About three months ago, I met with a friend, Bob Booker. We were in North Beach. And we were talking about Trump.
Now, I’m a writer and a poet and a playwright. But I was like, “I can’t write about this guy, he’s beyond reason.”
This whole thing is so horrible. Where do you start? You think you’ve heard the worst today, but tomorrow’s even worse. The guy’s a stone-cold bigot. A clown. This shit is demonic.
I said to Bob, “What is wrong with me? My thoughts have turned to evil. To retribution. It’s ugly.”
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“I think that’s where it’s all pushed a lot of society,” he said.
That night, maybe around 1:30 a.m., I found the words. I wrote a poem. Sometimes I write to provoke. Sometimes I write to convict. This poem, it was stream-of-consciousness and an expression of my disdain.
I titled it: The existential — being prepared for the firing squad.
Here it is.
Way past midnight on the West Coast Blues music on radio Scream louder Sonny boy and interpret the intensity For the news is worse than behind the iron curtain where we reside. I keep praying for God to step in and help us Lord. Nothing worse than a fool in power that doesn’t know he’s a fool spoiled brat, Born with a silver spoon in mouth. The Devil’s disciple The format changes on the radio. Jazz from the ’50s, the cold war era. It ain’t cool jazz but quintessential to the current. I listen intently. A twisted abstract of nerves punctured and bent on red paint dripping down a canvas like blood. Funny how we imagine Satan dressed in red. Was it cartoons of Hollywood, subliminal messages, 7UP or a red soda pop. “Hey Girl you want a soda water?” Poverty I feel like I’m on a muddy road. Rain soaked muddy Mississippi. En route to Tallulah. It’s blues come to life. Except those so many people stuck on this road with me. Now we are comrades stuck in a sick ass nation. Someone stepped out of their car Vomited in a ditch. The living proof. Will the beast be executed or just rot away? I pray again for my thoughts have turned so evil, I try to push the car, others join in. But mud splatters as the wheels spin. Giant large clouds overhead where there is hope. Definitely not in the law and order or the order in the law.
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Charles Curtis Blackwell is a San Francisco writer and playwright whose work has appeared in over 180 publications. He has conducted writers’ workshops in state prisons, as well as at Youth Spirit Artworks in Berkeley.
