All the Rage

To protest police brutality and injustice,
I did what anyone occupying the moral high ground would do
and looted a 65-inch plasma TV from Target,
which should teach those uniformed brutes a thing or two
about the repercussions of systemic racism and
which looks frigging awesome in my living room.

You should have been there, the streets teeming
with the rageful fevered by smoldering resentment,
hooligans and gamines honorably rioting to resist inequality,
jiggering with padlocks, bashing in windows like a boss,
diabolizing law enforcement and sticking it to the man.
The sheer nobility of it all leaves me speechless, even now.

Sure, I heard afterwards that on the newscast
they described us as temerarious and foolhardy, but so what?
Hell, my own folks called us every name in the book:
hoodlum, scofflaw, scapegrace, malefactor. Big deal.
All I can say is that from now on I’ll be binge watching
Judge Judy in high def, and they ain’t invited.

Main thing is, we made a strong statement and
let the establishment know what’s what.
Damn shame that an innocent victim had to die
just so my bud Mikey could finally lay his hands
on Playstation 4 but, shoot, that’s how it goes sometimes.

Maybe someday the utter unwisdom of it
will seep into our consciences and stir regret,
but don’t bet on it. Caring about and coveting
are two sides of the same coin,
and those of us short on coin
will take whatever half we can get, best believe.

Besides, there’s just something about tossing Molotovs
and committing arson that gets the adrenalin going,
know what I mean? I’d do it again in a heartbeat, because
Larceny and Pyromania Matter.

Anyway, it’s safe to say we put the cops on notice.
We run things, things don’t run we!

I love the stench of righteous indignation
in the morning, don’t you?

Brandon Marlon is a writer from Ottawa, Canada. He received his B.A. in Drama & English from the University of Toronto and his M.A. in English from the University of Victoria. His poetry was awarded the Harry Hoyt Lacey Prize in Poetry (Fall 2015), and his writing has been published in 300+ publications in 32 countries. www.brandonmarlon.com