Occupation Poem by Zane Gilley

The barrels burn the unpaid fines, yesterday's news,
and fast food wrappers, licked clean to warm the fingerless
gloves that stray too close to the fire and too far
from the identity of a brown bag store.

Tumbleweed tents - flip flapping in the sweat-shopped wind
handcuffed in protest to the dimp concrete
banks of disenchanted and defecated children.

A thousand retorts are sharpied and shoe-polished
onto stolen windows and doors, cut from corrugated
housing unsoaked by penniless heavens.

The intestines of heat undulate as flies
are caught by wooden lasers recharged by their stay
in Sunday's, discarded - now living, chow mein.

Sugar glazed enforcers factored by the dozens
wield bulletproof cellophane protection from a mobius
stare, like the dreaded Medusa, grinning,
with barbecue tenderloin caught in the remaining teeth.

The emasculated oppressed, once again fractioned,
are distilled by the unbruised crown of men
drunk on the law abiding citizens
cowering in the side streets,
hiding behind store front windows.

The informal pebble ripples austr'an face
of horse-held man, with mindless spitefulness
to cause the alchemist's apprentice fumbling to upset
the artful tier of domination's stress.

The aerosols aflame to answer arguments,
While bricks, batons will breach the broken barricades,
And greasy men will gain the goodless governments
While dealing Death the perfect hands - all full of spades.
When earth exposes man's epiphany,
Will Zen destroy the mighty ziggurats?
...
...


Meanwhile, before the crescendo of apocalypse,
the fat blind goddess with a shopping cart
in the middle of the road, stubs
her cigar under barefoot and reaches
into her bucket list for a squeegee.
As the unseen stops and starts
of destiny fail past, she proceeds to wash
the windshields of unappreciated cars driven
by soulless men into a societal sunset.