A Reasonable Crime Poem by HEG George

Dark to black and beaten skin to living bone.
Chosen by name and marked by birth.

You hang me, cajole me and yellow badge me.
You segregate, strip and stick me. You jackboot,
shoot and gas me, but most of all you humiliate
me. You denigrate my living soul

A nation of teutons, with stiff arms and
hearts fired with ice and faux compassioned
isolation. You, who possess the freedom to hate
without reproach are abhorred, like the
craven lice you name me to be

Now, free from your chains, I rise up. And,
without trial, I beat you with relish and hang you
using my revenge-filled empty heart. Is this not
a reasonable crime? Will my peers turn away an
understandable eye? Where does my revenge end
and your piety-ridden justice begin?

You, sat in your smug-filled homes, wearing your
warm coats and smoking your dollar-cancered cigars,
eating your belly-filling beliefs. Drinking with your
full-sized families while reading through your
victory-fogged lenses.

I am hungry and I shall be fed. But, I shall feed upon
dead beliefs and drink without a full-sized family.