Everything is upside down

For the God I believe in is

A terrified detainee

Being tortured to death

By a terrified soldier

Because we were told

To take the gloves off

A native American

Drinking himself to death

An Indian immigrant

Being shot & killed

For wearing a turban

Too soon after 9/11

A gay man

Being brutally beaten to death

A raw recruit

Left paralyzed for life

And speaking out

Against the madness of war

An abortionist

Suffering severe facial injuries

When her clinic is firebombed

A grey & white stray cat

Being hit by a car

& being cared for by my neighbor & i

Who the animal hospital said

They could try to save

For 75 dollars

But when we called animal control

They said our referral had died

Thus saving the city 75 dollars

A stop-lossed soldier

Killing himself

Rather than returning to the hell

He thought he’d finally been freed from

A prostitute

Being viciously raped

By a moralistic vigilante

A journalist

At the Palestine hotel

Being killed

For trying to tell the truth

About the war

A Japanese father

Being detained at Manzanar

Because he looked

Like an enemy combatant

An undocumented trans-gendered immigrant

Dying in terminal island (how aptly named)!

Detention center

Because we won’t let him have

His HIV med’s

But when everything is right side up

The God I believe in will be

A homeless street kid

Welcoming an army of orphans

Into a family of gangbangers

In search of the ultimate rave

& when we finally find

The rave to end all raves

The music will rip our hearts out

& we’ll never again

Be able to forget

How loved we’ve always been