Riot Poem by Windsor Guadalupe Jr

The men with arms and rifles
Squeal, “Riot! ” with a dead trifle.
And the women with wretched portraits
Tread lightly upon the fluid trellis
Screaming, “A riot! A riot! ”

The harlequin-mascara of the moon
Frittered away in the melee of
The sun’s fraying arms
As the moon sighed, the cadence
Of warfare, “A riot! ”

Even the seas trembled,
And the drunkards slurred their indifference
As the promontories are tender with interference
The beasts in the wild are
Shaken inside their slumber
As the nuisances spread like wildfire
Billowing, “A riot. A riot.”

The soldiers shouted mayday,
And the women danced to the wind’s endless sway
The children of the dark knelt and prayed
To the gods who said,
“A riot, a riot.”

I sit atop the sunny cider
As I view all of them
In a riot of perplexities
Scared of nothing,
Eaten by nothing
They have uttered “A riot! A riot! ”
As they retch upon a hysterical pivot
They have brought
This riot
Upon themselves.

A riot of
Nothingness,
A bar-brawl of shadows
In the world’s
Stillness.