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