culture of violence poems Archives

while oppression hangs in a noose,
slumps in a desk, stands jobless
on the corner tonight,
tomorrow sits in jail,
a sanctuary with food
where suits scream fiery orange,
cover angry,
rat tails sweep the floor.

Civil Servants | Langley Shazor

October 22, 2023 / Best Poetry / culture of violence poems, oppression poems, poems about social justice, social justice poems, state sanctioned violence poems / Leave a Comment

Blue lights
White skin
Silver cuffs
Black wrists
Blood red
Protecting and serving
Whose interests?
Violence begets more violence
But why do the opposite
Meet the same demise?
On both sides
Lines drawn in the sand
Barriers made in streets
Standoffs and showdowns
“Put down your weapon”
Which one’s drawn?
Hypocrites

Public Service Announcement | J.K. Durick

October 5, 2023 / Best Poetry / culture of violence poems, domestic violence poems, modern poetry online, poems about social justice, social justice poems / Leave a Comment

October, in case you didn’t know, is
Domestic violence awareness month,
So we get a chance to call attention to
And celebrate where we find ourselves.
We have created the home version of
The game too many have played publicly,
Violence enough to go around, combat
Made small, gang wars, major crime
Miniaturized to fit living rooms and
Family rooms, bedrooms and kitchens,
Combatants well-known to each other
Crying, captured, learning that pain has
Become an equal share commodity, be-
Coming part of a statistic we cringe to
Hear about and to be forcefully made
Aware of; like this, October has become
The cruelest month.

Swollen Red | María Palencia Meza

September 19, 2023 / Best Poetry / comment on poetry, culture of violence poems, poetry websites / Leave a Comment

You hit me hard
as jumping from a cliff onto concrete
my skin burts
my blood crust
surrounded by swollen red
swollen yellow, swollen purple
the roads of your hands
are forever in my head

America | Anuja Ghimire

August 7, 2023 / Best Poetry / culture of violence poems, diseased society poems, poems about social justice, social justice poems, state sanctioned violence poems / Leave a Comment

Shoot a father before his toddler
Empty bullets into the belly of a baby-bearing mother
while her children outside her body watch
Wear a uniform
Bust through apartment homes and oak doors
Shoot by the road, river, under the moon and stars
Take two seconds to finish a child in the park
Bust a girl’s jaw in the library
Rain bullets in a parked car
Stand your ground until earth has holes
Arrest a woman for not signaling a lane change
Release her corpse from jail
Slam a child near a pool
Remove a son from his classroom desk
Choke a husband on the floor of a diner
Escalate
Escalate
Escalate your fear
Reach for the gun
You know you are always already free
Earn your bloody badge
Shoot while their dark hands are raised to heaven

Don’t.

More at https://saffronandsymmetry.tumblr.com.

Past Life Regressive #29 | Ryan Quinn Flanagan

August 4, 2023 / Best Poetry / conquered people poems, contemporary poets, culture of violence poems, modern poets, poems about belief / Leave a Comment

The conqueror rode into our village
on a white horse
just as had been prophesied
and I lowered my head as though the dirt
held some last grainy magic
wondering what had been done to so offend
the star people
and when our women were lead away
in irons
not a single man cried because
that was the way
knowing the skulls of our sky children
would weep for us
long after they were
discovered.