New Year New Day
for Commissioner Ellison Greenslade

running about like chicken
with heads cut off
after criminals decapitating each other

sirens forever wailing
policemen whipping through
whipping pass, whipping by

as if they were out to stop crime
unable to stop what has already been done

when the police shows up
it is always already too late

just as doctors need sickness
to stay in business

the police needs crime
to justify their existence
to guarantee employment

whipping about through traffic
through whatever color traffic light

is to make them and what they do
seem so vital, so indispensible

what makes me suspicious
is how vital policemen and politicians are
or make us think they are

and how in this same country
poetry and poets have little
or next to no importance

should what poets do
not be more highly rewarded

can it not be one of the instruments
in the nation’s tool box
used to fix what’s out of whack


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2010
11:12 a.m. 01.01.10