Ticks in Burning Boxes

They walk with no shoes
Through the Mississippi mud
Of their national pride
Past the sweatshop pyre
Burning with the weakness
Of their rage
This cowards bonfire
Smokes with the ghosts
Of the enslaved

The bullet headed put
Ticks in burning boxes
On voting forms
Their burning crosses
As in the red zone
The ineligible
Information receiver
Cuts off his own jock-strap
To spite his face

They want to talk about
Fought and died
They should
Look to the other side
Where with heads held high
Not fought under stars and stripes
People died trying
Equally qualify

Look to the other side
You see me
You'll see many
Taking a stand
Taking a knee
A more powerful
Display of loyalty to our fellow
Than their ad man's wet dream
Of patriotism
Will ever be

© Mark Coverdale

People pointlessly burn their own Nike gear in response to Kaepernick ad

Mark Coverdale Art School Mod Poet. Born in Darlington the year Elvis died. Now in London via Oldham writing and performing socially and politically observational poetry.
Twitter: @cov_art

Just do it

Hey there Nationalistic Ned!

Yeah you man,

you freedom loving sports fan.

You just go ahead and burn your 100 dollar Nikes,

yeah you just go ahead and

Just Do It.

Burn all your overpriced sneakers

in protest of Colin Kaepernick’s

million dollar endorsement

too

Just Do It.

Yeah Patriotic Peter,

you just go and burn

all your t-shirts and shorts,

your headbands

and ankle socks

covered in swooshes

too!

And while you’re at it

constituion clutching Chuck

why don’t you

just shred those Air Jordans and

flush that number 23 jersey down the toilet.

Dump those Kobe Bryant Mamba Hyperdunks

in the polluted sewers flushing out into the poisoned Pacific.

And while your at it tell your wife to

sell off all those Serena William’s Court Power dresses

to some psychopath trolling around on Craigslist.

Yeah Man!

Go ahead and

Just Do It!

Get it done with

once and for all.

You go and show your true

red, white and blue

in the face colors.

Yeah, you too #2ndAmendment Sally

go ahead

and

Just Do It

burn those synthetic swooshes into toxic ashes

and then get on with

your small minded nationalistic

clickbait lifestyles choices.

Cause the freedom that

you claim

to hold so dear and which

allows you to do just about

anything in the U.S.A.

is a freedom that

thousands of American black men

never had

a chance to feel

and never will

ever will

be able to

Just Do Anything

because they

are dead.

So yeah, you just

go ahead

and

Just Do It.

Do what you gotta do folks.

Cause Colin is doing

just what he

needs to do

too.

Go for it.

Go ahead

and

Just Do It

And when your done with it

go on down to

the Wal-Mart

and buy yourself

a new pair of

New Balance

or Reeboks

to keep polished as white

as your backass assumptions

about freedom

actually are.

© Joshua Baumgarten

Nike's support for Colin Kaepernick protest has some destroying their shoes

Joshua Baumgarten is an ex-pat New Yorker living in Holland. He organises the Irrational Library evenings - nights of poetry, rock n roll and casual chaos, and performs as a Standup Spoken Word artist.