Blues For Barack - Work Song
The glinty-eyed Roman faces in suits
that stand behind you
are all white, like the papers you sign.
the patrons at the bar in Birdland
would shout work work
when Lester lept into a solo.
I remember why he drank himself
to death
in a small room at the Alvin. Do you?
There are nameless voices that cry out
from the Chattahoochee
Brickyard in Atlanta. Mr Backlash Mr Backlash
sweat & blood stolen like money
transmigrating generations
James W. English, First National Bank,
Coca Cola, Wachovia Securities
work work
god bless the child that got his...
the abandoned graveyard of Tennesse Coal
Iron & Railroad
has been bulldozed
There never were any markers anyway
US Steel owns
the mine now but no memory
of the 30,000 black forced laborers
who died there
what compensation? Work work
there is a woman sitting in a tenament
wondering what
to feed her child today. work work
there is a man sleeping on a piece
of cardboard
over an open grate
there is a crack whore turning tricks
a boy 'shamed
to go to school without shoes.
today we hear that there will be
no financing
[...] Read more
poem by Peter Bormuth
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
