The end of PBS News Hour the other night was about the compassionate response of Americans to the prescription drug and heroin epidemic, which is a beautiful thing… in contrast to the warnings of “super-predators” and “crack babies” and the years long nightmare episode of COPS which was the “war on drugs” era that apparently ended something like yesterday morning.
I find poetry a means of teasing out specific emotion and getting to smaller units of feeling, in order to make meaning out of the rush of noise that is what we hear of the world. And so: poetry on the ending of the drug war. Yeah, you heard it here first. (snort) It’s imperfect, and it’s taken far longer than I intended, but I’m just going to throw it out there and walk away from it..
surprise, “these are people”
Judicial mercy’s called for now,
Upending other courtroom claims.
Surprising we should break our vow
To win the “war on drugs.” From shame
Should citizens now felons free,
Affix no penalty for crime?
Youth, ignorance – those urgent pleas
No help for brown boys who did time.
Ostensibly Blind Justice scries
The gleam of truth in anyone
On some occasions, compromise
Defeats her gaze. Justice undone…
Redressing law to mercy’s way makes justice scales toward “balanced” sway.
Uncharted thought in drug war times, to see the PERSON, not their crime…
Grown men, just boys when sent away…now, that sin law cannot defray —
Seek catalysts to mend this rhyme; let justice roll down, double-time.