The look is different,

fashions change with the time

Red is the new white

and hat is the new hood

A few bad apples, they said

Apples laced with poison, apples that kill

A tradition of thanks, centered on death 

Oh, the contrast, the absurdity

I don’t have any interest in the sport of football, and yet,

y’all have turned me into a Colin Kaepernick fan.

Wait. You said I was silly

You went on and on about protein

You said God gave you animals to eat

We’ve demonized immigrants,

locked children in crates,

and I was just wondering,

now are we great?

Why were you out late?

Were you being a flirt?

Did you have any drinks?

How short was your skirt?!

“This is not the right place”

lunch counter, football field, Edmund Pettis Bridge

The picture he painted 

sure was rosy

when he sang his little song 

Your horns will be cut off because "oops," God didn't mean for you to have those.

But a straight man in a candy store

is, too often, a bull in a china shop

Our babies’ milk is taken from us

Until it slows, then the knife

if you are pro-war,

pro-death penalty,

and anti-gun control 

then you’ll need a new title

I looked up the word “humane”

in your dictionary and, holy shit, 

you are not going to believe

how wonderful it sounds

We were protesting violence 

when violence met us 

Gun in hand, firing 

The diagnosis was terminal,

the patient’s suffering evident,

from being battered and neglected 

through her many years

My screams

are the only things

that will escape today

When we tell people 

nothing can change,

we are ignoring history

If they sounded to us like lions

or elephants or seals,

we could call them unintelligent,

never hearing their appeals

Two slices of death

from the bleeding remains

of the mothers whose babies

we ground into veal