Scream -Poem #79

Remember the best minds of our generation
who got to run the government
while needing to prove they were all-American
not socialist revolutionaries
so to prove it they grabbed the lambs
off of tenement streets
the son of the Allentown butcher
the deer hunters
shaved their heads at Fort Dix New Jersey
dropped them in the Mekong
where they would kill or be killed
by the son of a rice farmer

while tens of thousands wailed
while tens of thousands died
while tens of thousands marched with flags

so that I can buy a bedroom set
made in Vietnam from a local furniture store
on instant credit with no payments ’till 2020
or a really nice blouse at Kohl’s
made by the “commies”
who now earn so much money off us
they can do nothing but lend it back to us
to close the deficit
created by tax cuts for the rich and famous

You do remember don’t you?

Or how about the war on drugs
created by Tricky Dick I think
attacking those hippies smoking weed
those scary black dudes
who always had needles in their arms
young skanky blond crack w****s
all of whom were to be swept off our streets
to make America clean
sent to jail where they belong
while the rich white coke heads
dancing the night away at Studio 54
got house arrest in Beverly Hills

maybe

and the jails became filled with the hippies
black dudes and crack w****s
and it cost the taxpayers a lot of money
’cause corrections officers were unionized

can’t have that can we?

so we ceded the jails
to corporate America which turns a profit
on every hippie, black dude and crack w***e
our system of justice sends to their care
to keep the profits flowing
while the drug lords take over Mexico
opiods flow from big pharma to West Virginia
and our kids are snortin’ horse
’cause you don’t have to boil it anymore.

Have you noticed there is no obesity problem in our jails?

And now a war on terror
because we need to eliminate every risk
every possibility that something
might disturb our sense of entitlement
American exceptionalism
interrupt “Dancing” or the start of the NFL season
so the war on scary dudes goes on
no matter which of our “best and brightest”
we choose as Emperor
while we step over homeless vets
turn our blind eye
to the line at the free clinic
get felt up at airports
but sometimes we kill the children
who must have thought it was War of the Worlds
except they’ve never seen a movie.

And we call it “collateral damage”
How American.

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