here, in Atlanta
amongst the cities misery
are their lost, the dysfunctional
those wrinkled and smelly
the young and mindless
those who played drums
in fields of flowers budding
those who've listened to voices
of promise
those that said: "Follow me."
those always being led too
to wait.
She is here
fixing, thinking, watching
coached too
by conditioning
under wire brush hair
inside those pouting lips and
skin so dark… 
Inside the square
behind the polished sand
her children
show her the way.
Obtusely she asks
"Would you drive, all this way for
narcotics?" This mind tells her
"Can we dispense the professional bigotry?
Can we find a balanced medium
from our past, from this pain?
Can we drive
farther than 
all this monotony
this narcotic?
Fix the fuckin' solution.

the brass fan
spins shadows on the ceiling
while the dogs outside
bark and
Brautigan
rests beside this bed
still laughing.
outside
the spilled night
is alive
harassed-
by blue red flashes
against buildings
against glass
against death itself
mingling in the gutters
as clouds above
flow
to places unseen:
so I rise from here
turn off the daytime
and sneak off in-
to dreams
to places
no one else can follow
to where it doesn't cost a cent.

concrete rises
plagued by mirrors
images of 
itself.
the night comes
long and slow and hard
in the shadows
are the homeless, the winos
in the shadows
are the weeping, the wrinkled, the tired
in the shadows
are the breadfruit children living
in boxes that's been tossed
in the shadows
poets breed like rats 
from million dollar housing
in the shadows
publishers steal the greatest riches
in the shadows
are wasted rejection slips of crack
tossed into bins under neon nights
and looking out at all of this
is an eight yr old boy yearning
staring through a screen
at a trash truck
he's longing to pull the handle
on us all.