Their photos are periods
\nPunctuating short stories.
\nforty, fresh-faced ones,
\nreflecting everything on the table\u2014
\neverything possible\u2014back at me:
\nThe promising painter, gifted filmmaker,
\nDancer-choreographer, talented sound-tech,
\nup and coming musician\u2014spring chapters extinguished
\nby any means necessary\u2014
\nmaking space to breathe; creating under capitalism:
\nbasements, abandoned buildings, warehouses, wherever\u2026
\nNever visualizing fingers of fire playing
\nArpeggios in Saturday night skies,
\nHurling block chords at heroic
\nFirefighters in rescue mode\u2014
\nNever tasting brine of bloodshot eyes\u2014
\nbitter Margaritas on The Town
\ngathering, hugging, holding one another up<\/p>\n
Oakland\u2019s heart is broken\u2026
\nde-ja vu\u2014enough heartbreak
\nfor wrapping the lake:
\npolice gunning down the painter;
\ndrunk driver snuffing the dance master;
\nBlues man crushed in a crosswalk,
\nNazis dousing melodies of a young pianist<\/p>\n
Oakland
\nI hear you, love you, feel you\u2014
\nPlease hear me toll
\nmorning\u2019s when Hellfires hit hospitals
\nleaving blood-splattered walls?
\nOakland
\nI hear you, love you, feel you\u2014
\nPlease hear me toll
\nEvenings for mangled babies in
\nIraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and Syria?
\nOakland
\nI hear you, love you, feel you\u2014
\nPlease hear me toll
\nImagining fires worlds away\u2014
\ncharred Syrians, Palestinians, Congolese?<\/p>\n