It is Impossible to Say Just What I Mean

Free verse today (read as completely unstructured today). This, like all of the predecessors, is a draft.

Entitlement

The electric buzz of students in the afternoon
Pulses with the innocence of a taser.
"That bitch don't know" cuts thorough the vitality of the
Moment, a sharp reflection of the careless brutality
To which we all are heir.
I step into the hall, outwardly all placid calm while
Inwardly I am ready to fight in case others must fly.
Tension between groups waits for the flick of the switch,
Betrayal of all against the common good will.
White tolerates Black.
Gay tolerates Straight.
He, she, they tolerates the gender normative.
No one tolerates
Stories of people unlike themselves, tales of
Macroaggressive slave-owners and
Microaggressive "phonies." How dare we make children read
Stories featuring near minstrel-caricatures or anything featuring
Featuring any slur that may have been a single hideous,
Though integral, thread sewn into the fabric of our past.
All the while, that misunderstood near-minstrel continues his
War of words to win the heart and mind of another little boy:
A boy who needs to be "sivilized," crouching at the knee of a man
Whose blackness made him less than human while his words
Immortalize him as a gentle and passionate father.
Because  "He know how to value" his children,
Distant though they may be.
The buzz continues through the door; insults fly in a misguided
Mass, crashing into and souring any in their path.
The English teacher sits, novel and heart open to the page where
The hero makes the sacrifice,
The sweet sorrow ends, and
All of this phosphorescent humanity is laid bare.
If only the surly paper tigers of my hallway would turn from the
Artifical light of likes, pokes, and digital friendships to the
Cathartic flare of what we could be.

Meanwhile, the weighty and colossal rows of solemn
Stone house run inexorably to the horizon.