Insurrection Say Travesty | Alison Stone

Insurrection Snapshots

Words aren’t swords, or bombs,
gunpowder, rifles, dragons.
Not a scaffold with a waiting noose.
Words aren’t religion, airplanes,
torn-out panic buttons,
flagpoles or fire extinguishers.
Not a zip tie. Not a wick. 
Just the flame.

          *
Rioters climb through the broken glass.
Just one bullet, roses blooming
from the hole in one white throat.
          *

From mad rush to single-file 
when they see the velvet ropes -- some instinct
or manners turns the mob obedient,
gives the prey essential
seconds to escape.

          *

A rioter brags his sharpened flagpole
is for “someone special.”  
Others yell for Pence, Pelosi, AOC, 
their “hidden” offices
circled on maps.

          *
Praise to the officers, outnumbered and battered.
Praise to the clerk who thought to grab the votes.
Praise to the selfie-posting killers’ desire for fame.
Praise to crews who soap the shit-stained halls.

          *

Woman with a Don’t Tread on Me banner
trampled to death.
Rioter tasers himself in the groin.
Though reporters mock the fur-clad people 
as cosplayers, my daughter corrects,
That’s live-action role play.

          *
Blood and feces scrubbed away,
already the story’s changing.
Lies fester in the aftermath. 
Rage-filled gun buyers prepare for the next round.
The horned one eats organic food in jail.

Say Her Name

Say, mind on your new job, you change lanes, don’t signal,
And a cop sees you, his skin white and thin,
N-words stashed in his heart the way a perp hides
Drugs. Asked to snuff your smoke, you know your 
Rights. Question history about how far that gets you.
Ask the holstered gun.

Because there are no witnesses, we’ll never
Learn exactly when or how
A plastic bag that shouldn’t be there finds your
Neck. A tragedy but not a crime, they say. You can’t
Disagree or finger anyone.

Travesty

Skittles, iced tea, unarmed. Seventeen years
old. Looks like he’s up to no good…he’s just star-
ing at me. Though cops tell Zimmerman to stay
in his truck, he gets out to find a stre-
et sign.      Fox News anchors rave
about gold teeth, suspension, drugs. Show Trayv-
on pose tough, blow smoke. Never vary
the message. Mock Rachel Jeantel, her tart
tongue mumbling, That’s real reta-
rded, sir. Dangerous. Dumb. Thug. The strate-
gy works. The dead kid’s guilty. The defense can rest.

Alison Stone…

…has published seven full-length collections, Zombies at the Disco (Jacar Press, 2020), Caught in the Myth (NYQ Books, 2019), Dazzle (Jacar Press, 2017), Masterplan, collaborative poems with Eric Greinke (Presa Press, 2018), Ordinary Magic, (NYQ Books, 2016), Dangerous Enough (Presa Press 2014), and They Sing at Midnight, which won the 2003 Many Mountains Moving Poetry Award; as well as three chapbooks. She has been awarded Poetry’s Frederick Bock Prize and New York Quarterly’s Madeline Sadin Award.

Find In The Bezine

Website / Stone Tarot