"gentrified" poems
Monroe Ave c. 2018, in my own dream land. K. Daniel's Revelation, cannot reverse what's starting to happen. Darker, more forlorn. No more bar and restaurant patrons, the streets are just a scattered herd of pestilence. No cars, the somnambules own the streets in silence. Honey dripping hipsters, years gone. ***** clothes, hair past their pearls. Asking for boy, asking for O.P.s, asking for girl, asking for crack, asking for methamphetamines. The only noise.
We lost the reclamation of the city our parents left. Escaping dead end cul-de-sacs of basement poverty, we no longer had to drive. Stacked with our friends in tenement commune. We delivered the body we consume in service, catering to a more privileged few. Only responsible for one when long work was done, I ensured my red blood's full of fun. We drank and inebriated with design when allowed more free time. But, darling, I think this town was already gentrified. We changed no thing.
Dec 14, 2013
Dec 14, 2013 at 11:03 PM UTC
a ****** of crows gathers
over Hamburg, carrion carrying on
with business as usual.
feeding on the festered flesh
of a gentrified populace.
in private jets coughing carbon
they fly from the west on turbine wings,
engines screaming as they dive towards a nation
secured by razor-wound walls
and barb-wire borders.
they pitched a battle in Germany,
convinced that austerity
would ******* the resistance
and give justification to premeditated violence.
but the tables have turned on the thieves again.
we are the end result of your failed policies,
globalization has destroyed our homes.
if your cabal rallies like a kettle of vultures,
you will do so behind closed doors,
cowering in your fortress' halls.
you shall not pass. watch as the power shifts
like the melting gears of torched BMWs.
we will tear the vestiges of your authority down.
we will black out your surveillance cameras,
smash your windows, and block your limos. no pasaran.
flee, while you can still run. this city belongs
to the wild ones, a black bloc, thousands strong,
dancing amidst the tear gas, tossing molotovs.
marching to liberty's sturdy drum,
equal in our solidarity song.
Jul 8, 2017
Jul 8, 2017 at 12:14 PM UTC
I.
something within me,
maybe its my amigdala,
misses the oven-turned-gentrified clot,
that great collection of want,
of transient soles-souls.
I miss how we’re piled three stories high,
so close to each others’ mouths that we must
burrow in criss crossed, colliding tunnels
to our point b’s, our job sites,
our lovers’ houses.
maybe it is indeed part of our un-nature to do this,
to cling to one another even
as our unforgiving sungod bakes us whole,
cornish game hens on the el train,
hurdling 40 mph, to and from
our personal hovels, heavens
and bedsheets,
tethered to this place, possibly indentured,
definitely flawed,
where we revel under roofs to prove incredibleness
an virility.
II.
our eyes are not closed today.
they may not blink in unison
as mannequin lids do,
so effortlessly, plastic and mechanical,
but those, we are thankfully not.
for we are flesh,
and air, and miles of gastrointestinal turnpike, if unpinned,
would stretch from here to panama.
we are each of us
a viscous mound called
Sally, Bertram and Queen Mary.
We are the collision of milk flowing, divine,
a whirling dervish
in scalding darjeeling.
we are air,
gliding over enamel into the collective breath
to be devoured so sweetly by others,
as saintly man-scripted gelato,
dribbling down our chins in piazzas.
la dolce ************* vita.
III.
that’s the funny thing about living
in this size 2 world,
the ability to appear anywhere upon its face at a moment’s notice,
to be in front of any face when desired,
to live sans toll booth or customs desk,
to simply dust off our ability to fly
and tumble icarus-adolescent into the collision
between the two blue planes called sea and sky
Jun 7, 2011
Jun 7, 2011 at 9:58 AM UTC
For I will consider a town called Riverside.
For its only river, the dry Santa Ana, it's shore peppered with the homeless, garbage, an old shoe, a cart stolen from the grocery.
For its downtown with dried gum spots all along the sidewalk, its dive bars with regulars pouring in at 3pm and pouring cheap beer into their gullets until morning.
For its overpriced theatre, a gentrified landmark, driving the sun-hot strays to the park.
For the park, and a lake, dotted with boats in the summer, driven by tired feet, hands hiding beer in gas station soda cups.
For the mountain, with the old ladies, counting every step, looking up to the cross and over the edge onto a thick brown smog.
For the steepled churches on every corner, waking us every Sunday to pray to a hotly scarce God.
For I will consider a town called Riverside.
Oct 18, 2018
Oct 18, 2018 at 2:21 AM UTC
thinking about how cops are beating protestors senseless not even 20 minutes from where i live.
thinking about how they block off the streets and stand unmasked, batons in hand, other hand resting pointedly on their gun.
thinking about how it could be me next— another unspecified black face and black body and black existence snuffed out— a hashtag, a mural.
(and those are the lucky ones.)
thinking about how a memorial is the best case scenario for a black life.
thinking about the bodies in the street.
thinking about blood splattering the ground, mixing with paint and obscuring the “black lives matter” lettering on the road.
thinking about the chalk art and loud music in a neighborhood soon-to-be-gentrified.
thinking about how we’ve grown used to the stench of rotting flesh outside our doors.
thinking about the taste of blood in my mouth from my nearly-severed tongue i didn’t realize i was biting.
thinking about the tension in my neck and jaw.
thinking about the way my eyes never seem to close.
thinking about the eyes that will never again open.
thinking thinking thinking.
Sep 27, 2020
Sep 27, 2020 at 4:27 PM UTC
i enjoy england
with its little houses
hips brushing, faces smushed
together to revel in quaint rumour
among gentrified lilies and pink
lady apples that blush in the summer
its walkways and alleys
dribbles of soft lamplight guiding
the drunkard, moth-brained and ill
with silk threads to a blind spot
of amber where muck can be spilled
the people on transport
with their airy talk, their mindless
silence, heads lolling idly on
windows, eyes crumpling like napkins
against the leaking crumbs of warm scone sun
pretty little England
where exploitation is vintage
and runs like rosé
down the dusty store windows
here we are free to stumble
down streets with sweat
in our hair and manic karaoke
reverberating off the walls
glee drinking is government protected
I'm quite in love with england,
this field of dew and white roses
fed by gore and sweet tradition
where fresh-faced, sunny children play.
May 10, 2020
May 10, 2020 at 9:48 AM UTC
In the beginning it was already the end.
That distant apocalypse was here all along,
Riding freight trains and eating the "trash"
There when they boarded up the Slavic village. There when the fresh prince gentrified Philly. So much apocalypse has been swept under the rug that the middle class can't keep their balance with the weight of the rich on their backs.
Stepping around the smoldering hell holes of Centralia, while the earth quakes from underground fracking. The ash and smog hides the glitter of aluminum in the air. The water laced with fluoride, lead, arsenic, cancer. The seas run black with greed. Designer labels sit passed by on goodwill shelves.
By the time it began, it was already over. Anyone who didn't notice yet, just had to go hungry first. Bread and circuses, just like Rome.
Apr 18, 2014
Apr 18, 2014 at 8:42 AM UTC
The yonder above is forever bruised and opaque
Reigning over glum faces
Complexions washed with a bloodless shade of dispassion
Robotic, disengaged.
Material desires are quenched with vast shopping centres
Credit Cards hold on for dear live
As every last drop of sweet money is rinsed from that plastic rectangle.
Living beyond our means
Whilst simultaneously refusing to give up on Sky TV box sets and liquid lunches.
Hooked to our phones, but not for telephone communication
Rather, for self validation
Defined by the click of a heart or pathetic thumb.
The once friendly communities
With blood coursing through their veins
Are husks of their previous life form, gentrified beyond recognition.
Filtered faces with protruding spines and modified features
Infiltrate mass media
Corrupting the definitions of success and beauty.
Plastic personalities reign supreme
Vacuous minded socialites profess women’s empowerment begins with the flaunting of skin
Rather than the possession of a strong mind.
Many bury their heads in the sand
Residing in ignorance
As mass genocides and civil wars manifest every second.
Or worse, they read the TORYgraph and THE ****
Believing immigrants spawn white genocide
And white conservatives suffer oppression.
Pffft!
I have deep contempt for those behind these ***** tabloids
Murdoch and his monsters
Orchestrating lies and bile
Destroying lives or scaremongering the impressionable
Committing the most savage, sycophantic crimes
In order to extract Monday’s headline.
I do not suffer fools
Especially those who make up the tapestry of dystopia
A failing age of doom.
Feb 11, 2018
Feb 11, 2018 at 12:00 PM UTC
Donald J. Trump:
Say what you will, but
He’s the only guy out there
Asking the obvious questions,
Common sense questions like
*“Why don’t Japan, South Korea &
The House of Saud, pay the USA for
Defending them militarily?”*
We sustain their political status quo,
We put boots on their ground, &
We provide them gold-plated munitions of
Mass Devastation
(like Mass Destruction only worse.)
What do we get? Bupkis, as in
“Bupkis Mit Kaduchas"
באָבקעס מיט קדחת
Translating roughly to
*“Shivering **** *****
The 2016 election truly highlights
A profound social shift taking shape,
A demographic division, similar to what
The 1960s called the Generation Gap.
Trump is anathema to most of our
Over-indulged, Millennial offspring;
Our privileged kids, a cohort of Americans children
Reared by blue-collar but college-educated parents,
Those of us who busted *** for our
Bourgeois lifestyle & discrete charm.
We were the Flower Children of the 60s.
We left Yasgur’s farm on a
Hallucinogenic carpet high but rudely
Crash-landed, a consequence of
Altamont Speedway,
Gasoline queues & shortages, &
Years of bipolar economics,
Replete with spinning gerbil wheel of
Double-digit inflation.
We went to work.
We got our **** together.
We settled down.
We gentrified.
Our kids?
They tell their friends they are house sitting,
But the place is the house they grew up in &
Their parents still live there.
Sep 27, 2016
Sep 27, 2016 at 2:19 AM UTC
We still see and hear their annoying class,
business Blackberry users amplify their relic, a discourse with the plebs,
plumb clipped tones from deepest
Home counties and southern coast
tired men with families
moved to gentrified London,
at any farmers market you catch them
in their 4x4, dress down best
a pram in tow, Pomfrey junior
their prodigal Norman sounding offspring
rhetorically the promised land,
a seed bank unending.
Dec 18, 2012
Dec 18, 2012 at 4:24 AM UTC
The day is done—
Clock strikes 4pm,
And it’s time to walk home, again.
It’s raining and cold.
I lock up my desk,
And head to the elevator
Ready to leave, say goodbye to this place;
Down 34 floors, exit to pavement’s freedom;
I pass the larger than life
Plato blue abstract statue,
Cardio up the hill,
Sadly, smell human waste
Coming from a small enclave
Of trees, where the homeless sleep.
I usually hold my breath and count my blessings.
I realize that any of us might easily become homeless.
I am grateful for my life and a place that keeps its warmth.
Then, I walk across the bridge,
Rush hour traffic stalled like a clogged artery.
Many cars, lights, and skyscrapers line the distance.
I like to think of the city as a heart in human body,
And the closer you get to its core, you can hear its blood flow.
Once past this point, I feel I can breathe again as the cells
Spread out more to my neighborhood, gentrified;
Pass the latest construction with a sign that displays,
“Affordable Housing for All.”
I have yet to see it.
Marijuana streams drift out windows,
There's the school overlooking to mountain's peak;
Just three more cross walks and I’ll be home, free.
Dec 9, 2018
Dec 9, 2018 at 3:14 PM UTC
Fall.
Run-down places are the nature of things
the decay that the gentrified smile of each city tries to cover up as trains move past them.
The empty strip mall, the mid-nowhere gas station, the vacant lots and bordered windows and all those hollow ruins for lease between the lights of the rented spaces we call home at night
So when you reply with silence as the answer I have no choice but to accept,
I think of an entire ghost town built on the sincerity of those run-down places where no one goes
And I go there, alone
not lonely,
if only to seek the company of the quiet truth that demands no explanation for why she left
or why I returned
to walk down each deserted lane from memory toward what I once called my hometown, my old stomping grounds
I ask if I am okay
with the absence and let the replies
come in echoes against the shell of my former house
carrying the sound of far-off ocean waves
maybe, a Rocky, sandless beach
in the Pacific Northwest
where we'll meet again someday
okay at last with the silence that comes from leaving everything behind and just going.
Rise.
Spring is you
reborn.
a re-learning of steps
needed to stand alone.
Spring is the water
from the sink that hits you between the eyes with the cold, hard fact that love dies
and you live on.
Spring is a face-off
with new realities
a rising to the ocassion as the weight of colder and darker days thaw off bent shoulders under the cleanse of April's first shower.
Spring is baptism.
Your re-newed steps pound the same pavement like falling petals this time around
And you remember, finally,
That you loves you
And you're forgiven when you did not.
You remember where it was you were going today
Spring is hello, good morning
Let's go for a coffee and talk
about what we dreamed
until we wake up
early enough to greet the brightness ahead.
May 26, 2019
May 26, 2019 at 8:33 AM UTC
I wrote this in the dark.
Because the last poem stripped
from the book binding and ripped
from my chest was not valued at
the utility company's worth; a two-hundred dollar bill is not easily disbursed when each
poem nets zero cents per word.
A candlestick will
dematerialize faster than
a wax seal on parchment -
one that establishes the epoch of
Civil Rights -
this is a correlated falsehood
of fixed rents in a gentrified neighborhood.
The plus-side of *******
the poor to cater to the wealthy
is that when the new occupants
move in, and the stainless steel
refrigerator is moved in, the empty
box is placed at the curb, and with
the right imagination it can easily
become a home for two.
Aug 27, 2015
Aug 27, 2015 at 6:36 PM UTC
I am dead.
Cloven flesh, spirit
hiding shadows, some place, no place, sow
below the flow of thought -
amiable calamity on the part of the
lethargic.
That sense faded west
tasting living sweat and I
can’t even feel the uncaring
caress of ill ideals seeping through
green-blue, all eyes gray through prismatic
roots.
Wheels touch paper wedges,
circlets adorning colored names to
beats and lengths of waves, crystalline
wrists intact but
can’t my legs catch the
drift?
The day fades salty
across my brow, spit up
gentrified goodbyes dancing the fine line
catching boldly to dusk,
webs of light casting Terra’s abortions into
night.
I feel adrift atop
bending winds soaring,
grasping at the sky;
I’m laughing crawling forward, snatching
feelings named in my self-absorbed
ways.
Oh! how it bursts forth!
Explosions off in the distance
tuning eyes to white and back again,
heaving ribs spitting venom,
ideas ***** abominations, I feel at home at
last.
I cry at simplicities
feet, todays imagined forays into
Death again foiled by a common
sense which refuses neglect, wresting
forever rest from out my chest, a wasted
breath.
And what to do with
indulgent Death? What of
her bright eyes catching mine,
shaken thoughts grow cold
inside, so cold she warms my flesh for
tomorrows.
Jun 18, 2010
Jun 18, 2010 at 2:47 PM UTC
gentrified entanglement
a week dismembered,
full of craven gullibility
bags of flesh mouthing
silent words
in the hollow earth
stained red with leaking passion.
as an oil spill tucked neatly
away in the purest parts of the sea,
swelling and gathering speed
to blacken the earth.
angels dance with a cadence of
indeterminate in origin,
lacking in self preservation
a hundred thousand pretty words
wrought of iron,
worn down by the ebb of time,
which drives all
towards infinity.
there are things in this world
which we choose to believe
because the alternative
is all to terrible to abide.
Apr 8, 2012
Apr 8, 2012 at 2:38 PM UTC
Tick tock went the clock,
echoing
through monastery halls,
synchronizing the actions of men,
building up modernity’s walls.
Creatively destructive,
eternal
yet fleeting,
modernity was paradoxical,
according to the Harvey reading.
Art had expanded,
abstraction arises,
and Sigmund loves his mom,
more than anyone realizes.
Our friends the id,
the ego and its super,
tell us who we are,
Freud has the world in a stupor.
A catch-22 for dear Pablo,
who will sleep with a ****
but is terrified of syphilis,
as is seen in his art.
There was power and truth,
and Foucault says we’re repressive,
but suddenly things change,
Postmodernity becomes quite impressive.
PoMo cares not for beauty,
or what pleases the public eye.
It’s style for style’s sake,
in the buildings stretching toward the sky.
Uma dances with John,
a young boy finds a severed ear,
Joaquin loves his OS,
PoMo film is, well,
Queer.
Yuppies love pastiche,
their lofts were once a workplace,
they’ve coated them with chrome,
they’ve gentrified the space.
Unlimited breadsticks
have soiled the very Italian name,
Baudrillard says it’s simulacrum,
there is no truth, it’s all the same.
We traipse through this
postmodern world,
not knowing postmodernity
is where we are.
We wear workboots to fashion shows,
we worship that reality star.
We think we’re special snowflakes,
and skinny jeans make us cool,
and media exposure’s made us cynics,
quite impossible to fool.
What we don’t realize is that
we are not our own,
we are pseudo individuals,
through PoMo we have grown.
May 31, 2016
May 31, 2016 at 11:09 PM UTC
Baltimore
this is a love poem.
Baltimore
this is a break up poem.
Baltimore,
I remember
when I first
fell in love with you.
It was 2012
I wandered around the city
taking ****** pictures of street art.
Took free public transit.
Spent the afternoon
at the old, old red Emma's
back when it wasn't bougie.
Baltimore
I knew what you were
but I couldn't help it,
I fell in love.
Baltimore
I remember courting you,
thinking maybe I could call you
Home.
You
Greatest City in America
you
both
gentrified
and
run down
all at once.
In 2014
you held me
through my numbed out days,
through my drunken nights.
You
with your ****** transportation
that might or might not arrive.
You
with your gentrified Hampden
where I once heard a white man say he felt
"So safe."
You
with your burnt out building I climbed
with a girl
who'd one day leave me behind.
You
with your street cats,
street rats.
You
with the Royal Farms
that sold cheap Mikes Hards.
I could barely love myself,
but
I still loved you.
Baltimore,
I need you to know
that I will always care for you,
but somewhere along the way
something broke in me.
Baltimore,
you held me then,
still hold me even now,
but it's getting time
for me to move on.
It's not you,
it's me.
My restlessness,
my ungratefulness,
of what you've done for me.
My inability to value
potential stability,
potential community.
It's not me,
it's you.
It's all the same with you,
same scene,
same bars,
same parties.
Baltimore,
I love you,
I really do.
Baltimore,
I'm sorry,
but we need to take a break
long-term.
Need to start seeing
other people.
Don't cry,
it's better this way.
And besides,
you're not,
could never truly be
home.
Baltimore
this is a love poem.
Baltimore
this is a break up poem.
Baltimore,
maybe one day
when the dust settles
we can be friends.
But for now,
I need to leave.
I love you.
Good bye.
May 30, 2020
May 30, 2020 at 6:27 PM UTC
Stand up
Stand up
Stand up proud on the soapbox
U got something to say?
Say it
Say it
Say it proud on the soapbox
U ready now?
Get up
Get up
Get up on that soapbox
(Speaker crackles)
Hi.
Crowd: hi!
My name is Prince L and I'm here to offend you.
Crowd: gasp!!!(Murmurs)
so settle down. it seems I can't reach your standards of presentation. is my hair to ***** are my clothes to cheap, hell anyone can see, I wear my **** proudly,
Crowd: gasp harder!!! He did not!
I did, oh **** I forgot I'm not supposed to cuss, o well too late, watch it unfold, my fate. this is my first time on the soapbox, let's talk about that, the box, is it needed? People use it as a trough to feed these stagnant ideas of life and how to live it. Why does everyone need to be categorized and seeded?
Crowd: hmmmmm....
The disparities between race in class are magnified cause we are gentrified, so we all feel polar to the other, opposite the fact we are born from another, check me I have love for you because you are you no matter your crew. O you have a conflict of view, don't matter unless u mad hatter tryin to riddle your way through the middle, cause in reality most of us are in this middle group, are you following? You're a regular sleuth.
Crowd: huh? We want truth.
Try this on for size. I think you might find, the separation between elite and u is a lot, spot the differences? if you were part of the one you wouldn't be arguin with everyone. They got lawyers for that, they mouths stay strapped ready to ****** from you, so don't worry boo keep jaw jackin while the keep straight jackin, stealin, thievin, everything you see, reapin, the earth of its resources slowly turning it to hell. Its not a perception its a perpetual. why you think they always gathering, resources, yea they planning it, to own the world, don't be a fool.
Crowd: no way!!
I'm tellin you pray. Appreciate the ppl who stand upon the soapbox, why? Cause they be fightin for every ones freedom. No matter the cause, no matter the fight,
Feb 16, 2012
Feb 16, 2012 at 12:06 PM UTC
By: Cedric McClester
What’s happened to the neighborhood
They say it’s gone from bad to good
And if it has then knock on wood
Cos some folks thought it never could
Change the profile that it had
And become the latest fad
But in a sense it’s kinda sad
That now we can’t afford a pad
Remember when the neighborhood
Was where we fled from if we could
We should have stayed right where we stood
Cos now that real-estate is good
It’s as inevitable as it’s strange
The only constant is the change
That witnesses things rearrange
In neighborhoods that ran the range
Of urban ghettos caught up in blight
That once inspired suburban flight
Whether that was wrong or right
Squarely lies in the beholder’s sight
Remember when the neighborhood
Was where we fled from if we could
We should have stayed right where we stood
Cos now that real-estate is good
The politicians must have lied
As the will of the people was defied
And mom and pop stores slowly died
While neighborhoods have gentrified
Remember when the neighborhood
Was where we fled from if we could
We should have stayed right where we stood
Cos now that real-estate is good
They’ve now confirmed our worst fears
Today nobody stops and stares
At those urban pioneers
Who’ve infiltrated everywheres
Now it isn’t based on race
Which in the past was the case
The economics has replaced
Past issues that were at the base
The politicians must have lied
As the will of the people was defied
And mom and pop stores slowly died
While neighborhoods have gentrified
Remember when the neighborhood
Was where we fled from if we could
We should have stayed right where we stood
Cos now that real-estate is good
What’s happened to the neighborhood
They say it’s gone from bad to good
And if it has then knock on wood
Cos some folks thought it never could
Change the profile that it had
And become the latest fad
But in a sense it’s kinda sad
That now we can’t afford a pad
(c) Copyright 2015, Cedric McClester. All rights reserved.
Apr 25, 2015
Apr 25, 2015 at 12:37 AM UTC
I.
Drinking on a Tuesday is just a Tuesday here.
When you wouldn’t walk me home for my contact case
I cried like the rummed-up little girl I was (am)
walking back to your place on the train tracks.
It was the first time since I moved here I’ve been able to cry;
so it all came down in snot and salt.
Every last thing. The pressure and my father and depressive
tendencies, my mother won’t see me. blurted on the grimy floor of your bathroom
I couldn’t get up for sobbing.
How I don’t love you. And I’m not going to love you.
But I don’t think you’re going to love me either
(I didn’t say that out loud).
You held me anyway;
shame. because no one sees me like this.
This is the way that I am
When my contacts fell out
I stuck them in saline filled shot glasses and you told me to blow
my nose on a paper towel. Then undressed me like I was two again
and held me while I cried myself to sleep.
II.
Sometimes you’re at your lowest
curled up naked in a helpless bed
inadequate with nerves and pressure
so we just talk about our lives
and I hold you, and you cling to me
It’s more intimate than *** anyway.
About my weak ankle and your broken wrist,
our families, all the times we’ve been
kicked out of our homes.
One day you might come home
and listen to the jazz music in June with me
we’ll take a picnic and meet my families
One day I might go to your home
and climb the tree on a cliff
eat beef and broccoli with your uptight step mother
and see all the walls you’ve painted in the city
all the secret underground sewers painted with your name.
III.
Sat on a still plane in the gentrified south
panicked about what exact day it was that month.
One day too late. Which is when you start to worry.
We love so young and free,
but I know you don’t really love me.
We’ve got big, big plans that don’t include each other.
No mistakes can hold me down to you, nothing.
I am meticulous with foil packets and times.
My sweet artist, I don’t know how to ask
why you stick around, if you’re following my rule,
if you’re in it a little bit for my brain too.
I’ll charm your friends and make sure you get your hair cut.
You’ll teach me to brew your coffee and smoke a pipe
As long as you don’t love me,
I don’t love you.
Jan 11, 2012
Jan 11, 2012 at 1:00 PM UTC
I remember the lights going off in the brains of young poets.
Deep in the dank streets of New York or Columbia college.
When the blues and twos would come and round up
The beatniks snapping to the howl of a homosexual mind.
When the generational attitudes of those too old to know,
Control the ****** acts of “violence”, or
The deepening scars of our philosophies.
When the urbanization of historical prowess leads to
Gentrified gypsies of the diamond deserts and endless skyways
When the great in the country isn’t good enough
For the red hats and spray tanned millionaires.
When the stocks of corporate dragons burn down
The attempts of upstart knights and online kingdoms.
When the politicians of old become the scapegoats
For the ironically gerontocratic few.
When the female few who dared couldn’t find their lost primaries
Or control the lifeblood leaking out of the Strait of Hormuz.
When the powerful and powerless fought in-between
The dejected and all too often ignored.
When the powered halogen lights flooded prison yards of
Wrongly convicted and murderously in need of help.
When the San Francisco clubs lit up with muzzle flash
And the dancers lay weeping in their blood.
When the schools became places to duck and cover
Or learn to trip a friend when running from a gun.
When parkland high became a manufacturing ground
For casings, tears, and candlelight vigils.
When the American dream came combo packaged
And supersized with obesity and unemployment.
When the education of the youth became about
The profit margin in a spreadsheet full of debt.
When the sun sets in the smoke filled horizons
And sleepless rest settles on the western front.
Dec 4, 2020
Dec 4, 2020 at 1:16 AM UTC
i do not feel safe
on the fifth floor
with all the windows locked
and two turns of the deadbolt
don't forget the chair under the door
i do not feel safe
walking home from the grocery store
in this horribly gentrified neighborhood
at 4pm on a sunny
saturday afternoon
i do not feel safe
handing over my clothes to someone else
i know they have to be washed
i've gone too long already
but i bite my lip until my belongings are
back in my line of sight
i do not feel safe
alone in zoom office hours
with my camera off
how can i be hurt through a screen?
but it never reassures me
i do not feel safe
when the electrician comes to fix
the circuit
i called it an electric circle
he does not look at me that way
the way that makes me sit in the
backseat of my own mind
but i cringe when he looks at me
at all
they call it hypervigilance
vigilance
from latin vigilare
"be watchful"
i am watchful, watchful, watchful
maybe that's why i cant fall asleep.
Apr 24, 2021
Apr 24, 2021 at 8:18 PM UTC
Primetime TV is asinine;
Intellectual cyanide.
Empty like a home in Palestine,
And corrosive like an alkaline:
It's the software for the poor.
Subliminally shutting your doors
Of perception,
While they pump the town full of more --
More liquor stores
And two cent ******
Deadbolted doors
Adorned with gang graffiti
Where the government ignores.
So how can I sleep
When all these kids never eat?
And where's the sweeps
For the bodies in the streets?
They'll just pour more concrete
Over our homes.
Gentrified zones,
Minorities in tow.
High interest loans.
Money's dried up,
Foreclosure and drones
Dropping tear gas on the protesters;
Arresting anyone not in their homes
Please tell me, how can I atone
For the sins of a system
That riddles the world with victims?
This is the modern vista
The ghetto is everywhere
The aftermath of an affair
Between the elite
And their federal clientele.
Predatory lending,
Bailouts, drop outs,
A culture without.
Humanitarian drought.
Where's the empathy?
The love?
The care and clemency?
A solution for this endemic peasantry?
Man, I wish I knew.
I wish the numbers weren't true,
And I wish the sunrise brought a nice view,
Instead of billboards and condemned buildings,
Abandoned homes, potholes, **** and trash:
The ashes of a golden age long past.
Apr 21, 2015
Apr 21, 2015 at 6:24 AM UTC