POST ARREST VERSE

Sonali Kolhatkar

(Submitted Nov 3, 1999)

All around me

Air is thick

words like soup

slide and stick

Life is troubled,

messy streets

Cops who beat

Love that stings

No food to eat

They who starve

ill-fated beings

We who hoard

forget to cry

The need to buy

consumes the bored

Every second counts

Don't they know

Life's greatest clowns

count their dough

Life's greatest might

Kills it's foe

What's left behind?

Words like slime

Stick in my mind.

I wrote this poem after my husband was arrested by a bunch of LA cops at a protest. The protest was being held in front of the Indonesian embassy in LA, to protest the occupation of East Timor.