New York 2014 – the police refuse their jobs and turn their backs on policing (a poem in first draft - cuz it couldn't wait)

New York 2014 – the police refuse their jobs and turn their backs on policing

Finally the police won’t patrol and we are left

alone to walk while black, or decide upon

school instead of jail or put down laws

in favor of good sense. Or question

the rocket’s red glare or the latest movie which

exalts an American shooter and negates

a foreign life.  Finally the police will turn

their backs on the whole Orwellian

experiment – the magic trick of being black

and dead and still possessing a relevant

toxicology report – being black and murdered

and having what happened in the third grade

brought to bear – being black and murdered

and criminalized for objecting to being black

and murdered.  Finally the police have got something

right.  I’ve waited a long time for this – for the streets

to be safe from tyranny – for front stoop laughter

to replace the nightstick’s rattle against the fence

for the broken fire hydrant to mean the memory

of a hot summer day and nothing else – for no

excited boy to descend into the night

and end up in the precinct, or face down

in the subway, or arrested from a school-

house.  Finally now the senate will turn

its back too – and several high school teachers

and several college professors and several human

resource departments – so that for maybe a week

being black can go unremarked enough to simply

mean human – to not mean big buck, to not

mean there was a robbery in the area and you fit

the description,  to not mean tragic accident

or I thought I was reaching for my taser.

We’ve been waiting for the patrolling

to stop – for the police backs to turn to us

being not necessary to watch us at every turn

and all. We’ve been waiting for Flatbush to

look like carnival again, for the police

to ignore the smell of pineapple kush

on Nostrand or anyone with white tees

spread out against cardboard over a milk crate.

What god gifted us this thing we’ve always

prayed for? To send our children into the streets

and hope they see not one unholstered gun

all day.  Finally they’ve stopped patrolling

and black people can live, and Eric Garner can

rest and Tamir Rice can rest and Michael Brown

can rest, and the city we’ve loved can maybe

revert to its rightful owners, now that the judges’

backs are also turned, and so the prisons

crumble and we come out to call up

at the neighbors’ windows again,

our imaginations grow more room and the city

begins to bloom and make art again

and poor people survive, and Orwell

is finally a liar, and all I can see is thousands

of blue backs unconcerned with where

we go and what we do and thank God

the NYPD finally got it right.

To schedule a reading or an appearance please contact Ofer Ziv at Blue Flower Arts at 845-677-8559 or email ofer@blueflowerarts.com. www.facebook.com/rogerbonairagard www.twitter.com/rogerbonair www.cypherbooks.com