Chauvinist Pigs

By John Kendall Hawkins

 

The riot squad is restless

They need somewhere to go

• • Bob Dylan, “Desolation Row”

 

Derek the chauvinist piggy

Up to his knee in neck

All coz George wanted a ciggy

And paid for a pack with dreck

 

Repeat: I can’t breathe, he said

I can’t breathe: sixteen times

a mindfulness exercise gone code red

Derek up to his neck in crimes

 

Lawdy, why, just yesterday it seems

We were modelling new Covid kerchiefs

On blue screen catwalks, zoom-zoom streams

Buffer zone fantasies, locked in like thieves

 

And now twin cities tumbling

Miniapnea–too much St. Pauli’s, girl

An empire’s nasty stumble bumbling

Riot squads ready, batons a-twirl

 

Arrests in 140 cities

Like characters allowed in tweets

Dusting off our rage and protest ditties

Bringing isolations to the streets

Whoa, what’s that cop there doin’?

Rubber bullets, tears and stuns

Hey look! Harmon Killibrewin’!

Beating the snot outta Rod Carew’s sons

 

Two police cruisers accelerated — zoooooom —

And disappeared through time

Other fascists used a sonic gun — boooooom —

And protesting brains turned to slime

 

Then, inexplicably, GW Bush

Was asked for his take on events

And all hell broke loose

When he said all you need is love

Love is all you need

 

Twin cities falling

Goodyear drones overhead

Call 9-1-1, someone’s calling

Freedom’s just another word for the walking talking dead

 

Hep two three four, laughin’

Cuz I’m thinkin’ Bill Murray

And that egg beater scene

(Why, what’d you think I was thinking of?)

 

Cops firing point blank paint

At the people who ain’t

Joe Biden people

Like fascist machinegunning  pointilists

angry at the canvas for being blank

Or being at all

 

Thugs, tweets Trump

And Cepi agrees

When he sees

America with Kurds disease

 

Trump holding a bible:

Face all Wrath of Con

More hot air than a balloon

should have to don

 

The veiled threat of violence

In the corona age

A headline reads

In the the Democracy Dies in Darkness Daily

 

Cops charged with excessive force

Like Kathy Scruggs charged with excessive journalism

Both sponsored by the voice of god

Deus ex machinas outta control everywhere

Someone call the cops

 

Po-lice

Po

Lice

Po people

Licentious

License to kill

We don’t need no stinking badge

Predators overhead

 

Feminist patrols of local women

Foxy femme fatales

Like Sirens from Smith College

(I remember well)

Enforcing curfews

Godivas with batons

Pestlemortarin’ their palms

Knees on the necks of creeping Toms

No happy ending for Nicholson this time

 

Light them up, one cop said

And thus began, the Boston Massacre

Crispus Attucks, a freed slave

(did you see what they did there?)

Paul Revere rode all day and all night

To warn about the black and white

And then, when the craze was over

Settled back in with his favorite nightmare

Chicago ‘68: The Love we loved to hate

 

Remember how in school

A private one, of course

We limned the world’s end

and had to choose between

Archibald McCleish, TS Eliot, WB Yeats

Compare and contrast

Circus crash or whimper bang or falcon-masked women

Who won’t listen

 

Justice in a Just Is world

Curfews in cities coast to coast

Curlews in ditties ghost to ghost

All you kneed is love

Love is all you kneed

 

Fade to black