Subscribe to Toylit

Showing posts with label Oakland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oakland. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Prison Camp [Today's News Poem, November 10, 2010]

Prison Camp [Today's News Poem, November 10, 2010]

Oakland is litter—no. Cities are clutter.
High on the yeast that ferments in the nostrils
Launched from the bakery, everyone's woozy.
Fitting: it's dirty with diapers, its buildings
Sag with the soot of the factories, autos...
Effluent oozes—it's pus from the wounded.
Oceans of tuna are buried in trash bags—
Coffins of tin are ensconced with the buzzing.
Choppers and flies are the halos—the patrons
Oakland attracted. It concentrates armor,
Concrete and grayness together with morsels
Locked in a circle of freeway and train tracks:
Locked in a bottle of yeast and its droppings—
Camped in a garden of bullets and garbage.

"Another unarmed Black brother, Derrick Jones, 37, a beloved Oakland barbershop owner and father of an infant girl, met a violent death on Monday night, Nov. 8, 2010, shot and killed by two white Oakland police officers while “fleeing,” after they “thought” they saw a metallic object in his hand. This is the third OPD officer-involved homicide of people of color in 2010."
—Mesha Monge-Irizarry, Idriss Stelley Foundation, The San Francisco Bay View, November 10, 2010
http://sfbayview.com/2010/what-part-of-%E2%80%98killed_unarmed_black_man-murder%E2%80%99-doesn%E2%80%99t-opd-understand/

Buy the Q1/Q2 2010 Report right now:
Return to Toylit Subscribe in a reader

Thursday, July 08, 2010

Quarantine the Relic [Today's News Poem, July 8, 2010]

Quarantine the Relic [Today's News Poem, July 8, 2010]

The city is blowing dioxins from chimneys.
And woozy, it staggered and fell on its stomach.
The freeways have punctured its lungs with the pillars
That carry the uniformed ghosts through the ghetto;
From suburb to office, bypassing this relic.
The city is coughing up blood and the pavement
Has flecks in its drool and the faces in windows
On trains are observing the symptoms with interest.
They're watching, uncertain of whether to vomit
Or cheer as the city is bleeding and gasping
For breath, as the officers quarantine Oakland
To death.

“Word of the Johannes Mehserle involuntary manslaughter verdict utterly transformed downtown Oakland in a matter of hours from a quiet enclave of office workers into a crush of more than 1,000 angry protesters, some of whom briefly skirmished with police. ”
– Matthai Kuruvila, Kevin Fagan, Jill Tucker,Nanette Asimov, The San Francisco Chronicle, Thursday, July 8, 2010
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/08/BAFL1EBKII.DTL&tsp=1



Return to Toylit
Subscribe in a reader