I mean really, can’t one

Some poems work in every language. The original may have happened in a café in Munich, but it could have happened just as well in a Chicago sports bar. You just have to adjust the racism.

That the rent’s going up

But the milk’s sold too cheap

And I heard in Bavaria

They call it a Negro

When they mix beer with coke

If they can, then why

You have to be able

To discern the semantics

I mean really, can’t one?

At the bar at the corner

Between football games

I mean really, can’t one?

With a trucker hat

And wintery skin

Not even white

More like a turkey

Or a pig’s nipple

And the gender-debate

So indoctrinatous

Does no one think of the kids?

That this is a woman

And not someone with

A menstrual background

I mean really, can’t one?

At the checkout each

With a kid in their arms

Their faces all pruned

By their middle-class hardship

But please, Louise

I mean really, can’t one

That not all Mexicans

Well, sure not everyone

But not no one neither

With so many of them

I mean really, can’t one?

At the family dinner

There’s always someone

Work’s not a right

But a privilege, right?

Besides, I know many

Proud people of colour

I mean really, one should

And the Jews — come on

I mean really, one — what?

What’s that look on your face?

Witnessed and written down in a café in spring 2018.

I’m an independent writer, translator and editor. If you think I can help you with something, shoot me an email at chrisloveswords@gmail.com.