

The Latest Catch Phrase
It took bodies laying on
concrete slabs
and the blood running from white hands
and blue uniforms
for a nation to utter to each other
with clenched teeth and lips barely parted
a new catch phrase
"Black Lives Matter."
Put the bullhorn down
cause I'm not listening to the bullshit,
I'm listening to the
echo of sonless mothers cry out as tears rain
down on worthless prom tickets
and cap and gown with no one to wear.
I'm listening to the cold empty barrel,
the empty chilled clip,
the round frozen in shredded flesh
on a cool autumn night,
when leaves and dreams
synonymously fall.
I'm listening to a father who raised his boy
to be respectful,
get disrespected with TMZ-esque info that
he might've been gang affiliated,
or carrying an unfound firearm
and would've fired first had that officer
not been trained so efficiently.
It took the economic increase
of caskets and tombstones sold to underprivileged minorities
for us
to hop off our high horse sidewalks and notice
the noise in the gutter,
and clutter together in the streets for a weekend screaming lies like
"Black Lives Matter."
No one has to reiterate White lives matter, Chinaman lives matter,
Vidas españolas importan,
Indians,
well the nation that's built its Capitol on reservation skeletons wouldn't
speak about them mattering.
It takes a new hip three word bumper sticker
to set an alarm that has been
ringing for centuries,
and most still can't hear it.
I pray poets are armed
when the meek inherit the Earth,
by prying it from the deafs' Royal hands.
Roger Smith © 2015