WALKING ON THIN ICE

the crime is not stealing big enough

There’s an open poetry reading Sunday at
Rooms To Let art installation
2 pm at 3810 E. 71 St., Cleveland, OHIO
hosted by Smith & Lady
in the Chiplis room I would imagine,
or elsewhere outside, depending on how many come
no sign up, just read if and when you feel
Rooms to Let art installation FaceBook page

Where’s The Sun This Earth Run?

Between dark of bed
and too early dark of rise
lack of sleep leaves lead.

Unready child
awake in unpromised land
carries dark in heart.

If this be stage,
where’s my mark, what is word,
what my length of run?

Enter stage left
and before exit stage right
place for count each step.

Script is total blank,
and on cue cards
invisible ink.

Applause often sparse
and co-actors lack in tact,
their performance flat.

Change the channel,
strip off this costume shell,
ad lib some shit.

They can’t fire you
until your done is do
so go, play the fool.

You won’t get renewed
unless you sleep with crew
or director’s tool.

And no money paid
in spite of contracted say,
that’s just way of play.

So you walk the boards
until replaced or bored,
then retire, gored.

We seem sign unseen
used for decorating stage,
sought until no need.

– Smith, 5.13.2015

The Mayweather-Pacquiao fight took in 500 million dollars . . . this is a country where folks pay half a billion dollars to watch two brown-skinned men beat the shit out of each other . . . a country where white cops kill unarmed blacks with impunity . . . where 62 of 100 Senators are worth a million or more while the rest pocket lobbyist money as fast as they can . . . where corporations buy politicians by the bushel, millionaire football players cheat to win, millionaire baseball players cheat to win, millionaire bicycle racers cheat to win . . . where corporations raking in billions pay no taxes . . where Faux News hate-speakers spew bigotry for cash . . . where clowns and homophobes and racists and sexists openly run for President . . . where cops constantly lie, priests abuse young boys, police hire out as murderers . . . where our government takes from the poorer to give to the richer . . . where our president kills whomever he wants without moral or legal cause — our leaders are crooked, our police are crooked, our corporations are crooked, our newspapers and regulatory agencies toadies to the 1%, our Supreme Court two-thirds corrupt . . . and yet we wonder why there’s such a lack of morality in life today — it’s simple, that’s the way things work now, from the top on down . . yet if you shoplift a loaf of bread to feed your family, you’re jailed . . . the crime ain’t stealing, the crime is not stealing big enough.

What’s really weird is I’m spouting off about morality, yet I stole 13 cars as a kid and spent almost a year in jail for my second armed robbery. On the other hand, I’m a perfect example that one can change, leave a bad path and try to walk a better.