Off with the Pigs

A fleeting bite, insulting slight, to justice,

love, and reason,

did little right when old men, so white, prefer,

the lure of treason. 
Were you there when Hero's prayer in death,

soothed Claudio's tantrum?

When three to a man did Caliban assault,

his slaver's sanctum?

You speak returns and big concerns for old ways,

imagined past.

But a verdict's deign doesn't raise the slain where ground

with blood is cast.

Justice is needed. Justice deserved.

Justice is more than this platitude served.

Justice is here. Justice is now.

The pigs need to be sent home to the sow.

-o0o-

Prophesy

There is darkness in the world,

but I am not of the darkness.

There is pain,

but I am not the pain itself.

I am wounded,

but I am not the wound.

I was wronged,

but I am just.

I was hurt,

but I am holy.

I was killed,

but I rose again.

Of course, you who wronged me,

you see me as broken and cursed,

you have no way of seeing me...

as other from what you did.

But I am greater than you or your crimes.

You will bow before me,

and then you will be forgotten.

I promise you this,

because it has already happened.

-o0o-

Whore Prophet

Elijah.
You talk big for a murderer and a misogynist;
water-cooler-gossip,
snickering,
telling your bros about what a whore I am,
while I made miracles,
filling bellies in the heart of the desert,
and wrote thaumaturgy on the hearts of children.
You talk big about the false prophets,
but you carry middle-management hatred,
like ring binders in your mouth,
hatred that boiled over and slaughtered my kin,
with no provocation, for no reason,
but the name of your god of war.
But remember, it was I who chased you into the desert,
I who put you to wandering,
I who made you weep for death.
In the end even your god sent upper-management down
to take you away:
a PR disaster not even the high heavens were ready for.
Tell Elisha we won’t be any easier on him.
Tell him my name is Jezebel: Whore Prophet.
If he comes for me I’ll eat him and feed his bones to my dogs.

-o0o-

Divisive?

I'm divisive, you say?

For pointing out the knife?

You're here ending my life,

and I'm the one sewing discord?

You promote hatred and violence,

and hide behind plausible deniability,

but I'm the hateful one,

because I have ears to hear and eyes to see?

Look over there,

where my friends are lying,

face down in the dirt.

And over there,

where my friends are crying,

hunched over bodies,

pulling knives from flesh.

Your knives.

But we're divisive?

For pointing that out?

We've made you feel bad?

Your ickle feelings are hurt?

You're just trying,

to have a civil conversation?

A lively debate?

You're just asking a question,

playing Devil's advocate,

pretending as if this is equal terrain.

We lay here in pain,

with your knife in our gut,

and you want to pretend the footrace is fair.

You want to pretend,

that your 'opinion' matters,

at least as much as human life?

The lives you've made unlivable?

Sure honey.

Try stabbing people physically,

and use this argument on the judge.

I bet you'll get the same reaction.

Fuck you.

-o0o-

The Man who Knows

Be careful of the man who knows,

the one who's walked the single path,

the man who says, "this way,"

when life has taken them there,

like a dog strung along by the smell of meat.

When privilege has made him ignorant.

Convenience and wealth has led him;

down the path where the grass is dead.

He says, "see, I know."

He discounts you easily and quickly.

He doesn't ask why.

He doesn't know.

He will tell you he is smarter than you.

And finally having convinced himself,

convinced of his own superiority,

his entitlement to your body and charity,

he would rather have you die,

than finding ways of surviving.

After all...

...if the poor want to survive,

they would be rich.

-o0o-

Buying Happiness

"Money can't buy happiness"

says cishet person

says rich person

says white person

says man.
Oh, but you, you can.

I'll send you my banking details,

fill my coffers.

Since you have so little use of money.

Shut your mouth or share your honey.

-o0o-

Floodwater

Queer is the dam that powers their homes.

Queer is their denial with mortar and stones.

Queer is the crack at the base of the wall wall.

Queer is the flood that came down on them all.

Queer is the river that cuts through their street.

Queer is the water that dams at their feet.

Queer are their children who learned how to swim.

Queer are the songs that they sing like a hymn.

Queer are their houses being worn away.

Queer are the trees under which the dogs play.

Queer are the fields renewed by the flood.

Queer is the water paid for with blood.

Queer is the rust and the broken glass.

Queer are the weeds that grow in the grass.

Queer is the valley where houses once stood.

Queer is the river, queer is the wood.

-o0o-

I restored this poem. No word back from whether it would be published or not.

New

Something new,

crept up, chewed, spat out,

from the old world,

that place of hatred,

like a leather suitcase.

Stinking of time.

Covered in grime.

I guess you, like them,

weren't expecting us.

A dress with an unsewn hem,

a single eye like a gem in the rough,

here for a moment,

gone in a puff.

Did we frighten you?

Are we so terrible?

And certainly you didn't think,

we were gone forever?

Our sun is a new sun.

Our war long since won.

Of course you wouldn't understand the cost,

of a war you never knew you lost.

-o0o-

1994

ticker tape tin soldier

and bobby blue

come with a gun for you

reinforcing old violence

just as a reminder

so you know who your superiors are

old men in moth-eaten gowns

fighting to be relevant

with moth-eaten frowns

and a wagging finger

old crocodile reminiscent

and the new kids

fighting an old war

their parents once fought for

but abandoned in the name of comfort

a disingenuous compromise

ring a ring o’protest

pockets full of unrest

click-bang. click-bang.

we all fall down

-o0o-

"Peace without Justice is Tyranny."
~William Allen White

A year ago...

Sandra Bland died today

but long ago

the hurt is still in the faces of her siblings

the wound is still so raw

and her siblings die

her parents die

still

now

like it digs up old graves
and she's here again

as if she died yesterday

-o0o-

Poet

speak poet

your words are the prophesy

selling bad news to bad people

make them think it's honey

you witches and demiurges

who carve creation out of your own blood

rise with the whispers

that no one dares speak before the king

until your chorus shatters their windows

uproots their foundations

shakes the world

I promise you

you have power

sing up at the mighty

and hear them cry for mercy

-o0o-

Animus of Hope (Song, mostly unwritten yet)

we are the children of the anarchy

we are not purchased by the dirty lie

so unafflicted by serenity

you sing to puppets like a lullaby

we're not undone by your iniquity

it's not our job to see you gratified

you are undone by our ability

to wave our hands and leave you mystified

we are the animus of hope

we are the tempered steel

we genuflect to neither king nor pope

we are the grease that turns the wheel

you were the chains around our very necks

to keep us down and so you prayed

your gods would keep us your subjects

but we're the exsanguinating blade

you made us into your inhuman objects

at least, you thought, that we'd be swayed

and ran to cash your bloody cheques

for debts you hoped would never be paid

we are the animus of hope

we are the tempered steel

we genuflect to neither king nor pope

we are the grease that turns the wheel

we are the macroscope

our anger is the only thing you feel

you're a forgotten trope

we'll be all that's left that's real

we are the animus of hope

we are the tempered steel

we genuflect to neither king nor pope

we are the grease that turns the wheel

-o0o-

Bleeding Heart

you'll forgive me if I stutter

when I speak of things that matter

I'm sorry but I'm not that cold

when I speak the tales that should be told

I don't have that luxury to freeze

switch myself off with flippant ease

these things that hurt me so

I can't just let them go

I am not made of such distant stuff

or set in stone all cruel and rough

dispassion is not how I'm built

when innocent blood is spilt

so you'll forgive me if I cry

when I see innocent people die

-o0o-

Having Joined the Liberal Club

it's simply not enough to say

you're on my side

and watch passively

as someone hurls bigotry at me

liberalism isn't something that you are

you don't join the liberal club

and get a badge

and now you are liberal

and that's that

no

liberalism is something that you do

and if you don't do it

you're not a liberal

if you don't fight for marginalized people

you're not a liberal

you're just a spectator

a part of the status quo

-o0o-

Lumen

what do mortals do

when the sun and moon no longer talk

when the stars have all

turned their backs on one another

and the world is dark now

when the great lights

have all but snuffed out their shining

and the mortals who have none

must do without

because the lights are throwing a tantrum

and do the lights then

return

and expect gratitude from the mortals

?

-o0o-

[sic]-ness

plutocracy has made us [sic]

an error of debit and credit

scratched off human lives

whited out human cruelty

where money is the ultimate fix

and blood is just red in a ledger

the poor are typos

irrelevant mistakes

used up commodities

erased with dog-whistle politics

and that all-too-typical rationalization

that we're entitled to what we have

at the cost of others

-o0o-

Fees Must Fall

Please head over to Poetry Potion to read my poem regarding Fees Must Fall:

http://www.poetrypotion.com/fees-must-fall-by-charl-landsberg/

Regards
Charl

-o0o-

Appropriation

colour, a commodity 

packaged in beads and thread

strip the black children naked 

leave brown kids for dead

eat up their culture 

sweep up their ash

nothing gets in the way 

of the white folks' cash

-o0o-

All Lives Matter?

You know, playing at semantics is always fun,
   when marginalized people are being killed en mass.
But Little Lord Privilege over here feels 'left out'.
   Boo hoo.
Did marginalized people speaking about their suffering upset you?
   Did people who are being slaughtered daily make you feel uncomfortable?
It would be so much easier if they just suffered in silence, wouldn't it?
   Then you wouldn't have to be reminded of how fucking lucky you are.
When marginalized people say they suffer,
   and you as a privileged person say, "I suffer too."
Do you know what that sounds like?
   You got all the cookies,
   and a starving person wants one cookie,
   and you scream, "I deserve a cookie too!"
   Do you know what you sound like?
Do you know what it's like to be queer in this day and age?
   Where the life expectancy of a transgender person is 40 years?
Do you know what it's like to be a queer person of colour?
   Where the life expectancy can be as low as 25 years?
When they say, "Our Lives Matter!"
   When they cry out because of the abuse they suffer.
And you waltz through declaring "All Lives Matter!"
   Well done.
Well done you selfish arsehole.
   Here. Let me clap for you... slowly.
I'm reminded of the cartoon of the fireman,
   watering a house next to a house on fire.
   "All Houses Matter."

Do me a favour.
   Instead of lecturing me about how "All Lives Matter"
   How about you take your entitled privileged ass,
   and go tell some racists, homophobes, transphobes, and misogynists,
   that all lives matter, EVEN OURS.

And stop pretending as if marginalized people are the ones being dishonest and divisive.

#BlackLivesMatter
#TransLivesMatter
#LGBTQIALivesMatter
#WomensLivesMatter

-o0o-

Erasure

Tune of the unjust;

the long song.

Drawn out to lash the weak,

and praise the strong.

Heavens, no!

What ever could go wrong?

When anger stirs,

in the maddening throng.

Sing for me then,

lashing with your fist.

Grab my hair, my throat,

my thighs, my wrist.

But you can't undo me,

no matter how you insist.

I am here, always,

and always I persist.

-o0o-