the scurvy tunes of alonzo riley (1)

Here lies Lon Riley.
He hath not lute nor lyre
and mourns it
hardly.

    *     *     *


4:33am.
Song eats
its own tail
and looses
its cookies
thereby.

Moon hangs low
like a wounded scrotum
and seeds hit
the asphalt swimming.

Café con leche?
OK, let’s go!

    *     *     *

Full fathom five
big daddy lies,
who never told
the truth.

To have or not
having have pistol
held to head,
police don’t ask
that question.
“We don’t have
classes here.”

First lie,
that labor forced
macht frei.

“As I would not
be a slave,”
so I will not be
a wage-slave either,
Uncle Abe, old slim
high fiver.

    [Quoth same:
    Preachers at pulpit
    should address
    the congregation
    as if “chasing bees.”
    Me, I prefer
    my preachers
            gone.]

You own the clock
and the time,
for now.
Soon enough,
maybe,
we’ll reckon
otherwise.
Baron Pluto,
meet Kidd Sabot!

    *     *     *

Had they ever
freely shared
with us their booty,
we might believe
they do not treat us
meanly.
As is, we think
we learned to see
slinkingly,
back of the class
room they built for us.
Wethinks that be
obscenely!

From the crier
in the hood,
to the leisured
lords, engated:
You will hear
the acts
of our petition
in words
of flaming cars.
If he fall
into our hands,
Ceasar will go down
tonight,
Rome and her rats
will jump
and all this bitch
will burn.

What is the city
but the people?
“Let them cry tears,
not havoc.”
This for that,
hand to hand,
war of all
against all.

Streets of gold,
walls of tears.
City thrown up
on a stolen rock.