REVOLUTION POETRY

"A Bank Robbers' Dilemma"

Dedicated to Sam Peckingpaugh

Performed by Douglas B. Collins, December 12, 1999 at the Canal Street Tavern 8:00 p.m., Dayton Ohio

That thought crossed my mind

Whe the Break-Up came in Lexington

Yelling, screaming, throwing $100 dollar bills

At each other.

The idea we had when we began

Robbing our first bank in Topeka

The process, the vision of getting our own

Cash.

And no one gets hurt (Everybody hold still)

We decided to climb up that economic ladder

Of Recovery with two sawed/off shotguns,

A bottle of Absolute and the teller in the trunk

Then the run on the United States of America

(In Green We Trust)

Driving a canary yellow '64 English Rover

Listening to the cassette sounds of Miles Dewey

Davis and Thelonious Sphere Monk.

Soaring through the midnight oil of Albereque

Watching the water-colored landscape,

Holding hands, till the micro/dot hit

Doing the Halloween thing in New Orleans,

Robbing people with our Bozo masks on

Then catching Dr. John the Night Tripper,

On our way out the door.

Then things got serious.

You told me of your Polish/Czech/Slavic

Background.

How you Mom served the soup kitchen

For the Communist Party

The police dragged her out of her home and

Onto a stretcher, fed her mad chemicals,

No natural science could save her.

Pulled into a Shell station

Saw tears in thos champagne eyes

No woman ever looked as vulnerable as you

Dropped Jimmy Valentine off in Brooklyn,

Had to tie some business with a lady in Fort Greene

Don't' know what he sees in those girls

But sex is his drug

At the rest stops rading Dostecski, Yeats, and Richard

Wright

Grapped a newspaper, the headlines read

"Facts in Motion"

I knew we were on the right course!

You know that SWAT sharpshhooter was mad,

We-walking across Market street in San Francisco

With the Catholic school girls and the crossing guard,

Too risky to take aim.

Howevere gthat kid Timmy who took the Pplaroid in

Maryland

Still scared me.

Regrets?!

Should not have done those farmers in Germantown

Hell, Regan did them first,

I just came behind.

So here we are some 20/odd years later

You're a Patent attorney; myself, a professor of English

At a local community college

Having lunch at the University of Dayton Law

Library

I give you a wet kiss and touch your bosom

(No, the love is gone I'm seeing if you're wired)

What's that song wailing over and over in my head?

That's it, it's Dylan, "Positively 4th Street


 

 

This isn't what God had planned for us...
 
Surviving amidst the disease of Society
where 50% off is still more than
most can afford
and every morning the
blue eyed blonde haired plastic
prophets warn of oncoming death
and even the happy pills and happy
doctors are'nt enough to make
you happy.
 
When education means dodging
bullets and dodging non-absolute truth
and you're living in the land of the free
in the tightest chains with the strongest arms
cracking the whip cause all we are is
a nine digit number that decides who
gets to decide for us.
 
When science takes over nature to
clone a prehistoric elephant and right now
I am sitting in front of a machine that is capable
of more that any single human alive and
this machine is worshipped more heavily than
any religion or god and has surpassed the conveniance
of even the remote control.
This isn't what God had planned for us...
 
by katie ann niemi
 

 

Villanelle

by Jack Bowman

Life and beauty the young children's dreams so filled

Print clean dresses flying in the air

Strike and survive the strong young boys yelled

The parent's youth and beauty the capitalists had killed

Their freedom their cupboard had all been stripped bare

Life and beauty the young children's dreams so filled

Living in a house without heat makes a heart so chilled.

No silk no oak wood just a plastic chair

Strike and survive the strong young boys yelled

As the garbage and sewage was the air they smelled

Wealth and beauty they were always told was just over there

Life and beauty the young children's dreams so filled

The little girls dancing high on the garden hill

With silken floating flying hair

Strike and survive the strong young boys yelled

Revolution, Revolution for the strong willed

Life only belongs to those that care

Life and beauty the young children's dreams so filled

Strike and survive the strong young boys yelled.


 

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