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CERTIFICATE NO. 8041.10

Robert Lowell's great poem for the union dead

didn't figure on the reverse of bubblegum cards

we collected and exchanged in the playground

between our school and the graveyard. The history

of the American Civil War, depicted gleefully

with an excess of bayoneting and gore

The women of Atlanta screaming. Their terror

suggesting, this is what freeing the Negro means

The playground still exists

It was where I passed (easily) my cycling proficiency

For riding between cones

and knowing the Highway Code

I was presented with a certificate

Number 8041.10

Meanwhile

in Los Angeles, a black cyclist has just been shot

between fifteen and twenty times by police after

being stopped. If they ever manufacture

the bubblegum cards again, maybe they could start with him

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"As in our Bibles, white-faced, predatory,"

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Powerful to my gut and elusive to my mind

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Oak Grove 1864

there's a gray boy in the oak grove

a blue boy by his side

a cold wind blows thru the shattered trees

where the gray and the blue boy died.

there's a blue boy on a mantle

a father wipes his eyes

a gray boy in a locket

a girl in black just cries.

some things that are buried

never do stay that way

they can live for years and years and years

before they fade away.

there's a gray boy up in heaven

a blue boy by his side

prayers ascend thru bitter rains

and clouds obscure the sky.

blue and gray might be brothers

might be you and me

but the prisoners of those bygone ways

need to be set free.

there's a gray boy in the oak grove

a blue boy by his side

hearts were stilled, lives unfulfilled

when the gray and the blue boy died.

Malcolm McKinney 2016

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Trump dividing, No matter the colors

It's History

We glorify WAR

As Trump will have it

This TIME.

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The ultimate insider poet, far from outlawing it.

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