These Times

by Jihmye Collins

Global warming makes a plaintive cry
unheard
napalm starts to mutate itself,
phosphorous dust in a pollination dance
from Palestine to Afghanistan and Iraq,
discount flight reservations to Syria,
settling on broken bones and disenchanted dreams
of those who have no refuge,
and do not matter
to the fortunate overfed,
feeding on sanctioned fear mongering
of a skull and cross-bones fraternity,
to cover the designer terrorism
champagne and brie spread over lies,
as Franken penned,
“lies and the lying liars
who tell them.”

meanwhile, California women
take a stand for being groped,
as men mindlessly being men,
sneer in a “make my day” traditions

the state now in a barbell grip
of an incubating new reich,
building bodies with a goose step
youth animated to limitless loyalty
for homeland groupthink,
a standard advanced
during a sabotage in sunkist land,
hawking its way
in a dark, dirty slime-funk,
descending on a fool’s gold shore
east of the titanic Pacific,
where democracy is movie make-believe
once again,
resting in the deep pockets
of hasta la vista! And white power
peddling a phosphorous dust dance
sedating the masses to sleep

Maggee Park Poets Anthology, 2004, p. 11