Jose Campos Torres

I had said I wasn't going to write no more poems like this

I had confessed to myself all along, tracer of life, poetry trends

That awareness, consciousness, poems that screamed of pain and the origins of pain and death had blanketed my tablets

And therefore, my friends, brothers, sisters, in-laws, outlaws, and besides

They already knew

But brother Torres, common ancient bloodline brother Torres is dead

I had said I wasn't going to write no more poems like this

I had said I wasn't going to write no more words down about people kicking us when we're down, about racist dogs that attack us and drive us down, drag us down and beat us down but the dogs are in the street

The dogs are alive and the terror in our hearts has scarcely diminished

It has scarcely brought us the comfort we suspected

The recognition of our terror and the screaming release of that recognition

has not removed the certainty of that knowledge, how could it

The dogs rabid foaming with the energy of their brutish ignorance

Stride the city streets like robot gunslingers

And spread death as night lamps flash crude reflections from gun buts and police shields

I had said I wasn't going to write no more poems like this

But the battlefield has oozed away from the stilted debates of semantics

beyond the questionable flexibility of primal screaming

The reality of our city, jungle streets and their kastapos

Has become an attack on home, life, family and philosophy, total

It is beyond the question of the advantages of didactic niggerism

The mother fucking dogs are in the street

In Houston maybe someone said Mexicans were the new niggers

In LA maybe someone said Chicanos were the new niggers

In Frisco maybe someone said Orientals were the new niggers

Maybe in Philadelphia and North Carolina they decided they didn't need no new niggers

I had said I wasn't going to write no more poems like this

But dogs are in the streets; It's a turn around world where things are all too quickly turned around

It was turned around so that right looked wrong; it was turned around so that up looked down

It was turned around so that those who marched in the streets with bibles and signs of peace became enemies of the state and risk to national security

So that those who questioned the operations of those in authority on the principles of justice, liberty, and equality became the vanguard of a communist attack

It became so you couldn't call a spade a mother-fucking spade

Brother Torres is dead, the Wilmington ten are still incarcerated

Ed Davis, Ronald Regan, James Hunt, and Frank Rizzo are still alive

And the dogs are in the mother-fucking street

I had said I wasn't going to write no more poems like this

I made a mistake