Over the weekend, it was reported that police in Rochester, NY pepper-sprayed a handcuffed nine-year-old girl–a girl shoved into the snow so she could be handcuffed. Of all the many, many things that need to be addressed by this new administration, at or near the top of the list should be monumental changes for the way we fund, train, manage, and hold accountable the police who should be protecting and serving us.

Common Contributors 
To the Breathing Problems 
Of the Average American

It is asthma.
It is emphysema.
It is COPD.
It is COPs.
It is the stench of GOP hypocrisy.
It is a high life of smoking.
It is an era of burning brush.
It is a lifetime of burning bridges
& smoking enemies.
It is the noxious haze of racism.
It is asbestos & ozone & mustard gas.
It is clouds of over-cooked coal
& toxic rivers of white fragility.
It is the fetid fog of the undrained swamp.
It is buses and trucks and traffic jams.
It is planes, trains, & autoerotic asphyxiation.
It is vehicular & respiratory congestion 
with congestion prices to pay.
It is oleoresin capsicum; it is mace & capsaicin.
It is the foul fumes of the rotting corpses of theirstory.
It is the brume of brutality, the corrupt cop pollution.
It is chlorobenzylidene malononitrile.
It is the smoke & smog of privilege.
It is the murk & must of injustice for just us.
It is the peasoup of oppression.

It is the noose.
It is the knee.
It is the nation.

© David Siller 2020

*****

For the first 100 days of the Biden administration, this website will feature a new poem of What’s Next!? These pieces can be calls to action, calls to attention, or calls to anger. They will light the way and guide the fight. They will get us moving and keep our momentum. They will be filled with hope, with anger, with sorrow. They will get us into good trouble and point out the trouble we need to stop. They will be polished gems, or rough-cut drafts of rage, or in-process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered.

#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? wants your poems, your prose, your visual art (photos, drawings, sculptures), your music, your short films and animations. Interpret the theme as broadly as you’d like.

If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with your visual art (as .jpg or .pdf) or your poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. Include a short bio (2-3 sentences) and social media/website information. All rights remain with the author. Please address any formatting preferences in your email. Waxyandpoetic.com will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day beginning 20 January 2021.

Read, follow, share, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !