i can't breathe!

"Please, I can't breathe!  My stomach hurts… My neck hurts…
Everything hurts…  They're going to kill me!"  (George Floyd, 2020 May 25)
 
 colour of midnight
    the absence of colour.
          president's
              nonresident client
        setting precedence.
             violence
for non-offence.
       no release
   by the police
for i'm the least
   in the hands
   of the beast.
     he prays upon me
his unholy genuflection
     charging my erection.
       he preys upon
    the jugular
 of a struggler.
false supremacy
knows no mercy.
the streets lie foul
     with the stench
of foul play.
i cannot breathe!
pinned down beneath
the knees of oppression.
eight minutes
forty-six seconds
the limits breached
 as darkness beckons.
    unsophisticated
        suffocation
  for zero provocation
in jim crow nation.
my bitter-tweet passions
so tightly rationed
my living breath
cries mama!
 
my dying breath
cries Abba!
 
while the resident
precedent
becomes the
unprecedented norm
seeking to harm
the calm
to hurt
the earth
even before
holy angels
can be compelled
to release
the four winds.
but when Abba
permits his angels
of destruction
to make pompous kings
eat savage grass
shall come to pass
the Lord's instruction
to kill death
to destroy destruction
to conquer fools
to rule who rules
to outlaw
the outlaw
to cleanse the
white-housed sepulchre
of the skeletons
that evil rulers deposit
inside their inner closets.
for my living breath
cries mama!
but my dying breath
cries Abba!
here underneath
the guise of colour
to God i holler
 
I CAN BREATHE NOW!
 
© Copyright 2020 May 30
by Clyve A. Bowen♫