All Over the Place: A Dance to How We Rewrite

By Michael H. Brownstein












Here we go into the foray of dance and rhythm,

the purple water fountain, the bragging men, the room of beauty and form.

Everywhere the whisper of life lifts its curious head, everywhere a movement.

But then—but then—the evil men with no skin find a reason to destroy,

All Over the Place: Dear Chase

By Michael H. Brownstein

Dear Chase Bank
    As a cardholder I am distressed by the Chase ad, currently running on the Golf Channel, with an African American male at a gas pump, prancing around and jiving about how wonderful his Chase card is, while apparently too stupid to know which side of the car the gas tank is on.
    Make no mistake, as an old white man I am glad to see a black actor featured in an Ad for a major financial institution. Especially since major banks are conspicuously absent from the historically black neighborhoods I drive through in Philadelphia.
    But in this era of Black Lives Matter, to have that actor portray a stereotypical racist image of a drug dealer on Speed getting gas and being stupid is not only offensive but blatantly reinforces our worst and deepest instincts. I trust my reaction is not what Chase intended. It’s definitely NOT FUNNY.
                                        —Neil Hoffmann

Calling All Activist Poets

An opportunity to submit work to the River Heron Review’s timely issue on socio-political events

By Geoffrey Dean

Moristotle agreed that we ought to pass along to other poets an invitation from the River Heron Review that came into my mailbox yesterday. The Review was “established [in January 2018] to support the arts through the sharing of poetry in its online journal, at readings, workshops, and by making public the transformative power of poetic expression.” Read the invitation below.

All Over the Place: My Town’s George Floyd Protest 2020

By Michael H. Brownstein

No life matters until all lives matter. Black lives matter, too.
Are we not human? Do we not love our children, eat with forks and spoons, go to school and go to work?
Give me liberty, give me justice, do I not have a right to breathe?
                    —Protest signs

We Will Be Heard

By Geoffrey Dean

Filled with feeling, yet stunned by disbelief,

I froze like a pond in the depths of winter.

This happened here?
This happened
Again?

Your final agony ended my long lethargy

As tears rushed down like a river of melted ice.

This cannot happen.
This cannot happen
Anywhere.

Thumper

By Eric Meub

As Harry Potter puts it, “You-Know-Who”
Is hexing Pennsylvania Avenue.
The President, we learn, is quite annoyed
At all the fuss surrounding Mr Floyd.
The protesters have vowed to make a mess
Of his insightful Rose Garden address.
There’s been no looting, curfew’s not begun,
And yet, by all means, something must be done.

The Policeman’s Club Descends

By Bob Boldt

With each blow the black crucifixion arises anew.

“You got to move”
blues echo down Wall Street.

Follow the long chain of slaves who traded in

cotton for the automobile assembly.

While pharaoh keeps killing black leaders

with all the brutal indifference
of a wheat harvester’s scythe.

Black blood has fertilized a reincarnation

the powerful will never understand.

They Marched

By Neil Hoffmann

They Marched in tens.
They Marched in hundreds.
They Marched in thousands.

They Marched in tens and hundreds of thousands.

Millions marching.

From Maine to California they marched.

From Florida to Alaska they marched.

From Texas to Minnesota they marched.
In towns and great cities they marched.
Across the land they marched.

Photo Op

Bret Stephen’s summation of Trump’s inversion
of Abraham Lincoln’s 2nd Inaugural Address

By Moristotle

The President of the United States

threatens military troops to quell unrest

How can this man be President,

this devil child playing at toy soldiers with real ones,

playing at war against citizens equal under the law?

He used police to clear the way for a photo op

Men with guns emptied the square with bangs and flashes and gas

They broke the crowd in pieces

Dream Deferred

By Moristotle

George Floyd died with a police officer’s boot on his neck in Minneapolis

Before him, it was Breonna Taylor, shot dead in her Louisville apartment

Before her, it was Botham Jean, shot in his Dallas apartment

Before him, it was Philando Castile, shot five times at close range in his car in a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota

One day before him, it was Alton Sterling, shot at close range on the ground in Baton Rouge

Side Story: Why write political poetry?

With apologies to the 1961 American
musical romantic drama directed by
Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins

A comment on Michael H. Brownstein’s poem “Spring” prompted a question relative to his two political poems, “Welcome to the Masquerade Party” and “Death by Indecision.” The question is: Why do you write political poems? —Moristotle

Reply by Michael H. Brownstein