When officers gave Rodney King 

50 blows with their whole bodies,

& metal batons, in tandem,

shot a stun gun at his chest,

on camera, 

there was no consequence.

His brown skin,  

size, strength, list of sundry sins

kept his suffering “other”

even though we all saw,

we all knew it had been

excessive, rage-filled.

Generational anger 

gathered its voice,

first in righteous indignation,

passive resistance,

but relief did not come,

so the warning was chanted:

No justice

No peace.

Fists smashed, glass flew,

arms threw flaming rag-stuffed 

bottles at businesses.

At the intersection,

Reginald Denny was pulled 

from his truck & sacrificed

by a mob seeking biblical vengeance: 

a cinder block to the skull

for a billy club to the face.

No justice

No peace.

I was just about the age 

my daughter is now

when I watched my hometown 

burn, that time.

This fall, I watched it again

from across the country, 

my old neighborhood on the news,

homes & businesses gutted

to charred skeletons. I tracked 

the flames like some 

predatory animal I had 

managed to tag,

on wildfire maps, 

calculating speed & breadth 

of the destruction

relative to my sister’s location.

Now we are witnessing 

the incipient stage 

of the next burning.

Workers ripped off the job,

parents torn from children.

The sanctuary city 

now a myth.

No justice. 

The underbrush is short, 

the people’s lungs

still clearing smoke

from the last inferno

but new kindling is growing, 

fed paper thin tweets 

written by gaslight

doused in the alcoholic breath

of the fire chief. 

No peace.