I loaded the plane the other day for a

Vacation to Florida

my skin white

like an albino

white like every other key on the piano

Like Tom Hanks in Joe versus the Volcano

Like….like…like a really, really white guy

Airport security just gave me a smile

And told me to have a good trip

It was a good thing I didn’t

Plan on making a really elaborate gun

Out

Of a belt buckle, ink pen, headphones and an ancient Indian artifact

That hung about my neck in the shape of a stick

Cause man….no one was check’n.

I spent two weeks in the sun

and my skin gradually turned from red to brown

a slow barbequed steak

And this combined with my dark hair and eyes

must have made someone’s terroristic trigger-finger ache

Because in Miami

While trying to catch my flight home

a guy who looked an awful lot like Barney Fife

Snatched me from the line with such force

I thought I was with Jeffery Domer’s behind closed doors.

I was taken into a makeshift curtained room and asked to disrobe

And I shook as I waited for that mythological

Security probe. 

You know the one they supposedly got

‘bout as long as the stick

Ruth held when he called his shot.

But I was spared, I guess

as a quick peak was all he took

His face wrinkled in disgust

It looked like regret

And I’m still not sure whether it was from

Me not having TNT duct taped to my back

Or for having to gaze upon my hairy man-boobs

Glistening with nervous sweat.

I felt violated as I put my clothes back on

It was like being caught by my ex-girl friend’s dad

Buck-naked on his lawn.

With my clothes still up in his daughter’s room

Laying like skins of a just-shed snake

Uncollected as I jumped out the window

To keep dad from crumbling me like a crisp corn flake.

A black man, disheveled

Clothes hanging loose

Watched as exited

My eyes cast down like mom just caught me leaving a porno booth

And he laughed

Yeah, the dude laughed as he spoke out loud

“You know what it’s like to be a brother now.”

Then it hit me, I was profiled by some unknown dude

Because of the way I looked and not by who I was

Still a stock broker, same as when I left

Two kids and a trophy wife who is drinking herself to death

Was it that easy?

The color of my skin?

And I was all of a sudden

I’m a Robin to

A Batman Ben Ladin?

It really got me thinking about what had transpired since 9/11

in the way of the government taking control back

And I’ll admit I was one of those who was afraid

About being blown up, or dusted with deadly anthrax

But, was this what had to take place?

The only solution to keep us all safe?

“You done gave up your Civie Libs…” the black man spoke with a grin

“…and you ain’t ever going to get them back again.”

“Civie Libs? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Your civil liberties man, damn, you’re green.”

When I arrive back in New York

I began to dig

Deep into the world wide web.

About just what we had given up since that fateful day

And what I found concerned me in a bad sort of way

As I learned of secret searches, wire taps, and detentions without release

Even off our turf

About how they can look into my work computer and

Know where I surf

Not with a wave and a board but with a mouse because I’m bored

And I really got scared

What the hell business is it of Bush on how I do at solitaire?