Drawing out the long rope of history that swings from the black limbs

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The powers that be
are not
just

complicit, not just
intentionally
ignorant

nor striving for
plausible
deniability.

They are habitually,
sadistically,
nakedly

the incendiary device,
accelerant, the tinder,
the vise

confining not with
just intent
but

with a casual knee
or a baton
swung

at heads deliberately,
with tear gas and
“less-lethal”

ammunition—bean
bags and rubber
bullets—

fired at faces left
thunderously
bruised,

at ribs and backs and
thighs gouged
bloody

assaulted, broken,
and drawing out
the long

rope of history that
swings from the
black limbs

of a country tree.
They are not
just

dutifully keeping the
peace, protecting
and serving,

are not content to wield
the authority
at their

disposal but insist
on supremacy,
that they

dominate the streets,
the citizenry.
We:

those they see
as less than,
nothing

more than commodity,
revenue, machinery,
disposable

targets. See how the
powers that be
fearfully

hunker down, then flee
the building
storm

in a reign of pepper spray,
flash grenades, shields
and clubs,

amid shouts—“Get back!”
“Stop resisting!” “Light
’em up!”—

how those powers that be
expediently declare
an assembly

unlawful, a threat to property
all in the name of
that one Me.

But their powers are only
those we the people
consent to

and which we grant
in the interest of
our Liberty,

our Happiness, and all our
Lives, we being the
governed, especially

the forgotten We, the
invisible and racially
profiled We, the silent

We, the unjustly jailed
We, the immigrant and
indigenous We, the
desperately poor We,
the hunted and
brutalized and
murdered
We.

For there will be no justice nor
peace until they and he
concede that
We are

the Powers That Be.

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