remember
when music was
pure & uncut,
when we were all users
trying to survive?

addicted to
the crack-le of
the needle
as it hit the 45?

back when the
natural high of
heart & soul
was enough to suffice?

we’re just
some junkies
looking to score

excuse me mister,
could you spare a dime?

you sit in your pulpit all holier than thou  
claiming if it was the 50's
you would fight in the civil rights movement  
but now you are sitting back doing nothing

so  

shut the **** up  
you don't get to watch kids being  
pulled from their parents and do nothing  
while saying you would have fought for
people of color  

you are lying there is no other way to put it  
you ******* coward  
and by the way the fight for  
people of color isn't over so
get off your *** or shut up

that night, I saw bodies in the motel bathtub
beckoning like a 50's Cadillac
back seat beats and Father's  
bottle of snatched brandy up
to bring back our youth

and stay
for one last whisper in a last-innocent ear
the diner lights buzzing like
a lifetime of loss to mistakes
that can be little more or
less than broken glass lies

I know of a girl who dreads the New Year
Because it steals her away
from poodle-skirts and telephones
And all that is long gone
Drags her across the floor by her ankles
while she sobs
as though she'd known the era's
dead.