Preacher Mike's Miracle

Maurice Clemmons, sentenced to over 100 years in prison, was granted clemency by Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee in 2000.  Clemmons, one of many felons to receive special  treatment from Huckabee, had shown a propensity for antisocial behaviour before he was out of his teens.  Violent robberies and attacks should have been clue enough for the conservative governor but Huckabee receives his marching orders from God.  Gene Lyons who writes for the Indiana Gazette says it best:

"During the former Baptist minister's decade as Arkansas' governor, it appeared that no matter how heinous his crimes, all an inmate had to do for a pardon was drop to his knees, praise Jesus and persuade some preacher known to Huckabee of his newfound holiness. ``Everybody knows that Mike Huckabee makes up his mind what to do by what God tells him to do,'' said one minister who gained clemency for a prisoner serving 100 years for the strong-arm robbery of elderly neighbours."  (See entire article.)

Last week we were all saddened by the senseless, execution style, slaying of four police officers as they sat in a Washington state coffee shop preparing for their shift.   The slayer was none other than Huckabee's miracle convert, Maurice Clemmons.  Huckabee in an interview with Bill O'Reilly on Fox News, shifted most of the blame on the Arkansas parole board and the Washington State criminal justice system.  Saint O'Reilly, as might be expected,  publicly exonerated his fellow "fair and balanced" commentator  by saying the tragedy  was not his (Huckabees) fault.   

The following poem is dedicated to Preacher Mike.

Remove My Chains

I am one with Jesus and

if that pleases

remove my chains

Let me beat and choke you with them

you are part of my destiny to become

the evil that forever follows

into the darkest of forests

feel my breath on your neck

turn around

you will not see me

I am still behind you

I am one with Jesus and

if that pleases

take away this orange jumpsuit

Help me to appear naked before you

I enjoy your discomfort

the more outrageous I am

the bigger the conversion

I am one with Jesus and

if that pleases

send me out into your pretty world

I'll kill all you bitches

I'll drink your blood and eat your dead flesh

your babies will be sweet

ripe for fornication

I'll fly to Heaven

an leave you in Hell

Go ahead

pardon my sins in Jesus' name

and when I kill your friends

it will be as if you did it

they were slowly killing each other any way

I am one with Jesus and

if that pleases

write my story

tell them

I am not interested in their piddling problems

I piss on their grief

Man up!

for you are

the one who caused it.

What's That Smell?

I chose to start this blog with a post/poem dedicated to the eleven women in Cleveland who died at the hands of  Anthony Sowell.  Black and poor is apparently not a good way to be Cleveland.  The fact that Sowell, a convicted rapist, was able to collect rotting bodies without arousing the  suspicions of local law enforcement, speaks volumes about attitudes in urban America.  See Huffington Post Article.  Some of the victims were reported as missing and the police did little other than paper shuffle.  After all, these women were prostitutes and drug addicts.  They will turn up sooner or later when they need a place to flop or money for their habits.  Even the smell of death in the neighborhood around Sowell's house did not prompt an investigation.  See sausage factory.  

The saddest part of this whole story is that Anthony Sowell did a 15  year stretch for rape and was a registered sex offender.  In spite of this record when an intended victim, Gladys Wade, managed to escape and run to the cops, they chose to believe that Sowell was the victim and the case never went anywhere.  See Cleveland woman escapes Sowell .  This occured in 2008 and since then, five more women have turned up missing in the neighborhood.  

Think about your own neighborhood.  What would happen if a person disappeared?  Would it sound all sorts of alarm bells or would it only be noticed for a day or two?  Would the smell of decaying flesh eminating from a registered sex offender's house cause more than a stir, or would it blamed on the local sausage factory?

She'll Show

Where's Tonia?

"Go home
she'll show
as soon the drugs are gone
she'll show"

If we'd have been blow flies
we would have found her
Dipteran bloodhounds
randy for the smell

of blood and guts

that seasons every breeze

in this town where

black is black and nothing more

He was the devil
his demon-glow made  Gladys  fight strong
and she did not die like so many others

But black is black in a town where

women disappear
         and no one asks

cops can't hear
         and no one cares

the smell of death goes unnoticed
blame the sausage factory
blame the sewers
and black is still black

Tonia's black

and Tonia finally did show
as a brief blue glow
when wet with luminol