Justified Use of Force

 

This summer I told a friend that I couldn't write any more poems about police brutality. So here's an old one.

 

I wrote this initially in 2002 and when performing in public through the years have changed/updated the names. Mike Brown is only the most recent addition to the litany of blood.

 

 

Justified Use of Force

 

  

Every year there’s a new one

A Diallo, Bell, Brown or me

Clamoring loudly

Broken faces on TV

We ask so many questions

But no one’s forced to answer

 

With sympathy’s short half-life

Soon most are hoping for the noise to stop

And the questions to disappear once again

Just like us

In our lives

And our deaths

 

 

© Gayle Force Press 2014

  

 

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