2 FISTS (IN THE AIR FOR A REASON)
By Joseph Musso
if an afterlife exists and
saint and sinner alike
are forgiven
and end up in ‘heaven’ in the same brass and
wood room
is it awkward…
when murderer meets the murdered
when Derek Chauvin meets George Floyd
when Daniel Pantaleo meets Eric Garner
when Myles Cosgrove meets Breonna Taylor
when every slave-owner meets his slaves
when every black man lynched meets his lyncher
do they talk?
forget?
forgive?
laugh it off over beers?
hug it the fuck out???
live and let……LIVE?
so.
to.
speak.
or will it be a barroom
brawl,
fists flying,
chairs crashed over backs?
will all ‘hell’
break loose?
so.
to.
speak.
Now let’s talk about
JUSTICE versus REVENGE…
are they not the same?
‘a rose by any other name’
When Martin Luther meets his
murderer
which flag will snap
in the breeze
above their heads:
Confederate?
American?
King was murdered by a nation,
an ideology, by fear and racism.
Mostly, fear—
Murdered by
a star-spangled
deranged and mangled
jingle-jangled
old-fangled
Death Squad
sent by ‘God’
King was killed, Ghandi, John Lennon, all men of peace.
So the question I fear to mention here
is: Peace loses to Violence every time, doesn’t it?
Peace did not stop Hitler—
Roosevelt Stalin & Churchill did
Peace did not stop Japan—
the 2 baddest-ass bombs of their
time did
Peace, that flower wilting
in the hottest sun
beating down waterless &
without mercy—
The flowers all died in
tiny pale palmed hands,
whose?
Addie Mae Collins
Cynthia Wesley
Carole Robertson
Carol Denise McNair
4 little girls who got blown
up in a church in
nineteen
forty
nine
by a few sticks of Klan dynamite
& hate without conscience
How much has changed?
Peter Tosh said in song “No Justice No Peace”
that was 1976
this is 2022
Tosh is long gone
You and I will be long gone
and STILL it will stand:
NO JUSTICE
NO PEACE
Joe Musso lives in NJ, in a place of big sky and water. He has a handful of books out there. Check them out if so inclined.