Did Hip Hop co-opt police culture
or simply load many guns
and give out a license
to bleed the streets?
The privileged co-opt culture
because they're too scared to use their own voice
to lay out their anguish and pain
because it sounds like blame
on the very thing,
the umbilicus to the dream-time of their lives,
that breathes life into it,
their dusty union
with discontent,
layered ennui
of boredom chic,
or genuine mistrust
of bigger things.
But only the voice of the privileged
shadowed under mask
however much the artist
feels wrong for his culture's attack
and co-opts to say victimization's a sin
even the privileged get, or blame on the gin;
business failure, and work stoppage,
grindings of progress to a goose step halt
over marginalized mothmen
whose eyes run until dry and tears turn to salt...
Only the voice of the privileged
seems to get any air
to say at the core
the way we treat people who need us
is the same way we treat ourselves
and it just isn't fair
brutality for brutality comes back to reap a bigger share
no matter who shoots down
from a high tower of disgust
on reactionary authority
and the swords it will thrust
at anyone who sits in judgment
without the numbers
or the money
or the military precision
of being in the place
where they can make a decision
pasted in as happenstance
framed in to dial in art
to complain about the power
and load another chamber
at the quickie mart
where you start
to see the circular economy
and the recycled culture
floating face down
in the ocean gyre
of personal shame
shared as anger
at the constraints of freedom
and the freedom of constraints
to tie anyone down
who tries to co-opt the police
and bleed the streets
before the privileged
have a chance
to let their money do it first.
YOU ARE READING
Succulent Skin
PoetryAs an ongoing work conceived with no rigid form or rule over content, many subjects receive treatment in widely varying voices and styles. To go with a lot of the unstructured free verse, there are even a few pseudo-rap or hip-hop styled pieces, pro...
