‘Arizona’ Joe

Maricopa County – the ascent of man
arrested, the descent into an unhinged
republicanism encouraged inceptively
by downtown, hoedown homilies

expressed in the irrepressible parlance
of a much re-elected Sheriff, ‘Arizona’ Joe
Arpaio. The Badge ain’t mean – he just
invented a new way to contravene civil

liberties with a rich and powerful appeal
to the mind-numbed, comatosed vote-blind
who still find Dubya a new-age saint, which,
in no small-minded, word-mangling way he

exactly ain’t. I say Joe’s antics are okay by and
large, the way he shits on all prisoners equally,
feeding them at 15 cents per meal per day says
‘don’t fuck with the Law in Maricopa County –

it don’t pay!’ But when deputies dispense their fervent
zeal in beating men to death while ‘questioning’ them,
and are set free, one has to express some concern:
‘Hey, Joe, wait up a bit. Y’all ain’t outside the Law.’

I thought a sheriff’s job was to uphold that
august statute – not abuse it, no matter what
he finds fit. But that’s not the way they see it
in ‘Arizona’ Joe’s Maricopa County.
© 16 March 2007, I.D. Carswell