SOME COPS 

Some cops going turn you into wun pinata
if you make too much like Socrates.

Dey going whack you wit authority
and den chop you off at da knees.

Even if wun bystander
captures da exposing video on wun cellphone

dose rogue buggahs in disguise
still going do dere ting

wen dey work people ovah wit excessive force.

Da higher-ups bettah weed out da poison ivy
and blast dat cancer wit some chemo

adahwise da systemic condition
going hollow out da tree

and everyting going come crashing down.

If some of dose bad guys
dat supposed to be good

get away wit wasting anybody
in da neighborhood

den we are in foa moa of da same.

Eye foa wun eye
and riots in da streets

is da end result
wen da public takes gas from da heat.

Not all of dose uniformed guys
are angels in blue.

Da leaders at da top

gaddah make da rotten ones accountable
and get rid of dem

and den maybe moa people
going believe in da rules.

By Joe Balaz

Biography:

Joe Balaz writes in Hawaiian Islands Pidgin (Hawai’i Creole English) and in American-English. He edited Ho’omanoa: An Anthology of Contemporary Hawaiian Literature. Some of his recent Pidgin writing has appeared in Rattle, Juked, Otoliths, and Hawai’i Review, among others. Balaz is an avid supporter of Hawaiian Islands Pidgin writing in the expanding context of World Literature. He presently lives in Cleveland, Ohio.