Walking Up Portland

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