Started April 29th. 1992; my birthday and the first day of the L.A. Rebellion.
This is a narrative-documentary derived by information gained from all media and personal experiences, relative to the L.A. riots and the police beating of Rodney King court verdict. Poets are privileged to obtain basic information from modern media sources. The days are gone when a king’s poet sat on a hill overlooking a battlefield to record events for him in verse.
Ben Dunk.
BURN BABY BURN – again !
“No Justice – no peace !”
One minute deadly quiets
Next minute dreadly crazies
Driven vehicles – smashing entries
through plate glass windows
Fire fighters feel the blazes
Sensing danger from bullets
“No justice-no peace !”
Malicious flash-point men
pranced their dreadful dances
at Florence-Normandie de Los Angeles
until disordered blood and puke ran
from weapons snatched near white fences
Smirching the street and pale-faces
“No justice – now peace !”
As the fires burn
“Enjoin our voices”
Pray the filled churches
“Use the ballot boxes!”
“To change every bad turn”
“And prove it IS possible”
“No justice-no peace !”
“Please everyone stay calm”
“We are still struggling”
“People do NOT lose controls”
“It cannot be defended”
“Why burn down our own?”
“It’s only hurting ourselves!”
“No justice – no peace !”
“Very disappointing –
scary and tragic times !”
The politician exclaims
Then, out come street gangs
To fire their own buildings
all over their own towns
“No justice – no peace!”
The emergency broadcast is:
“This message is not a test !”
A Sheriff’s fearful cry
Whilst Sear’s is looted
and the heart of Hollywood
is in a state of anarchy
“No justice – no peace!”
More looting on B.H’s boundaries
causes a convoy of vehicles
to emerge from Command-Centrals
carrying armed-late National Guards
connecting with armed Korean Vigilantes
while armed police pray in halls
“No justice – no peace!”
On day two the battle raged
and who observed family trucks?
south on Hawthorne Boulevard
new furniture high piled
by opportunist’s disengaged
evading official rucks
“ No justice – no peace!”
Torcher’s in the confusion
driving around and around
did their bidden tasks
A final desecration
for a damage dealer’s fund
and persons behind their masks
“ No justice – no peace!”
This LA City civil war
is the first for modern media
Helicopter T.V. camera ships
gave more views than the Gulf War
Only our private telephone-chips
were turned off by Pac-Bel and G.T.E.
“ No justice – no peace!”
The crucible that over-boiled
The cultures diverge-effaced
The cruors of the people spilled
The cruives that were razed
The creators of city violence
All are to ashes defaced
“No justice – no peace!”
For four days city wide smokes
billowed, towered and air-spread
its black color free of controls
Only after this trash-time of croaks
did the city-scene-of-the-dead
change to hosed-white palls
“ No justice- no peace!”
The second King is wheeled forth
and orates from beaten-twisted mouth
“Can’t we all get along ?”
“We’ve got to quit!”
“It’s not right!”
“try and work it out!”
“No justice – no peace!”
Sadly the diffluent natures
speeded the unlikely amours
from the local cad’s statures
and no remorse gathers
in spirits of human kind
Where the need is greatest.
“No justice – no peace!”
Established order seemed impartial
squaring white judge and jury
But the Simi Sect adjudged partial
by the critics of the trial
unleashed public pent-up fury
until the conflict became martial
“No justice- no peace!”
The oblique sympathistic question
a subjectively proposed refrain
was how the City author’s chose
for the penultimate procuration
a dirty-dozen from the commuter train
of one hundred and fifty cars
“No justice – no peace!”
Ultimately when we saw
the injustice of it all
and the Feds were fed-up
with the California call
a primed twelve was set-up
to make the verdict a draw
“No justice – no peace!”
Half of the half-mad guys
Plus many more there looking
laughing then and now at the tries
see their incongruous deflections
in the gracious prison booking
incarcerated noble’s demise
“No justice – no peace!”
Patrolling freeways to search
for “Gorillas in the mist!”
the object of their ire
a drunk to chase and birch
Anticipation was their tryst
Video-log not their desire
“No justice- no peace!”
“We the people….” Paid very dear
for brash escapades of our forces
The ballot box failed to hire
persons of superior gear
to oversee our lawful resources
and made a felon a millionaire
On the first day of the riots, I was working in our antiques store and restoration workshop: which was part of Architect Beall’s building on the west side of Hawthorne Boulevard near the cross street of Skypark in The City of Torrance, Southern California, U.S.A.. I had a view to the North and North East. Listening to the radio I heard it announced, there were public disturbances going on in various areas, in the vicinity of down town and South Los Angeles. Around lunch time I started to see through our large windows, a number of separate black clouds of smoke billowing and rising up from the distant roof tops and skyline. A radio advisory said there would be a curfew imposed down as far as Sepulveda Boulevard in Torrance City. In the middle of the afternoon I saw trucks and cars passing southward on Hawthorne Blvd., they were loaded, for example, with new bicycles, baby strollers and boxes of unopened T.V.s and electronic goods. According to later information, I understood that the City of Hawthorne shopping center, several miles to the north, had been looted and all the stores emptied. This was the direction they were coming from. Torrance police were well prepared and organized and placed snipers on the top of Torrance Del Amo shopping center and this kept looters at bay. Later in the afternoon I went to my nearby home and continuously watched ongoing events on television. On the T.V. I saw the bloody confrontations at Florence and Normandie in South Los Angeles, the shoot outs between Korean shopkeepers and prospective looters; the arson activity and the other events referred to in the poem.