People's Tribune: Here Come

Here come the judge again,
as if the poor and homeless
weren’t criminalized enough.

Here come the paramilitary Court
to make sure the streets are swept
of every bit of spontaneous life,

of every walking finger crying out,
J’ACCUSE: you’ve already picked
our pockets and drummed it into

society’s weak brains that we’re
the sickies, not the system,
we’re the alkies, not the profitguzzling

drunkards of black gold,
we’re the junkies, not those
gunmen of “lawn order” who wanna

mow down what little green is left.
We’re the beggars, can you spare
some REAL change, we mean change

that’ll do away with the violence
of your fix on lucre, on saving
the dying carcass of capitalism

at any cost, and begin to burn with
the fire of collective care.
We’re the homeless, we don’t need

your half-assed reforms that sick
more cops on our punishing suffering.
We don’t need your poisoned band-aids

or the lie that we’re sicker than you.
We’re the homeless. We’ll never vanish
until you change the way money rules,

and you won’t, you can’t, but we can
and will, and that’s why we say to your
new criminalization: You’re arrested

before you even begin hauling one of us
before your kangaroo court; you’re
nipped in the bud by our truth.

—Jack Hirschman, Poet Laureate,San Francisco