ghosts of Medgar Evers and Malcolm haunt still
as do targets Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman,
and victims Bhapu Ghandi and Ko Ni,
then innocents Asia Bibi and her lawyer Salmaan Taseer,
together with chiefs Geronimo and Joseph:
their hearts excised
their bodies scorned and ripped apart
their families and tribes scattered and buried
these ghosts haunt still,
lives plundered by bulletsropeswhitesheetscrosses,
plundered by deprived reptiles disguised as humans
smugly clinging to some bullshit god
(the temerity to play god),
nefariously clinging to some perverted revisionist past
their ghosts haunt still,
dead eyes moisten
expired hearts well up with grief,
hate crimes cannot be swallowed,
fathomed, ever forgotten-
what, 250 yrs we’re still defending skin color,
mistrusting diversity,
denouncing archaic arrogance?
and what exactly is an infidel?
razed ghosts for reimagining lives lived
for choosing light over revulsion,
sipping water from thicker lips,
breathing through pointier noses,
mocked vilified scorned persecuted
for anal cleansing,
eating vegan,
performing grass and rain dances,
marrying the same sex,
lighting sabbath candles while uttering distant dialects
the oppressed have now become the oppressors
donning the same shabby blood-stained fatigues,
erecting radioactive walls and barbwire fences,
staggering backwards hoisting more Dixieland ropes,
flaunting semiautomatics,
and whipping up another vat of acid to defile humanity’s strange fruit
4/27/18