Are You Listening Now?

By Bud Koenemund

For America

As people of color complained about

Jobs, housing, police, and education,

You deflected their issues while touting

401Ks; stock market inflation:

A rising tide that failed to lift all boats.

You fucked the poor as the rich got bigger;

Even schemed at ways to erase their votes,

Yet wonder why anger has been triggered.

You objected when they knelt peacefully –

For Trayvon, Eric, Ahmaud, George, and more –

Insisting “They should have been respectful!”

While wanting protests easy to ignore.

   Tonight, cities burn, and people lie bowed;

   America, are you listening now?

You Say You Want a Revolution?

By Bud Koenemund

For the tired, the poor, the huddled masses.

Despite the wishes of those in power,
This revolution will be televised.
The poor; sick; starving masses who cowered,
Will no longer accept a genocide
Of economic strangulation, while
Beings who possess so much continue
Demanding more – even as they revile
Souls suffering in need. Flesh and sinew
Will awaken; spirits rise ‘bove contempt;
The angry will be heard; the hungry fed,
And homeless housed when we find redemption
In helping others ‘long a path all tread.
   This world will emerge, better than it was,
   When every man’s fate becomes our cause.