Sunday, April 26, 2015

New poem: ALBUQUERQUE

the whole world watches
the beatings and shootings
the protests on Central Avenue
and as a result
the police get body cameras
which are turned off
when a young officer high-on-rage
decides to pummel someone
who hasn't defied him
and the officer, with every punch,
silently curses every suspect
nonviolent or otherwise
and the people in government
who don't Understand
and make him wear a body camera
and trust him to not do the same old things
in the same old ways
>
if I lived in Albuquerque,
I'd pray that,
from the ordinary-people Valley
to the moneyed Heights,
enough fellow citizens would say "enough"
and demand the APD wear body cameras
that officers could never ever turn off
in the course of what should be
workdays free of unnecessary force

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