The Business of Human Tragedy

A Poem

Photo by Spenser on Unsplash

8:01, here they come
storming down the street
to enforce a curfew
with taser guns and batons
hand-to-hand combat
with those kneeling
Plucking people off the ground
who weren’t making a sound
Tear gas firing, police conspiring
to somehow enjoy
the business of human tragedy

It’s a protest by police
of a peaceful protest,
but their protest is aggressive
and retaliatory and never conciliatory
when the real protest is about
racism and oppression
and outright white supremacy
and they wonder why people are so mad
and to combat the burning world
they do it again and again and again
knowing full well that someone will record it
but they don’t care
and that’s how bad it is

An army descending on the capital
to prevent a country from expressing themselves
based on visual evidence of…