Trickle-down Blues: An American Dilemma

Posted bySynnika Chizoba LoftonPosted inmailbox weekly, PoemsTags:, , , , , ,

A rifle shouts from a nearby rooftop.
Bullets balance legs on swift backs,
moving toward reddened and

sweaty faces. Hostile energy cheers.
“American politics exhale a strange
stench,” she says. “We got front

row tickets to a highly developed
circus, the freak show,” he says,
tossing roasted peanuts into his

mouth, anticipating clowns and
slow-witted elephants. Stubborn
donkeys hang in the cut, making

promises, talking that silly non-
sense, arming tax dollars, screaming
about unity, tattooing names on

better bombs, calling it progress.
The world keeps spinning, leaking
death, standing on the devil’s

red-hot shoulders. Somewhere
Zack de la Rocha screams into
a microphone. American Carnage

hustles, tap-dancing on open seas,
eager to boogie on blood-soaked
soil, and turn up for other colonial  

empires. “Nobody wants infected
apple pies anymore,” he says. Loud
pops enter a polluted Climate.

Pop, pop, pop! Media outlets howl,
bow to a violent language. “Can’t
really tell the difference between

words and bullets,” she says. “Yea…”
He says, “them trickle-down blues
are dangerous.”  

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Published by Synnika Chizoba Lofton

"Synnika Alek-Chizoba Lofton is an award winning poet, the president and CEO of Guerrilla Ignition LLC, host of a Nationally Syndicated radio show, and an educator, teaching literature at Chesapeake Bay Academy and English courses at Norfolk State University. Lofton has recorded more than one hundred and fifty CDs, albums, CD-singles, and mixtapes of poetry, including his highly praised debut, The New Breed. He is the author of twelve books and the founder of Riot Speech, a musical genre combining performance poetry with traditional musical forms, such as Rock, Jazz, and Hip Hop. His poems have been published in Experience Reality Magazine, Quay: A Journal of the Arts, UpStreet: A Literary Magazine, and, in 2014, Lofton has been featured in Blind Sided Magazine. He is a regular on Virginian television programs such as The Hampton Roads Show and Chesapeake’s Thinking Out Loud on WCTV. He teaches World Literature, British Literature, and Composition, while touring the country, performing at literary festivals, musical festivals, poetry readings, open mics, concerts, high schools, and colleges."

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