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The Tail End

I was 3 in the late sixties
and the television blared
in black and white an image
of United States copters brought in
the American coffins
and life turned up a spark
under the voice of society
and a bullet slained a King in the city of Memphis
and a Kennedy making the next step
around a busboy with a gun in the
summer of sixty-eight
and Hendrix was becoming a legend
while Youth of 70 million boomers
painted itself on the canvas of life,
I remember hunger and my old man saying,
“I’ll go to the track and double my money and then everything will be all right, ”
so my mother would give me carnation powder milk
and spam and the roaches all died of hunger as I watched
Tom and Jerry cartoons made in Hollywood USA
and Generals fornicated with Death
and Mayor Daily only took care of one race
which was not mine...and no where else in the planet saw my injustice
shown like the images off a 12inch television
starring under the darkness
of my fears and emptiness of need
created by sloth without pride
while the Democratic convention spilled onto summer
on Balbo street & Michigan Avenue
and a bunch of old time motherfuckers
wearing badges having
just one purpose to create riot
between two generations meeting
without much but everything expected
then the electricity was cut
and I remember my mother crying
as I stared at the television and waited for more...

poem by Charles Lara
Added by Poetry Lover
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