There's No Funny Farm for the Likes of this
By jacob erin-cilberto


fair game Detroit crazies
burning buildings and brains hot against
the time's sentiment
not the NY Times, although some sophisticated
ivory white writer might try to position his article
in the right column,

one untouched by the flames
as he thinks he has captured the guts of the nuts
throwing TV sets through windows
and throwing windows through decades
of sparkling clean glass hate

Walter Cronkite flying through the air
his necktie unwound as the tempers
flaring, the sirens glaring
it's 1968

and we were ate up
by discolored hate
and colored fate
segregated
integrated
inundated
with mandates
and planned dates

for moving in
and moving up
forcing issues down others' already raspy throats
from the protests
and the protests
of the protests
of the protestors
with black faces and white faces
and no other places
to go,
because it was the sixties
and those years trapped us within our subconscious
without our conscious
but with deep conscience

that fair game Detroit crazies
weren't so crazy after all...
and that NY Times news blues paper

needs to print a retraction
about the action
of the crazies
who maybe just changed the world,

(at least theirs)

for at least
a one moment
when the flames
were finally extinguished
even if the burning minds
were not.


- - -
jacob erin-cilberto, originally from Bronx, NY, lives in Southern Illinois and teaches at two community colleges. He has been writing and publishing poetry since 1970. erin-cilberto's 13th book of poetry Intersection Blues is available from Water Forest Press, Stormville, NY.