Juvenile Justice is a caste system
where shackled and chained kids of color
replay the tearful trek
from plantation to prison—

America’s new slavery

Young lives languishing in cell blocks
where the light of day is lost
in a dungeon of desperation
and despair

America’s new slavery

Why are they here?
To protect society?

Do we dare defeat the evils of poverty
race privilege and war?
Destroy the prison-industrial machine?

America’s new slavery

I’m strollin’ Babylon by the Bay
in North Beach when the storm
swamps the Bay Bridge
blowing down trees on Telegraph Ave.

Treasure Island is underwater and
Alcatraz is sinking in surf
The sign on the de Young museum
reads “closed due to inclement weather”

A streetcar is stuck on Nob Hill
the strip joints and bars
are nearly empty on Broadway
and lunch is canceled in Chinatown

While the mayor is getting toasted
at Town Hall I’m groovin’ with Buddha
in the Old Shanghai where Jazz is still alive
on Steward Street in San Francisco

i

sitting on a comfy couch before the big bay window
marveling at Mama Nature’s scenic slide show—
First comes hail then sleet and finally snow falling
as the wanton wind carries me upstream
past waterfalls ferns spruce and cedar
then up Old Columbia Highway to Crown Point
where I watch snow evaporate in white smoke
rising from a pulp factory polluting the spawning
ground of the sacred salmon and sturgeon

ii

sipping tea in the Daly Café in downtown Portland
after feasting on a salad of eggplant and tuna
then browsing in Powell’s Book store
and worshipping the written word
I purchase “The Confessions of Nat Turner”
and walk out into Portand rain
without an umbrella in the Pearl District
where the year ends with friends
at Huber’s Bar & Grill celebrating

FREEDOM!

tomas 08

The pale half moon
with her ghostly silver halo
hangs in star studded sky
smiling at the quiet casas
sitting on the hill
as the urban river flows
through the canyons
winding its way south
to the border
where on the other side
lights flicker
like diamonds in the dark

The poets’ blood is the poets’ ink of inspiration