George Floyd

(x = space)

Unrest

Sequester

Sounds like cloister

Yet how could there

Be opportunity for

Contemplation?

I feel for them

I wouldn’t want to be there

I feel for them for now

Though if they go against

My thinking, I will no longer

Care for their

Discomfort

Such is the life of jurors

I tried it for a day

At the insistence of my county

It’s rather claustrophobic,

Though in my case

(I mean, my jury time)

We all did well

I was relieved

Before I was relieved

Received a check

A few days later

I’m saying this

On behalf

Of the jurors in Minnesota

Deciding Chauvin’s guilt

Or innocence

Where we note with ease

From our safer places

The troops, the APCs

(whatever their affiliation)

Set around

The courthouse

C L Couch

Photo by Isidoro Martínez on Unsplash

Madrid, España

Policeman standing in front of the fire.

Awaiting Derek Chauvin Verdict, Police Prepare New Approach to Protests (msn.com)

For the past few days, I couldn’t get into WordPress. The search wheel would go round and round, and no web page for WordPress appeared. After making some browser and other changes, it seems I have access again. I still want to cut-and-paste my work, and WordPress still doesn’t recognize the breaks in text I make while drafting in my word-processing program and then posting here. I’m still grrrr-ing over this. With Browning’s speaker in the Spanish Cloister.

“Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister”

Robert Browning

Gr-r-r—there go, my heart’s abhorrence!
Water your damned flower-pots, do!
If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence,
God’s blood, would not mine kill you!

. . .

‘St, there’s Vespers! _Plena grati
Ave, Virgo!_ Gr-r-r—you swine!

I Love George Floyd

(so do you)

We can’t stand it, can we?

The deaths of blacks

The killers, whites

There was peaceful protest

Look here and there,

It’s still there

Can you imagine the press on

Minneapolis and Washington

From a peaceful surge of

Millions?

But we can’t trust the

Leadership and institutions,

Which is why the world

Was set on fire

Before

Who are the thugs? we wonder

Who wants real change?

Who simply wants to burn things down,

If not on assignment?

Who is hungry?

Who has no shelter for the night

Or year

Or lifetime?

There is an ad for an N95-looking mask

In designer colors and the words

Below in red, “ONLY $9.95” with an

Exclamation point

“We the people,” the governor says

Well, he’s on to something

This is where we live,

Where we want to live

An equality of opportunity,

Who would object?

Some would but not those in need

For having less

Or nothing

And having what there was

Taken away

Destruction promises nothing

But less to have, to use

Maybe to share

After the fires, will there be change?

Those who burn will probably

Want to burn again

It becomes a lifestyle

Though addictions can be counseled

And people change, anyway

But what do I know

I never burned down anything

I doubt you have, either

And if you have, you might have

A reason you can speak to

Though I’d still say

You shouldn’t have done it

But I’m not large enough

My force isn’t large enough

Or my head, my heart to understand

Such things

Such saints will have to be brought on

Who understand

The need

The hurt

The rage

Maybe the opportunity that comes

In masks

And months-long lockdown

I’m not trying to be clever

I think you know I have to say this

But he died

And we are left alive

Justice is in heaven

It can’t live there, alone

C L Couch

by Lorie Shaull from Saint Paul, United States – an “Our Hearts Break” sign along 38th St in Minneapolis on Wednesday, after the death of George Floyd on Monday night in Minneapolis, Minnesota, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=90742474