Weekly Poetry Challenge Five and Six

Week four BOP It is Happening Here

week four BOP It is Happening Here

It is Happening Here!

in today’s America
the President and his henchmen
Declaring war on Blue States
and cities, including now Chicago
Their crime? Refusing to accept the rules
of the wanna be king.

It is Happening Here

Sinclair Lewis wrote
in his prophetic novel
“It Can’t Happen Here”
That fascism if it comes to America
will be wrapped in a cross
and an American flag.

It Is Happening Here

The president renames
DOD as the Department of War
and double down on his vow
to rid America of the enemy within
migrants, trans people, radical leftists
The craven, corrupted Supreme Court greenlighting it.

It Is Happening Here

Poetry Form:
Bop

The bop is a new form of poetry introduced by poet Afaa Michael Weaver. It is an argumentative form, like the sonnet, with three stanzas, each with a purpose in the argument.

The first six-line stanza introduces the problem, the second eight-line stanza expands upon it, and the final six-line stanza explains the solution or failed attempts. There is a repeated refrain line after each stanza.



Example ▼

Rambling
by Afaa Michael Weaver

In general population, census
is consensus—ain't nowhere to run
to in these walls, walls like a mind—
We visitors stand in a yellow circle
so the tower can frisk us with light,
finger the barrels on thirsty rifles.

I got rambling, rambling on my mind

In general population, madness runs
swift through the river changing, changing
in hearts, men tacked in their chairs,
resigned to hope we weave into air,
talking this and talking that and one brutha
asks Tell us how to get these things
They got, these houses, these cars.
We want the real revolution. Things...

I got rambling, got rambling on my mind

In the yellow circle the night stops
like a boy shot running from a Ruger 9mm
carrying .44 magnum shells, a sista
crying in the glass booth to love's law,
to violence of backs bent over to the raw
libido of men, cracking, cracking, crack...

I got rambling, rambling on my mind