Stable working class neighborhoods are the bane of speculators, developers and capitalist politicians.

Lording over the landscape like giant

Insects sucking soul, blood, chocolate

into multi-colored mushrooms

Metastasizing citywide.

Officers ordering vacant storefronts,

lined up like soldiers, to make money,

while brothers with cupped hands

platoon on plastic crates at entrances to

$4-a-cup coffee shops with belligerent baristas.

Beneath fiery crimson skies,

afternoon freeways are fuming parking lots.

Capitalism’s poisoning water and air,

and ignorant exploiters don’t care!

Pyramids and huts; tuxes and tails,

unwashed butts—tents and jails.

First come the cranes—then the

Tents, skyrocketing mortgages—then the

Rents… money, money, money for military

Bases in far off places—but, it’s “Pie in the

sky,” to demand affordable living spaces!

Basketball team’s outgrown The Town,

football team’s slipping off to Sin

City after slurping at the trough…

Capitalism’s poisoning water and air,

and ignorant exploiters don’t care!

Pyramids and huts; tuxes and tails,

unwashed butts—tents and jails.

First come the cranes—then the

Tents, skyrocketing mortgages—then the

Rents… money, money, money for military

Bases in far off places—but, it’s “Pie in the

sky,” to demand affordable living spaces!

And we play dress-up in grown folks’ clothes—

Tiny red, white and blue stickers— pretending

we’re fixing it in 20 minutes… every 2-4 years …

© 2018. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

Raymond Nat Turner is an acclaimed poet and performing artist. You can find much more of his work at http://upsurgejazz.com.