Tis America.... (You Vote) Poem by Eric Cockrell

the long haired tongues
of your poet kings,
burnt tenement stoops,
crack dusted windows.
bare breasted brown skinned girls,
popping gum on skates.
the ghosts of lost fathers,
who swallowed heroin spoons,
or bodies of the movement,
long dead of hunger and want.
no job, get a gun,
locks are made to be broken...
higher education,
behind white tainted bars.
when equality means,
an equal chance to die,
and living tastes like daylight,
sucked through a straw!
tis America, you vote,
sell blood, pop a car.
heroes die in Afghanistan,
schools smell like waiting.
and the name on the mailbox...
is vacant!