Listen Up, Liberals: In the Matter of Eric Garner vs NYPD by Angela Consolo Mankiewicz
Beware establishment’s media –
Yes, of course, you know all about it
Of course, nothing they say/print/read would surprise you
Of course, you rail against it day after day
I repeat: Beware the scourge of establishment’s media
Like sweet sounding cicadas
until they transform into locusts, soft tapping
sounds into scratching sounds into sounds
too deafening to be heard.
Listen up, Liberals, before you’re enveloped
by pods of active verbs becoming passive phrases,
where limbs are animated like a cop’s “arm find(ing)
its way around” a black man’s neck*; where scenes
are painted of “noisy” “throngs of (protesters)
scream(ing) at (cops)”…. “who had nothing to do
with this case”, who “feel betrayed” and “demoralized,,
misunderstood and ‘all alone’”**
.
I repeat: Beware the scourge of establishment’s media
Sleep just a moment today, another moment
tomorrow, a little more next week,
and they will consume you until you believe
that cop’s arm was finding its way around
a black man’s neck, until, betrayed, you’re no longer sure
who is demoralized, misunderstood and all alone.
They can get you – It can happen
I know.
*New York Times, 12/3/14 and **Associated Press, 12/5/14, both as reported in EXTRA! Jan-Feb 2015
Rusty Truck 
May 23, 2015 at 11:35 am
Now, this is what I’m talking about! Bravo, Angela. To stand up for ‘truth’ and to rage against injustice is simply the greatest and most
important literary art of all, bar none.
May 27, 2015 at 8:43 pm
Thanks so much, Doug – really appreciate the encouragement.
May 28, 2015 at 10:37 am
Thanks so much, Angela, for adding your voice to the grave injustice, and the complicity of establishment’s media, of police violence in the black community.
Especially love the verses:
“Listen up, Liberals, before you’re enveloped
by pods of active verbs becoming passive phrases”
Expressed like the great poet you are.
May 28, 2015 at 8:02 pm
And thank you Rose, for commenting and re-blogging – ONWARD!