All
This Chaos
Bricks are
flying and folks are crying, cursing
at cops
who barricade the streets and chase fleeing
protesters
with tear gas and faces masked
and buddy
sticks raised with arms aloft, seeing
that the
straight blue line pushes forward
against
the masses they perceive as unruly.
Lest we
miss the point of all this chaos,
the
injustices pile up from time immortal
and
grievances are rife with grief and tears.
Mothers
have sobbed into dank, dark spaces;
wives and
offspring have cursed their losses,
cried and
begged for God’s saving graces.
Marjie Giffin is
an Indianapolis writer who has authored four regional histories and whose
poetry has recently appeared in Snapdragon, Poetry Quarterly, Flying
Island, The Kurt Vonnegut Literary Journal, The Saint Katherine Review,
The Northwest Indiana Literary Journal, Through the Sycamores, The Blue Heron
Review, and the anthology The Lives We Have Live(d). One of her
plays was produced in the IndyFringe Short Play Festival. She’s active in the Indiana Writers’ Center
and has taught both college writing and gifted education.