The Fierce Urgency of Now

Rev. Nancy S. Taylor

i get the fierce urgency of now

so I’m asking with fierce urgency about how

racial tensions and courtroom dissensions

and scraps of evidence (and where’s the heartfelt penitence?)

and the slimmest of suspicions becomes percussive permission

(add a vigilante’s derision)

turning a chambered bullet

into a bully pulpit

where the sword is mightier than the pen

when it renders gun-less, defenseless youth dead

 

he didn’t even get to taste the rainbow skittles

before the jury pronounced acquittal

tart lime, orange, green, purple and red

pooled blood, just seventeen, oh GOD, trayvon’s dead

“but the concrete sidewalk is a deadly weapon!”

i swear the defense said this deadpan

and my heart is in explosion

 

i get the fierce urgency of now

so I’m asking with fierce urgency about how (and when and why)

stand your ground became the law of the land

and zimmerman an uberman?

did you read the ten commandments?

did I miss some amendments?

because the one pronounced not guilty

broke at least three

and the altar boy is free