The Shame and Fear We Sow -Introducing Sergio Ortiz

 [Poem and photo by Sergio Ortiz]

 

It’s no longer Build the Wall

or Lock Her Up, now it’s Shoot the Bitch

and Hang the Nigger.

 

Outbursts, newsworthy metaphors,

one more fire under Nowhere Bridge,

a contemptible distraction

to my support of The Water Protectors?

 

I’m done listening to loudspeakers

announce our descent into hell.  It’s a show

of strength to be a woman,

a successful black man. Why run

 

through the corridors

of the West Wing cherry-picking slogans

for a lynch mob?

 

[Please welcome Sergio Ortiz, a Puerto Rican poet and the founding editor of Undertow Tanka Review. He is a two time Pushcart nominee, a four time Best of the Web nominee, and a 2016 Best of the Net nominee. His poems have been published in hundreds Journals and Anthologies. He is currently working on his first full length collection of poems, Elephant Graveyard.]