn’t make the choice to take my own life!
Then the look I’ve never seen comes across your eyes.
It’s like I can see the soul of a man I’ve never met until tonight.
I see the pain and heartache you’ve had to survive.
Tonight is the night I’ve seen a a dead man eyes.
By Chris Day
05-30-2018
I’m trying a new refreshing write
My blessed Soul word out of sight
Maybe my view should truly change
Having a good look at new poetic range
I don’t want to upset the infamous P.D.**
The one who’ll police me in 3D
Undercover poet, that apparently is not?
If I reach for my pen, he’ll take his shot!
On the run with out my needed soul
I better hide in that deep dark hole.
As he Ass kisses all those lovely ladies
Maybe he wants to have their babies??
Taking advantage of his poetic power ;-)
I bet in reality he’s as sweet as a flower!
What horrid word’s I use without my belief
If I get caught, he may smash out my teeth!
A poet on the run from a cop so hot?
In P.Ds eyes, a poet, that I am not??
To be or not to be, that is his question?
Fountain Pen to my head, I’ll sign his confession!
Banged up in this inspirational cell
“Not a poet” written on walls of limerick hell
“P.D waz here “ plastered for all to see
As soon as he reaches for his pen, you better turn and flee!!
(Welcome and embrace our new Poet friend
I’ll love and embrace him until the end
I trust he’ll visit my poems, and call them crap
That’s my plan, body armoured up, ........I’ll just have a nap.)
**Poetry Destroyer
Only Kidding P.D. And welcome :-)
Obviously, i can't tell you what form this is!!
a knee, a neck, a symbol, a tool
the segregationist would be proud
fighting to breathe is a fight where
Vegas is covering all odds
let's lay our money and him down
the spittle, the pool on the ground
does not need to be explained, cleaned or vilified
this is America dammit where change
is not always the objective
where the unwritten far outweighs
the written rule of law
families bleed albeit slowly
that merciful hemorrhage
some swear isn't normal
let's riot shall we
let's set ablaze the constitution
that Letter from a Birmingham Jail
our Holy Bible
She told the police, Please help me
My husband is missing you see
First he was there, then he was gone
And I don't know where he could be
The police seemed concerned and said,
Describe this man that's not around
If we don't have a description
We fear he may never be found
He has a patch over one eye
The one that he lost in the war
He wears a small hat on his head
That doesn't have hair anymore
He lost a finger sawing wood
And a toe when mowing the lawn
I guess he was mostly missing
before he was even gone!
Thought Police
Be careful what you say,
be careful who you say it to.
It might be heard...
by someone that does not like it!
They will come to your door,
and even the score,
even if there is no game
involved at all.
They will just call,
on you, that's who,
even if you live at the zoo.
Truth beaten up on the sidelines.
Propaganda given an upper hand.
Media stroking the boss...
of the paper,
the airways,
and the fairways,
no longer fair at all.
Criminals on the streets,
let go for their crimes,
to make room for more important...
lawbreakers,
earth-shakers,
and memory makers.
Fearing their words,
may yet have power,
for even an hour.
Those that do not go along,
with the climate change agenda,
and will not take the shot,
or get the clout
or rub on each other
to get the pox,
like a fox... (in heat)
will be dealt with in the darkness
of powers at their central station.
The moon is full of men,
that have given their lives over,
to cover the reality,
we live in.
The rationing of water,
then food, and gas,
only the beginning...
of the end.
We will all go without,
but don't shout.
Be quiet and accept what is ahead,
the dread enough to fill
the voting ballot box
full of hope...
or treason?
When a man stepped out his childhood home,
Planting a brave foot in the open world
Not an age, not a generation, not a world ago,
There breathed and burned in him hope
Shared with mama's receding figure
Frozen in prayer by the doorpost to his back
That his way he would make through this mild wild
That law and claw both make the world
With flesh unmarred by scratch or patch.
"You'll keep out of trouble if you behave yourself,"
she would advise.
That, sure, was the wisdom of her world,
Her old world now long gone,
When the law was still a genuine ass,
Not a chameleon in ass skin
That turns deathly black when around blacks
And pristine white when around whites.
Black or white, all will rue the loss of that world
When a man was safe if he behaved himself.
Now he keeps out of trouble
Only if he behaves himself,
The police behave themselves,
And court behaves itself.
Their hands raise with ours and for a moment we are all standing in perfect unity, every set of fingers curled in anger and defiance - and then they throw the tear gas.
Which is rich,
Because how many women have wept,
Sliding down their walls to their bedroom floor,
To their kitchen tiles,
To the post office pavement?
How many women have sobbed,
Clutching their daughter's body,
Trying to collect all of the broken pieces back into one person again,
The mother's tears, all of the nation's tears, spilling and seeping into the cracks of her skin
- how many more need to cry?
How much deeper does the blood have to scar the inside of her thighs,
Embed itself in newspaper ink,
Puddle and clot in the streets,
For you to see how the country is drowning?
How the river laps at our feet, our knees, up to her bruised wrists
Do you see your own fingertips dripping,
Or how his teeth are stained pink,
The iron on his breath a blunt tool he uses to deepen the crevices long carved into her?
No, of course, you do.
So what do you do about it?
Do you try to press your hands to the wound?
Hand him a life-sentence?
Or do you hand him a baton?
A badge?
Perhaps a can of teargas?
Through the glass I spied an old man
And he’s reading his text
With no care and I’m vexed
A long letter...what’s next?
Origami folds into fan…
8/27/2018
ABBBA - Mad-Song Stanza/Quintain
"Beware Of the Ides of the men on black"
The judges and jurors of our fates, blink.
Every time we will, they will reform it
They even gave them new uniforms
But they preferred the black 'It suits them mos'
And more guns,lesser humanity.
The Leaders of tomorrow are forbidden from seeing the morrows.
Put on rags, glorify poverty;
Just maybe, you will live to see another day of this craze of population control.
While the men on black and their rifle embark on patrol.
Pim pim,
Vroom vroom,
Police vans, parked by road sides
And policemen standing akimbo on major roads
With flash torches, flashing bright lights
Into the faces of incoming drivers
And their passengers if any.
A remainder of
'You better hold change
Or we seize the whole money'
'The Police is Your friend' with stern faces
Hello, young man may we know you.
"Paddy mi, make we gather reach town"
4:20pm, Fresh fine boys gunned downtown.
One, two shots!
Another happy-trigger officer had shot his shots.
"Oga Olopa wetin my pikin do you?"
The oceans flowed endlessly, as their mothers cried.
"Tattoo, dreadlocks, piercing not our culture!"
The Police report read.
For dumbness echoes now, while wisdom has been coerced into a deep sleep.
The toils of tomorrow built with the youth's blood.
GHOPS (Pa Shakespeare) x O.C Adolf
Some poets, are an island lost at sea
Another day goes by, and still no P.O.T.D.
Other poets, their faces
Their faces are everywhere
Other poets, feel left out
They fall into despair
I'll send an S.O.S. to the soup
I'll send an S.O.S. to the soup
I hope administration gets my
I hope administration gets my
I hope administration gets my message for some poets
We want our P.O.T.D's too
We want our P.O.T.D's too
Every once in a while
Every once in a while
Sometimes it's not so easy
Sometimes I just don't get
Sometimes it's not so easy...to be administrations pet
I'll send an S.O.S. to the soup
I'll send an S.O.S. to the soup
I hope administration gets my
I hope administration gets my
I hope administration get my message for some poets
We want our P.O.T.D.'s too
We want our P.O.T.D.'s too
We want our P.O.T.D.'s too
Every once in a while
Every once in a while
Alternating red and blue, police car siren blaring.
My heart is thumping wildly. I wave and blow him a kiss,
But he doesn't notice. He is on the job, not caring.
And since I'm driving slowly, a chance meeting I'm going to miss.
Had he wings, he would be the Heavenly Angel Michael.
But he is an honest cop who watches for speeders on the road.
His manner is courteous; his aura is physical,
Yet, his peaceful brow is smooth, tending not to furrow hold.
Today, I see him at the curb writing a citation.
I wave, I wink, and blow a kiss as I drive on by.
Though my heart is bursting with daily infatuation,
It is those California girls who always catch his eye.
Don’t!
Don’t put your thoughts on paper
Don’t dare to think out loud
Don’t express on social media
Don’t put them up in cloud
Don’t criticize the useless
Don’t voice a point of view
Don’t flex your vocal cord
Don’t think you’re immune
Six burly officers are coming
Because of something you said
They crash the door early morning
And they’ll tear you from your bed
They’ll whisk you down the bridewell
Slam you in a six foot by eight
The CID will make you confess
About all the things that you hate
You can shop lift for a past time
Carry a machete along the road
Threaten cut all white throats
And never do as your told
Keep your gob shut firm and tight
Take the pen and put it down
Don’t tweet early morn or late night
Decent is only for a clown.
David Cox 29/03/25