[Newspoetry] Kingsville Texas February 8

[William Gillespie]

February 8th the us military invaded Kingsville, Texas. for practice.
black helicopters swooped down, troops disembarked & blew up the local
policestation. there was gunfire. people were terrified. 911 was
hopelessly jammed. it was a practice maneuver.
the scenario the military imagined was that it was y2k, and the
government had declared martial law. a few zealous gun nuts refused to
waive their 2nd amendment rights and barricaded themselves in the police
station.
the troops come in and burn them to the ground.
It is illegal to use military troops as domestic police,
according to the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.
and, rehearsing this imagined scenario, they invaded a real small town,
with real citizens, using real weapons, breaking real windows, burning
the real police station with real fire. with the consent of a handful of
high-level city officials, who lied when questioned afterward, and who
did not breathe a word of warning to the populus that their peaceful
town was going to be the stage for a pretend invasion of the most
powerful military in the world, which is allowed to invade any country
except this one.
razor shouting flashing gunfire bayonette rapidly flashing like a badge
in the night. a sleepy moonless night, a night of insonia terror gunfire
black helicopters violation of civil rights invasion by their own
country, uniquely well-positioned to attack. ordinary people who spent
their lives building the town were betrayed by the mayor and the chief
of police, and the streets where their children played were for a night
full of the sounds of automatic weaponry, aimed at nothing. the black
helicopters the whir of the rotor slicing their hearts like meat. having
lived there, and grown lawns and gardens and paid mortgages and taxes
and voted and paid attention and cared and (not San Antonio whose mayor
refused to host the exercise) could easily have been killed by a stray
bullet, a stray bullet, a bullet that, fired at an invisible nonexistent
enemy, a theorectical armed citized, passed through the enemy that
wasn't there and hit something else, blown it to the ground, turned
cement to gravel, buildings to spent bent matchsticks, destroying
people's confidence and hope and security for a night of whooping fun
exercises in the dark of a town none of them would visit.
don't worry about y2k, worry about the military. don't worry about y2k,
or the military will have an excuse to prevent civil unrest. don't worry
about y2k. i've got a bag or two of beans, come on over, the place will
be unlocked. don't worry about y2k, we'll finish my beer and enjoy the
calm. don't worry about citizens rioting in the streets, worry about the
police rioting in the street. worry about national security, and worry
about whose security.
listen for the sound of them. we all need to stand against them
together, to remind them that they are us, that they are of the same
citizenship as us, that we went to high school with them and now they
are cops. we need to take back the country peacefully. when the
computers crash, we need to take back the peace.