I wrote this poem on May Day, 2023, and didn’t publish it online till now. On occasion, I walk or bike across my neighborhood, the Old West End, to sit outside the Toledo Museum of Art, to write a poem or two. Typically, I don’t have any particular theme in mind; I just await inspiration. On that May Day, inspiration came early. I was biking past the house which I affectionately refer to as “the anarchist house,” where beautiful unicorns and friends of awe congregate irregularly. As I approached the house, I noticed a group of folks on the porch enthusiastically “air masturbating” upwards to the sky. They were yelling at a police helicopter that was noisily flying low and circling the neighborhood over and over. This policing was disturbing in so many ways. I couldn’t help but belly laugh at the creative and energetic welcome they gave to this disturbance of the force. The seed had been planted. Within an hour, I wrote this poem and gave a handwritten copy to the lovers of peace and quite enthusiastically. I was invited to read this poem at an upcoming poetry reading at the Collingwood Garden, and I debuted it publicly there. I LOVE THIS NEIGHBORHOOD! Warning: this poem contains explicit versus of pigs flying.
What Comes: Of Police Helicopters
A site be held
What is won too due
In efface of masturbatory policing
As circle jerks
A distant SWAT
Evoking new heights of calling out
The pork of militarism
Redefining Toledo rockets
Unsuited!? Knot at awe
Hitting their Mark
Or Jack – off to the razes
Having launched an act of resistance
Of which sum may muse
Better held in private
Lubricating freedom
That is
Until pigs fly
On this May Day
And if this is just
A great big flail
To attention, those who do not under stand
More than saying
Come again
