The tempo of death.

A steady pulse
then everything crescendos.
The sky is sick, the streets
heavy with grief as battle cries
ricochet then are ignored.

The earth is trembling,
rage on her mind, moving through
lonely membranes and fighting
compound wars.
The earth can't be redeemed
when a cop is charged with the
bullets he missed instead of
the bullets he hit.
One heart will never beat again
and TV specials and money will
never be enough and this will happen
many more times, as it always has.
Murder is an acceptable warm-up,
an expected part of daily rehearsal,
where no one dares question the
necessity of weapons and excessive
force when they lead to a cacophony
most people can't resist.
There are no rests to spare a life,
discordant notes are all you hear.
Music is chaos and no god ever
tries to intervene

to let anyone breathe;

justice is a fable at this point.

Maybe if we burn the world down,
before the scars run too deep...

maybe then, we'll be able to start anew.

When living is a close chord to death,
why do we keep composing harmonies
that never existed in the first place?

____________________________________

Breonna Taylor matters. Black lives matter. I grieve with you.
We must abolish the system.

Written while listening to "Silence" by Dave Thomas Junior https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bmzDYvQZPI