a change gone come

a change gone come
by hardCore

black heaven comforts me
and i smile as the blaring b flat of a warning siren’s solo
announces the uprising

seas of disgruntled revolutionaries flood a forgotten city
fumigating the streets
leaving overturned tanks and cop cars laying on their backs
like dead roaches begging to be swept

angry chants echo off long standing structures

the intensity of these voices vibrating in unity
crumbles concrete prisons into huge sedimentary mounds

a war hungry government is introduced to Karma
and somewhere beneath the city
a nervous president sweats profusely

the crack of dawn is chased down a one way street and surrounded
she whimpers as her pregnant body is penned to the pavement
her legs are grabbed and forced apart
while millions of grubby hands rip into her flesh, inducing labor
forcing her to deliver us now, what we have longed for forever
a Change

but black heaven shatters when day breaks
and i awake to yesterday’s recycled reality
a filth infected today, filled and crammed tight
with the wreaking stench
of the same old tired shit

cityscapes covered by millions of matrix people
who have been reduced to aimlessly pacing back and forth
between two points, work and home

a single mom clocks out after finishing three back to back work shifts
her tired legs collapse onto the cushion of a city bus
while at home alone, her six year old child readies her self for school
eating a breakfast that consists of two Oreo cookies and a bag of Funyuns

the thin line that once separated
cops from criminals, pimps from priests
shrinks to the point of invisibility

homeless people survive the concrete jungle by swinging
from one hand out to the next
forever finding hands, but never the way out they long for

urban decay, once specific to buildings
now affects people, whose abandoned bodies become eye sores
leaving their drug infested remains to await demolition

hospital beds resemble parking meters

television sets resemble hypnotists

and war supporters resemble small children
who still believe in Santa Claus
to them the Middle East is the North Pole
a mythical place, now viewed as the single source of all of the world’s terror

credit cards return us to slavery
so we sharecrop on corporate plantations and join lottery pools
in hopes of eventually acquiring enough money
to buy back our freedom

dysfunction is spread like germs
that go undetected in our water supply
each quenched thirst equals another soul cursed
thus, we are all infected

unemployed people are herded to large fields
to graze on a limited supply of government checks
and as the checks run out, so too do the lives of the people

and with every death
worshipers flood the worlds' pews seeking answers
while presidents and preachers stand in pulpits
pacifying the people with common rhetoric
that timeless cure all that blasts through speakers
in the form of a these four words
“A CHANGE, GONE COME “

so the people, now satisfied, begin to wait
they wait at bus stations and airports
at the top of stairwells and at the bottom of escalators
they wait at the post office and in hotel lobbies
on cell phones and near fax machines
the most fragile elders wait while conversing
over salisbury steak dinners at retirement homes

sun up to sun down, day in and day out
blindly twiddling their thumbs in ignorance
unable to see, that when Change finally does come
it won’t just come from no where
change, gone come, from within

© 2002 3rd Eye Open Publishing