
Los Angeles in 2026 (A Night Mare Untamed)
—owed to Langston Hughes’ “Harlem: A Dream Deferred“
How do you tame a night mare?
Do you curse it
and shake your fist
in its face?
Do you whip it until it bleeds?
Do you refuse to let it sleep?
Do you pay a shrink
to nod it into a blue funk?
Maybe you ride it to death
and then sell it for glue.
Or do you put a bullet through its noggin?
Original poem appearing in my collection titled Turtle Woman & Other Poems under the title “Richmond: A Nightmare Untamed”