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UNDERGROUND VOICES: POETRY - 08/2012
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STEVE YOUNG Ghetto AZ Chickens being processed for food are electrocuted through their assholes Whenever I hear the uproar about something like this from you and the likes of you I can’t help but become a little peeved I’ve seen marches celebrity advertisements and internet campaigns for the chickens While children being raised in your own town go unnoticed in shabby clothes Walking to the grocery store with food stamps hidden shamefully in their only pair of jeans to buy the products made from these chickens for their dinners Pamela Anderson and the likes of her never said a word We are born fat and full of joy We are 4 and teaching ourselves to read under the coffee table We are 7 the first time we get beat up on our way home from another new school We are 12 when we suddenly realize you and the likes of you are embarrassed by how poor we are We are 15 and drinking stolen Jack from a rinsed out cottage cheese container We are a 16 year old drop-out We are registered with the Selective Service selling crystal-meth from a Waffle House graveyard We are nineteen year old fathers We are too late when we try to be good fathers We are 21 with dead family and a drug problem We are 24 with dead friends and a drug problem We are 27 with a hard-on and a crooked grin We stood the same chance as those chickens Yet we never heard a shred of encouragement advice or sympathy All we heard about was the poor chickens A whole generation of fatherless children learning life lessons from the unsupervised streets of Ghetto, Arizona Millions of dollars burnt down the drain telling nobody who gives a shit about the terrible plight of these chickens while millions of children in your towns are hungry cold ashamed and terrified Where are the campaigns for us? Forgotten in the middle between new electronics and electrocuted chickens? We grow like that tree in Brooklyn If there weren’t so many of us you would think we were beautiful and important We grow like the goldfish in a tiny bowl Our environment keeps us small as we die predictably and often We grow just strong enough to know we are not strong enough to change anything You are the absent parents You are the disillusioned teachers You are the so-called environmentalists putting bumper stickers on your clean car promoting world peace while the environment in your backyard burns and we choke and die on the filthy fumes of our own unguided souls We are the fatherless boys who become sub-men Schooled on the streets of Ghetto, Arizona to degrade and manipulate your daughter your sister and your mother We are the truly base We are the literal motherfuckers We are the problem that is even more important than the chickens No one has demanded the end of our slaughter No one stood up and cheered for us We are the trees falling in the forest and yes we are making sounds Steve lives in Phoenix, AZ. He's been published in numerous online and print magazines, but so have a lot of other people who are not nearly as good. He can be reached at renaissancejones@yahoo.com. Unless you are a hot, Asian newscaster named Tram Mai, he probably will not respond. |
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