Hip Hop Won't Save You (But anarchism might)

Everybody told me I was free. 

But how can that be
When every blade of grass
Every single tree
Is locked down
By the Leylines
We call property
Which separate the trailer parks
And the projects
From the suburban prosperity.
Which divide the malls and McMansions
From the broken down gas stations
that line every Detroit street.

But still, everybody told me I was free.

Far as I can see
I've got the freedom of a patch of grass
Growin in a concrete sea -
But I can live in any state I choose
And can elect any man to be my president
As long as he is one of two
And maybe what freedom means to me
Just isn't what freedom means to you?

Because when I think of being free

I think of sheltered valleys
Lined by deciduous trees
In which every man can shape
His fate with his own two hands
Free from government eyes
And corporate lies -
The economic nooses
And police state abuses
Of an Empire in decline.

Why can't I see I'm free?

Once they said that all roads lead to Rome
But what about the Romans who knew
No road leads to home
They used to say
"Beware the Ides of March"
But now they know
It's a war of minds and hearts
Every CEO should remember
Tell their senators in the Ivory Tower
That when the Coliseum closed
It wasn't just the Vandals
Dragging the nobles out their homes.

And I'm sure, everyone told them they were free,
But I guess we'll have to disagree to agree -
Because as far as I can see
If you don't have bread, but still need to eat
Poverty is just a prettier word for slavery.

The Seasons (Of love and loss)

The heavy thoughts
Weighted limbs,
Like Christmas trees
Bending below the burden
Of gaudy baubles -
The things we bought
For a season
Packed away and
Quickly forgot.

Well, where does the
Winter go, and all the snow
When the sun shines
And springs winds
Blow in on thunderheads?
Once it melts, while fields
Grow dandelion pelts, it
Trickles down into graves,
Winter past is water for the
Things we let die away.

Beltane fires burn like
Funeral pyres, in the eyes
Of young men slipping down
Sunset streets - the girls cruising
In crappy cars, lip balm bright
Shimmer on the asphalt as
Day dies steadily into night.
Youth, these days, has
Nowhere to be; and the
Suburban bloom bleeds
Into childhood's tomb.

And when the shroud is gold,
Men begin to wrap themselves
In light coats, half dreading
The turning of time, half anxious
To plunge into the slower seasons.
They think of lovers lost like leaves
Which fall down anonymous paths,
Shed by their bored trees,
Amorous and ready for new outfit -
Downy white dresses and crystal
Coats,  the garb of seasons much
Like hearts goes from warm to cold.

In The Ashes of Evening (Blooded earth)

I remember when you left,
In the ashes of evening
I gathered handfulls
Of red earth, of dust
The color of your skin.
I wrote sonnets in scars
On the root bark of trees,
Letting the sap creep
Out and the amber of
Twilight seep deep within.
And, now, for years I
sat and watched my words
Grow worn, covered over
By the march of years
By thicket and thorn.
And now dawn has broken
With thin rays over the curve,
I know that stains which make
Their way into wounds are not
The same as those in roots -
My skin is still your skin
And my hands the red
Of blooded earth.

You Did Not Wait For Me (The willow with the lily)

I did not wait for you
By the lilies,
By the weeds
By the bend and
The willow tree
Where switches
Swim in shallows,
Lance spring pools
Full of tadpoles -
Where the air
Is saccharine sweet.

I did not wait for you
As you did
Not wait for me.
When the pond was
First rimmed with rime
As winter was born
In the carpet of icy leaves.

An' by the bend
Of this listless bridge
Upon now which windows
Perch so I might see,
I ran my thumb
To clear wet flakes from
The rivers which run beneath.

Yet with the sun
Summer comes
As the earth spins in place.
The seasons change,
And while crowns remain
In their lofty place
And lilies ring old ponds -
The evening wind still whispers
When the dusk sun blisters
The horizon with it's red adieu'
You did not wait for me.

And so I did not wait for you.

Copper ( Salt and thread)

I dream
Of little things
The copper of your cheek,
The light hung and rippling
Through the boughs of trees.
The not quite dimples -
Creases, at the edge of lips
When you shrug, eyes knotted
And face all bunched up,
Or you laugh
Or you sing.

Strange cities
With white walls,
The ruins of ampatheatres
The veins of marble halls.
Your hand sliding slowly
As you walk by -
Your feet printing crypt dust,
Oiling ancient fresco and relief
With that elemental palm.
You are copper,
You are salt.

I dream
Of undone things
The threads once woven
On some quick fragile loom,
A tapestry which hangs high
On the cold stone of a room
Crimson and copper-
Spilled blood and dull coin,
The rancorous echo empty halls
The unraveling of fifes,
You single fray,
You single thread.

Once pulled leaves lands sundered
And me to dream of little undone things,
My subconscious rooted firmly
In the catacombs of the long and dead.

Simple Words, Missing Things (Gone unheard)

Simple words.
They stick in my throat
Tied in my tongue
Sewn in my skin
As fingers dance ballet
Down the curves
Of hips and cheeks,
Half escape, half retreat
Part my lips
In croaks and creaks.

The simple words,
Sometimes, become
The ones we can't speak.

Missing things,
The pieces that we gave away
Linger in thought
The infected cuts
Where we were rent in twain.
The fits and starts
The kicks and sparks,
Belts whining, gears grinding
Out the dirge
Of a high mileage heart.

The missing things,
Maybe, the very
Pieces we know we need.

The simple words,
Missing - the heart's
Mechanization gone unheard.

The Midtown Creep (Whole foods and crepes)

The Midtown creep,
Detroit -
After someone spilled bleach.
All the dapper gentlemen,
That pour from the portal
Down by Wayne State;
A time rift to the eighties.
With all their neon v-necks
And stone washed jeans.
Painting black and white
Lines in the street.
"We'll" take back the city
Whether we mean to or not.
Midtown grows, block by block
Whole Foods and crepes,
College kids in costumes and capes;
This is not the city I love.
We came for the communities,
The renaissance and opportunities.
Well, those cass corridor bonfires
Where we found our continuity -
Made plans and plots in the silence
Between the pops of gun shots
Have become Haute parties for
All the kids on Safari from Royal Oak.
Hey, now all my neighbors
Look just like me - in skinny jeans.
I'm sorry, we were naive.
Young idealists who'd believed
The city had escaped it's past;
The day someone said nigger
To me on Woodward I knew;
Every step we take forward,
We're taking two steps back.