The Wire

Seems like some strange rain’s coming down.
Could use a few loosies, help me get unwound.
I’m out on Victory Boulevard and Bay,
I’m at the ATM, got a few bills to pay.

Brother on the corner, making the rounds,
Really big guy, must be three hundred pounds,
Wait, what’s going on, three cops got him down.
One’s on his neck; they’re all on the ground.
I hear him say “I can’t breathe”, and then
He says it again and again and again.

I see slivers of silver climb up their sleeves
Like a long skinny cable. I watch as it weaves
Up out of their collars, up under their hair,
And into their brains and keeps going from there.
It winds down the gutters, gets harder to see,
As it snakes through the streets to the NYPD

What is it, your stare, your hoodie, your hair?
What is it that cues them to cut off your air?
What is it he did? A crime or a sin?
No need for thinking. One look at your skin
Trips that wire in their head. But who works the remote
That makes them back off or go for your throat?
Who makes the decision of what should transpire?
To be calm, go berserk? You see there’s this wire
Threading to Albany from City Hall
Winding its way from each bust and brawl
To the courts where the judges are dancing away
With district attorneys and the PBA.
Everybody’s got a wire going into his ear,
Getting a message that you may not hear
(was it copping some pleas or pleasing some cop?)
Wires are everywhere. Twelve of them drop
Down from the rafters where the Grand Jury’s hung.
The poor prosecutor’s got one in his tongue
So somebody, whoever, can give it a tweak
Whenever he opens his mouth up to speak.

While beautiful Justice, not only blind,
But bruised and beaten half out of her mind,
Got this wire on her neck like a noose on a chain,
And you can’t see who’s pulling it, ‘cause of the rain.

No you can’t see from here who’s pulling the wire
As it climbs up the courthouse. It goes up much higher.
You can’t see the source. It gets lost in the haze,
It gets covered up in so many ways…

And we’re all on the street with this little tin cup
And night’s coming on and the rain won’t let up.

New Poems

• "Battle Hymn of the Republic, Indeed"
• "Ode to a Banana"
• "Moving on After 1/6"
• "Hug"
• "Map-less Monarchs"
• "I am Such a Rich Man"
• "Beatitude with Attitude"
• "The Cross and the Lynching Tree Rap"
• "The Nudist Nun"
• "Sonnet 19"
• "Reparations Now"
• "Hoping I'm Wrong"
• "Bird Feeder"
• "Pete and Henry"
• "Nero: A Rap for Republicans"
• "Croissant"
• "Mandela"
• "The New Jim Crow"
• "The Wire"
• "Why Socialism?"

From By Heart

• "Ahiti"
• "As Some Fertile Seed"
• "Greed Screed"
• "I Sing the Ass"
• "Lying Lost Among Your Arms"
• "Now Thou Art Two and Twenty"
• "Sweet Smellin Woman"
• "This World"
• "Train Wreck"
• "Truth and Parable"
• "Why This Itch This Yen"
• "You"

Some Earlier Poems

• "Al and Bob"
• "The Lonely Puddle"
• "Ode to a Bagel"
• "The Rose"
• "Sardinia"
• "When Love's Liqueur"

Audio Recordings

• "Abu Ghraib"
• "Things About Kings"