Walking up Portland
where the blood comes
through the snow like
red columbine
where the angle of your
tires invites bullets,
and courtesy brings death
Stomping up Portland I’m a
cosplay macho weighed down by
insufficient childhood, shoulders squared,
mask up, into the brown hordes
I didn’t like the look on her face
I didn’t like the thought in her head
Walking up Portland where the
snow crackles under your feet and
America tastes like
thunder in the morning
where evil trumps good
Walking up Portland with a
stick in my hand,
God’s own cardboard,
magic marker,
a declarative sentence
The vapor of one man’s ego
feeds the clouds, brings down a
toxic rain that digs fissures into
a once-great land
The stilled eyes of Crispus Attucks,
two and a half centuries knocked
away by the need to win an argument
The gold-plated godhead feels
life slipping away and declares
The world must end before I do
Get out of the fucking car
Walking up Portland in the
footsteps of George Floyd to
join my neighbors and
chant the old chants
to say that we are too
many for you to defeat
Walking up Portland because to
do nothing would be unbearable
--Michael J. Vaughn
