I missed days five and six, but here is day seven. This poem is a response to my good friend and fellow traveler, Cher Guevara, who wrote "Damned in Dixie Blues" as a response to several pieces of hateful legislation passed recently in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, and Tennessee. You can find "Damned in Dixie Blues" on Facebook.
Everyone is so busy protesting for or against the bathroom portion of these bills that no one has noticed that several of them also include language that forbids communities from raising the minimum wage, providing paid sick leave, or giving workers other rights that will enable them to lead more stable lives and keep themselves off assistance programs.
They Want Us to Sing the Blues
by Jack V Sage
They want us to sing the blues
so we don't notice
what they've done:
the poison pill they hid
in their stinking pile
of hateful exclusion.
"Looky here," they say,
pointing at their brandy-new signs
telling us to keep out.
They don't want anyone
looking past the line
at the bathroom door,
or we'll notice how they've
locked us all out: trans and cis,
gay and straight:
taken the food right off our plates,
making sure none of us
can afford a roof over our heads.
Divided, we stand at the bathroom door
while they line their pockets
with our blood, sweat and tears.
"Oh, Looky there," they shout, "another queer!"
And we all turn and look, but no one sees
the line that they use to determine our worth
has grown shorter.
We're too busy looking for dicks on chicks,
imagining perverts in every stall
to realize that the truly perverted
are those in the Capitol buildings and pulpits
all across this land, selling their brothers and sisters
into slavery for the sake of the almighty dollar,
and an hour of power on the airwaves.
Love the poem- and knew the sentiments of the game they were playing. But, do us old f..ts a favor. UP the font size!
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