The Obituary of Checks and Balances

Checks and Balances, age 232, departed this life and went to be with its makers on January 31, 2020. After suffering from poor health for years, Checks and Balances was found dead on the senate floor. Photographs show a knife in its back, which many witnesses were willing to corroborate but their testimony was declined as they were told the knife did not exist. Preceded in death by its beloved spouse, the late Integrity, and their children, Facts and Evidence, Checks and Balances is survived by four remaining children, Greed, Corruption, Indifference, and Party Over Country. In lieu of flowers, the bereaved ask that you send votes. Services will be held November 3^rd for those who wish to pay their respects to the dearly departed. 

31 Jan 2020

I’ll Take "White Fragility" for 600, Alex

White people, while adamantly proclaiming their lack of personal racism, completely lose their shit when they think someone might have just called them a racist.

And, I know, your brain has already flagged my first line, vehemently protesting that I didn’t make the statement conditional.

“Not all white people,” you shout.

As we always do, anytime we are challenged. 

The deflection allows us to kick back in our comfort, convinced we are never personally the problem. It is always someone else. 

Racism isn’t lying in wait, hoping someone comes along to flip the “I am racist” switch so it can pounce freely back from the 1960s, the time a lot of white Americans blindly think it somehow died. We killed King, but we eventually gave you a day off work, so racism must be a relic banished to the brief mentions in history books.

We are immune, we say. Although we live in a country that only reluctantly, through years of bloodshed, decided owning other humans should be frowned upon. A country that even then, when forced to abandon slavery, only shifted our racism. To segregation, lynching, voter suppression, gerrymandering, racial profiling, prisons. 

How can we grow in this country, as white people, and think our work is done? That we somehow avoid racism with our good intentions, like a backpack full of kryptonite that keeps it from coming within arm’s reach. That we should never be questioned. That we can never improve. There is no racist bone in our bodies, we contend, in a country built on the murdered bones of those whose bodies held a different hue.

Of course, we claim, history and culture hold no influence over us. No subtleties have worked their way unknowingly into the way we interact with the world. 

If we truly want to be anti-racist, it takes more than good intentions. It takes effort and examination, and that is often uncomfortable. And if we are called out on something we say, our first response cannot be spewing hateful words to show them how wrong they are that we aren’t a perfect person.

Our first response has to be to seek to understand how our actions or words could have appeared problematic, despite our intentions.

If we have built protective walls blocking any chance for self-examination, then we will end up as woke as Garfield

…after three pans of lasagna.

30 Jan 2020

Until His Sharpie Runs Dry

Lies raged unabated

Facts drowned with the tide

As they try to keep him in power

Until his sharpie runs dry

25 Jan 2020

When We Have to Rescue from Those We Love

(For Ace)

I hear praise for my work

offering sanctuary for the few

who, through serendipitous luck,

survive the deadly demands 

of your taste buds

But this praise rings hollow

when we sit down to eat

Your knife cuts their flesh,

I feel the knife in me

Who do you think we 

are rescuing them from?

25 Jan 2020

Watch it performed

written for Ace Wilde, and from his point of view, based on his own beautifully heartfelt words:

Voting, Because the Toilet Won’t Unclog Itself

Sometimes Democracy

gets clogged with 

greed and corruption,

lies and obstruction

Sometimes the shit

is so massive, 

so dense that 

one flush won’t do

Sometimes, to get that

lingering excrement 

to flow out of the house

and out of the senate…

for that enormous,

orange-tinged turd

that just won’t go away…

Sometimes, you need to 

flush ten, fifteen times

to force that shit

down the drain

hoping we can someday

recover from the 

overpowering stench

23 Jan 2020

Watch the video performed

Don't Judge Me While I’m Judging

Another black man 

faces your wrath, 

your vengeance 

His crime, 

and it was brutal, 

was causing animal suffering 

You express your hatred 

of Michael Vick 

with pieces of other animals 

still stuck in your teeth 

Qualifying your disgust 

with animal suffering 

selectively by species 

His punishment was served, 

yet your hatred continues 

Forgiving strong black men 

was not on the agenda for today 

Despite our compassion 

for those around us 

who still send animals 

to a dark, brutal death 

day after day, 

meal after meal 

Vick was cruel to animals 

for his pleasure 

My pleasure is different, 

you adamantly contend 

Failing to see the difference 

is only in your mind 

9 Dec 2019

An Atheist Went to a Funeral

They claim God is everywhere 

and, as if to prove their point, 

he was in every word of welcome, 

every song, each memory shared 

The pastor seemed far more concerned 

with the status of my soul 

than celebrating the life 

we gathered to remember 

An Inconvenient Meal

I’m sorry to be 

an inconvenience 

The dishes you make 

of slaughtered animals 

fail to whet my appetite 

I awkwardly nibble 

the raw strips of carrots and celery, 

the only accommodation 

you offer my ethics, 

while broken bodies 

repeatedly enter 

your greasy lips 

You pass me strange glances, 

stunned that I could 

somehow decline 

to stuff my face 

with the roasted victims 

of your meal 

I’m sorry you see me 

as an inconvenience, 

but I’m more sorry 

you don’t see them at all 

I’m sorry you savor the taste 

more than my comfort, 

more than their lives 

7 Dec 2019

Mexico Said No, Though You Never Ask for Consent

Standard procedure, 

par for your course 

You don’t seek permission, 

you have no remorse 

Groping and grabbing 

wherever you please 

Using your tiny hands 

to take a big squeeze 

Running your hands 

under dressing room frocks, 

dismissing it all 

as locker room talk 

Denying you knew 

the women who complained 

Continuing on, 

completely unconstrained 

But now a whole country 

is in the eyes of the crook 

as you try your best to grab 

their pussy or pocketbook 

You told Mexico 

to pay for your wall 

They told you to 

go fuck yourself 

and keep your hands off us all 

29 Nov 2019

My Blood in Your Hands (An Angry Cow Haiku)

Waiting for my death

In a line without escape

Enjoy your fucking burger

11 Aug 2019

Justice Was Lost in Central Park

Beaten, coerced 

into confessions 

Confessions that did not, 

could not, 

match the reality 

Justice didn’t waste time 

as the city 

called for vengeance 

She found five 

easy targets upon whom 

to direct the city’s wrath 

Oh, Justice has a cane 

but it is not 

because she is blind 

Her cane has 

other purposes 

With strong, swift blows, 

Justice took a swing 

at five innocent boys 

When the last strike had landed, 

the innocence of childhood 

was smashed into pieces, 

their hope for the future 

locked tightly behind bars 

Bars that would 

hold them and scar them 

for six to fourteen years 

Justice, celebrating 

the job she had done 

providing five perfect scapegoats, 

contentedly patted her own back 

It took the attacker himself, 

more than a decade later, 

to set the record straight 

Innocence was never recaptured, 

years were never returned, 

the harm could not be undone 

If only Justice had bothered 

putting down her cane 

and opening her eyes 

in 1989 

29 Nov 2019

Watch the video (ft. Blak Reign and Adam Spells)

Waiting For the Knife

Be happy,

they tell me,

while we wait 

for the knife

Piles of food

dumped in

front of us

to fatten us

for the knife

Our children

have disappeared

They’ve already 

met the knife

Our babies’ milk

is taken from us

Until it slows,

then the knife

So many of us

packed together

in line 

for the knife

But be happy,

they tell me

while I wait

for the knife

2 Oct 2019

When The Orders Were Inhumane, He Chose to be Human

A brutal account, featuring the words of Captain Silas Soule

They declared their intention 

to massacre the friendly Indians 

camped on Sand Creek 

I was indignant 

as you would have been 

were you here 

Any man who would 

take part in the murders, 

knowing the circumstances we did, 

was a low lived cowardly 

son of a bitch 

Chiv and all hands 

swore they would hang me 

before they moved camp, 

but I stuck it out 

Lieut. Wilson cut off their herd, 

made a circle to the rear, 

two hundred yards from the village, 

opened fire 

Poor Old John Smith 

and Louderbeck ran out 

with white flags 

I heard an officer say 

that Old Smith 

and anyone who 

sympathized with Indians 

ought to be killed 

and now was 

a good time to do it 

I refused to fire 

and swore none 

but a coward would, 

for by this time 

hundreds of women and children 

were coming towards us, 

getting on their knees 

for mercy 

Anthony shouted, 

“kill the sons of bitches” 

The battery came up in our rear, 

and opened on them 

No organization among our troops, 

they were a perfect mob 

My company was the only one 

that kept their formation, 

and we did not fire a shot 

The massacre lasted 

six or eight hours, 

and a good many Indians escaped 

It was hard to see 

little children on their knees 

have their brains beat out 

by men professing to be civilized 

One squaw was wounded 

and a fellow took a hatchet 

to finish her, 

he cut one arm off, 

and held the other 

with one hand and 

dashed the hatchet 

through her brain 

One squaw with her two children, 

on their knees, 

begging for their lives 

of a dozen soldiers, 

within ten feet of them 

all firing 

When one succeeded 

in hitting the squaw in the thigh, 

she took a knife, 

cut the throats of both children, 

then killed herself 

One Old Squaw 

hung herself 

in the lodge, 

not enough room 

for her to hang, 

she held up her knees, 

choked herself to death 

I saw two Indians 

hold one anothers hands, 

chased until they were exhausted, 

when they kneeled down, 

clasped each other 

around the neck, 

and both were shot together 

Our best Indians killed, 

Black Kettle, One Eye, 

Minnemic, Left Hand 

White Antelope, War Bonnet, 

and a number of others 

had ears and privates cut off 

Squaws snatches 

were cut out for trophies 

You would think it impossible 

for white men to butcher 

and mutilate human beings 

as they did there, 

but every word 

I have told you 

is the truth, 

which they do not deny 

Chivington has gone to Washington 

to be made a General, I suppose 

I spent New Year’s day 

on the battle ground 

counting dead Indians, 

One hundred thirty killed, 

most women and children, 

all of them scalped 

2 Dec 2019

*All words are from Soule’s letters to his mother and Major Ned Wynkoop. Some words were trimmed for poetic purposes, none added. Captain Soule was murdered two months after testifying before an Army commission in Colorado as a witness to the atrocities.