The Sidewalk Streets of Despair

Blue tip matches travel
the dinosaur's path, ringing
in a right ear, spinning
in dizzying circles, fingertips
sky-grazing while alligator roach
clip protected, day glo faces
radiate snickers, bars cross
windowpanes' louvered blinds.

Who carves initials
upon the tree of woe?

A magician's trunk falls
to the wayside, mimicking
carols lilt through the hot
summer night.

But, can you dig it, man?

Can you take your jive ass, honkified,
plastic paid for, mystery misery
to the ocean's edge for all to see,
bare witness to salty tears for
the horror-filled TV screen - death
images destroying villages in desert
jungles, and jungle deserts glorified
slaughter at epicene generals' command?

Can you get your freak-on to fatherless
children, walking, dazed, in circles
on the sidewalk streets of despair, wailing
beside mommy's body lying lifeless,
curbside, in the blood-flowing gutter?

Do your vibrations groove to
fourteen-year-old children snorting
crack on southside street corners
in the unchaperoned night, sucking
down Old English with crusty old bums
who collect the change off asphalt to pay
for that 7 AM, start-your-day-off-tight,
morning, wakeup beer?

Will you trip to the buttoned down, spit
shined, Starbucks junkies, the fat cats
who prowl gated alleys and calculate
profits while digging cemetaries
in foreclosed track-home backyards?

Do you keep on truckin', brother,
while babies' malnourished bellies
distend, and distempered dogs' drool
anticipates masters' rabid-foamed
injunctions wheedling eminent
domain inflicted repossession?

Hallucinated reality cloys
close-knit, joyful bundles'
wrap: feather fabric's fantasy - try
washin' away each hopscotch square
on the sidewalk streets of despair.