Social commentaries

Once upon a today and yesterday and nevermore there were 7 men and women all locked / up in prison cells. Now these 7 men and women were innocent of any crimes; they were in prison because their skins were black. Day after day, the prisoners paced their cells, pining for their freedom. And the non-black jailers would laugh at the prisoners and beat them with sticks and throw their food on the floor. Finally, prisoner #1 said, “I will educate myself and emulate the non-colored people. That is the way to freedom — c’ mon, you guys, and follow me.” “Hell, no,” said prisoner #2.

Stars from five wars, scars,
Words filled with ice and fear,
Nightflares and fogginess,
and a studied regularity.
Gon’ lay down my sword ’ n’ shield —
Down by the river side, down by the river side —
Down by the river side...

Hard Rock / was / “known not to take no shit
From nobody,” and he had the scars to prove it:
Split purple lips, lumbed ears, welts above
His yellow eyes, and one long scar that cut
Across his temple and plowed through a thick
Canopy of kinky hair.

they move in swift on the Swift
Plants in six states & sift
through the faces to separate
the dark from the light

like meat & seat them in
the back of vans packed tight
like the product they pack
& who's to pick up the slack

the black & white can't cut it
so the beef stacks sell single
to feed the pack the flock
who block passages & clog

You bring a stalk of bamboo
to the flu room.
Hot pink Buddha offers
some bullet-like pills from his plastic
fingers. Oh high above the pecan
tree, my dead grandfather
walks Basil and Maestro, our two
standard poodles. One’ s beard is oily
from the wheel
of brie he’ s stolen from
the kitchen counter.

The great gold apples of night
Hang from the street's long bough
Dripping their light
On the faces that drift below,
On the faces that drift and blow
Down the night-time, out of sight
In the wind's sad sough.

Go where those others went to the dark boundary
for the golden fleece of nothingness your last prize

go upright among those who are on their knees
among those with their backs turned and those toppled in the dust

you were saved not in order to live
you have little time you must give testimony

be courageous when the mind deceives you be courageous
in the final account only this is important

Is unwritten, though it has lived in violence.

First the factory stood, quiet as an asylum.
Then the annihilating mallee with its red fists of blossoms
and the mountain ash creeping over it like a stain.

I have no proof, but I tell you
there were leadlight windows here once, barred.
They cast a little striped light on the women.

Now in scrub and yellow broom I stand on a history
braided and unbraided by stiff Irish wrists.
The rope and span and carded wool are unpicked
as are their faces and names.

When the moon’ s worn scutcheon
touches the flint-gray flood,
I will lave him in foxglove
and vetch until the blood
of his wretched heart heals.

Without a scar, he stood —

as the men make their way
into the quaking wood.

Conchita debemos to speak totalmente in English
cuando we go into Sears okayPor qué
Porque didn’ t you hear lo que pasóIt say
on the eleven o’ clock news anoche que two robbers
was caught in Sears and now this is the part
I’ m not completely segura que I got everything
porque channel 2 tiene tú sabes that big fat guy
that’ s hard to understand porque his nose sit on his lip
like a elefante pues the point es que the robbers the police say