dark starry night
fog creeping in
over the hills
rain drops falling
on the window
I see the faces
of old friends
staring at me
ghosts from the past
freight trains
steam ships
subway trains carrying
their cargo of dead
Rimbaud the mad hatter
Baudelaire
Lorca fed a dinner of bullets
Whitman tripping on his beard
Kaufman black messiah
walking bourbon street
eating a golden sardine
Micheline drinking with Kerouac
at the old cedar bar
Jesus wiping the perspiration
from his forehead
the fog horn plays a symphony
inside my head
I hear the drums
I feel the beat
I kiss the feet of angels
they say they want to clean-up
the tenderloin
going after the massage parlors
and prostitutes
in their war against sin
when the real sin is the homeless
the runaways, battered women and
children, gay bashers, wall street
and Bill Gates' 91 billion dollars wealth
it's status-quo
business as usual
as we hire more cops
to protect business interests
build more prisons to discourage
revolution
the finest minds of our generation
slaving away in air-conditioned
university classes
or working in scientific labs
creating new weapons of destruction
the hungry jaws of capitalism
chewing-up the poor
institutionalizing the elderly
squeezing every oz. of sweat
from the pores of the working class
the mountains weep
the rivers weep
the young dancing
like puppets on a string
in a disney land production
as our represenatives clothed
in self-righteous smiles
primp in front of their mirrors
preparing to do battle
raise flags
destroy timber land
and rain forests
marching to the voting polls
to keep the status-quo alive
for another 2000 years
in the park
a dog on a leash
denied freedom
his master barking
commands
the dog sits
pants, wags his tongue
dreams a dogts dream
a fire hydrant
a buried bone
snoopy defeating the
red baron
over the skies of paris
the old man sits down
on the park bench
daydreams
young women and
adonis days
a man/a dog
licking their
wounds