Oakland Youth Demi-Monde, part 1

The street provides the role models we desire

A survey of scattered indicia 

of the  jeunesse doree noir on my patch 

You'll have to rip the steering wheel

from some folks' cold dead hands

Chimera of the wealth extraction industry

Owned by the wealthy forever,

It always was all about the money

All the public phones were ripped-out long ago,

Copper land lines worked even in a black-out,

Everything now up in the cloud

A Wall of Graffiti 

appeared over night

Some native hostility

The poster says "OBEY",

No one will

2.

The flag of Oakland is horizontal

I go out

 

Helicopter on the roof,

Pummeling passers-by

Another delivery of prisoners,

America has one quarter of the number

of all the prisoners in the world

There's that damned helicopter

Touring back and forth from the Port,

Flying low over the Coroner's Office

Large helicopter over the old train station building,
The military-to-police trade show is going on,

Protest got it moved to Pleasanton this year,

No doubt some fat Oakland cop bigwig 

Is on a test drive, being sold on the chopper

The Coroner's Office

Touchstone of the neighborhood

Coroner's staff are the only living persons

 Allowed beyond this point

Windows opalescent in the evening dim

Around behind Parker Electric building

With its mural portrait of a duck,

An ominous building painted matte black

Wonder what it's all about

3.

The Underworld Screams for Attention

Oakland Metro Opera House

Hmmm, more curious still

Why, it appears to be a warren 

given over to Satan in its entirety

Murder most high

A nation under an evil spell

Saints preserve us from the criminally insane

Oh now, you hate to see something like that

Such a pretty girl too, 

Someone's lost daughter

Reveling in lunacy

And degeneracy

We'll all have to face the judgement of death someday

Satan wants us to see ourselves as animalistic,

Unworthy of God's love

Death Trip transplant

Bound for the Western Lands 

September-October 2015