Poem for Robert Kennedy, Jr.
When I am (finally)
declared King of the World,
I will send all billionaires
to health farms for
their “personal failures”
where they will work
for zero wages
until they learn
the true meaning
of human empathy
and what it’s like
to have real problems
outside of an ambition
that is tainted
by the ignorance
of a silver spoon
Without Us
I say goodbye to
my fellow patients,
to my therapists and the nurses
who saved my life from my mind,
and the Spanish speaking drivers,
none of whom spoke of the headlines
I found myself reading all day
in group therapy on my cell phone
about freezes to federal funding,
unfair immigration raids,
death to diversity and inclusion
Martin Luther King’s dream
Harvey Milk’s hope
and the hard work of women
like my mother, grandmother
and great-grandmother
dismantled in a pen stroke
against the throats
of starving families.
The doomsday posts of
vulnerable Americans
on social media platforms
pile up as the President
shows me he just wants
the people of America to die
so that he and his friends can
be “Great Again” without us
Kevin Ridgeway is the author of Too Young to Know (Stubborn Mule Press, 2019) and Invasion of the Shadow People (Luchador Press, 2022), in addition to over a dozen chapbooks and split books. His work has appeared in Hiram Poetry Review, New York Quarterly, Paterson Literary Review, Gargoyle, Slipstream, Chiron Review, Nerve Cowboy, Heavy Feather Review, San Pedro River Review and Trailer Park Quarterly, among others. A Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, he lives and writes in Long Beach, CA
