Visiting room gendarmes
snatch wigs from grandmothers' heads, 
peek into infants' diapers
searching for contraband while the rest of us watch, 
simmering with silent rage
at our shared humiliation. 

Sent away as a child, 
nurtured on rape and violence, 
shaped by daily psychological torture
by guards raised on hatred and racism, 
abandoned as hopeless, the child learns
well how to fight to the death, a summa cum laude
graduate from the College for Criminals. 

From the narrow slit they call a window, 
he watches geese waddling in committed pairs, 
pigeons soaring over gun turrets and high walls, 
flowers blooming against those walls in a 
blaze of vibrant color in this place of Death, 
while he waits and waits and waits 
​on Death Row. 

Public outrage at TSA inspectors, 
patting down grandmothers, children 
and especially anyone with dark skin 
or wearing a turban, all in the name of 
Homeland Security. 

Did they get their training by the 
​Department of Corrections?

Clanging steel of clanging steel doors, 
whistling sirens, shouts of fury, despair 
and madness fill prison air, 
a cacophony of 
auditory torture. 

Imagine it for forty years, 
every time you had da visit or 
went from one place to another 
behind the walls you had to 
strip, bend 'em and spread 'em
for a guard searching your ass
for contraband. 

Are there special trainings or 
compensation for asshole inspectors 
or have they just drawn short straws?

What do the inspectors feel 
at the end of the day in their service to 
the Prison Industrial Complex?

What young person says, 
"When I grow up I want to be 
a prison guard?"
A paycheck for those unable 
to join police forces or the army?
A retirement plan for the rejects who
​thrive financially in rural America?

The Man decided he was ready. 
He'd waited such a long time 
for this historical moment. 

Spitting hatred, flecks of frothing rage
from lips filled with searing, murderous 
words that penetrate with bullets
vulnerable souls seeking only peace and 
a chance to pray to their beloved god. 

He wanted to kill him some Jews. 

Some say Hitler never died. 
He just shave his mustache 
and got an orange wig. 

​

I weep at the evidence as three inspiring souls, 
Beto O'Rourke, Andrew Gillum and Stacy Abrams, 
three of many seeking to rein in the orange rage, 
harness the unbridled hatred, stop the pounding
into violence-threatened hearts seeking kindness, 
moving us forward, far away from our inner child, 
our fears deep within us, hearts trembling and sad. 

The orange man promises to soothe our fears 
while sneering at our souls' craving comfort. 

Half of us hate him. 
Half of us love him, early 
tossing aside the Golden Rule while
salivating Pavlovian style for dreams by 
Machiavellian manipulators seeking only 
power, money and freedom from a moral core
to do whatever we want without guilt or even a 
smidgen of regret to harm like Hitler whomever we wish, 
to poison our planet, our air and our water not only with 
impunity but with glee

The orange man and his sycophant's promise to soothe
our credit card debts, giving us a glimpse of a golden ring
always just beyond reach in a land of promises and lies. 
And on we vote for robotized, hypnotized, sanitized, 
corrupt, uneducated and mean-spirited politicians, proud of 
their cruelty, twinkling at the possibility of torture, 
tossing toddlers into baby jails while blind, deaf and ignorant, 
we listen to the lies of the orange man, his corruption and evil 
knowing no bounds while we doze in football-obsessed passivity.