The love poem I want to write tonight is superseded
Everything is superseded by a microdot on a piece of paper
A microdot in a timeline of chaos, flashpoint in history
In one single day, the anxiety will culminate in a vote
Four years of conflicted administration, conflicted nation
That broke out in outright civil war, bloody war
Wounds that haven’t healed in one hundred sixty years,
An outbreak breaking out in protests, riots, civil speech exhausted
Wealth disparity, despair, disinformation, lies
Pandemic denied in a pantomime economy
Destined for collapse through dying workers, denied workers
Dying jobs markets, dying for relief from a dead congress
All summed up in a microdot on a piece of paper
Destined for the ballot box—summation but not salvation
For the sins of our forefathers, writ into racial blood,
Radical divide, denied equal opportunity
EQUALITY
Fragmenting a national illusion persisting in a culture of cruelty
For outsiders, inside the inner-city blight in a nation
Of freedom for insiders, a segregation of insiders, by insiders, for insiders
White trashed lives whose sway they aim to own, even my own life
Had I not left town they would have kept me down, destined to be an outsider
Like my music partner from New Orleans who never did break in
I can’t leave all this undone, unsung—this division, this decision
In a pantomime economy, in a pandemic, in a microdot on a piece of paper
Just a microdot in a timeline of chaos
