GEORGIA STREET LAMENT
On Georgia Street just south of Calhoun
rows and rows of warehouses
turn their backs on the city
opening unto one another
in a cabal of backstreets,
alleyways and railroad tracks.
Here weeds lie coiled in puddles of oil
that glisten with ironic rainbows.
The air chokes on forklift exhaust,
and the screaming of broken windows
is never attended to.
The men, almost all are men here,
curse, fart, belch and spit with abandon.
The occasional woman crossing by
a loading dock is accosted
with the lewdest of crudities.
But what disgusts me most
is how much at home I feel here.
DIRECT ACTION
We tried the persuasion thing,
but tanks don't talk, they yell.
The National Guard used us for target practice.
I understand all that.
If I were rich, I'd be the same way, I'm sure.
Six billion is such an awful lot to have to control.
No wonder Mao despaired of re-education.
Shoot them, goddamnit,
we don't have the time or the resources --
but we do have plenty of bullets.
Just shoot the bourgeois bastards,
they'd make lousy farmers anyway.
And so it goes. Everywhere.
With psychotic helicopters circling overhead,
we retreated to our basements to make bombs of their faces.
Each believing that once we've gotten rid of them,
it'll all be different.
All be good.
Mike Geary
Memphis
