when too many are thrown on the street
and the police have sanctioned bullets
and the judges have their natural-born faults
and some of the locally elected are faithful
and some of them are corrupt
and the higher up you go
from city to county
from county to state
from state to region to super region
the higher you climb the greater the ratio
between the just and unjust
between good and evil
and there’s no telling who is winning
because this kind of winning is artificial
artificial like misguided dreams
and make-believe handguns
december two thousand fourteen
copyright j matthew waters
all rights reserved