Lunar Notes

1.

Full moon over oakland
vague feeling of menace tonight

yellow ivory eyes peer
from an ebony effigy head

deserted courthouse corner
where the darkness craters

blurred people cardboard signs of woe
refuge alongside the cold highway

2.

smirking cops move the port barriers
all the way downtown

forced to walk around
their obstruction

in every petty authority
the glint of the triumph of evil

reversal of the beatitudes
whims of the surveillance state

massive up-link truck
occupies tenth street

phalanx of tautological cops
in combat gear sit in white vans

detoured bus dumps passengers anywhere
under the pummeling helicopters

up broadway first sign of protest
square-dance of people in the street

3.

no more masquerade
american class war out in the open

a nation of bullies
scowls at the less well-off

the negro edged out on a tree limb
already a phantom branch

so many among the over-fed
can't stop won't slow down

scatter pedestrians like urban birds
the snarky cops won't notice

8 September 2014

"Cops Evicted

In the wake of Urban Shield, the police training and trade show staged in Oakland last week, attracting attendees from 200 law-enforcement agencies-- the Mayor announced that it wouldn't be welcome in Oakland again. To exactly nobody's surprise, the event, timed on the heels of Ferguson in a city where cops are probably less popular than anywhere else on the West Coast, drew protests. The police gear fest, which cost $1 million in federal funding, was started by the Alameda County Sheriff's Office." 

from the Bay Guardian,  Sept 10, 2014

So they are using our tax-money to disrupt, disrespect, intimidate, and cause tension in our City.  

We get to underwrite every goose-step on the way to a totalitarian police state