cracked glass on the kitchen table

naked children crying on the dirt road

smoke curling around their falling tears

no joke

to make them laugh

the barbed wire strung like nervous energy

Martin Luther dead on the cement landing at the Lorraine Motel

blood stains

candy canes

armored tank tracks plowing a farmer's field,

looking for a target

looking for you

holding a white bag staring at the driver

drum beats like leather batons smacking a palm

war slogans repeating like staccato bolts of madness

Putin wearing his war criminal mask,

dancing on the graves of elderly people,

following the footprints of bastardly old Joe.

a friend said he was from Bedford-Stuyvesant,

New York City,

holding an automatic rifle at birth.

full metal jacket

wrapped against the cold steel

without gloves

black wrist bands screaming revolution

lovers looking up at the night sky

Orion

James Webb space telescope designed to make sense

of the mysterious

Age of Aquarius

the stage in the summer of '69

in Harlem's Mount Morris Park

and all for black not negro

proudly raised fists!    

a Javelin launched and a dead helicopter with crew members

dismembered

cell phone calls to mom answered

she is heard to say "Dear son!"

skin peeling from the heat

refugees listening to Led Zeppelin,

singing their immigrant songs,

waiting for decent food and a safer place to sleep

underground

bunkers and sandbags

Vietnam

Ukraine

how many more?

a police radio

confusing static

Mussolini

Nicolae Ceausescu

cracked glass on the kitchen table

bomb debris

the Pope, apologizing frequently

without wearing handcuffs

on the Vatican square,

knows there's not enough stones

to cast out the devil.