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Steve De France
OVER THE RAINBOW
I'm looking out my window
at a huge black crow.
He's standing in the exact
center of the cement driveway,
pecking at a dried turd.
Shakes it around
to make sure its dead.
Tilts a glance at me,
breaks off a bite-sized piece,
tips his head back,
& it rolls
down his feathered
ebony throat.
Life would be so simple,
if we could all do the same.
My neighbor, a blue-haired crone,
rolls up in a new silver Lincoln.
Her matching silver-blue poodle
spurts from the car,
like toothpaste from a tube,
& in a neurotic attack of energy
lunges at the crow.
"Felix, No!"
The Crone snatches up her pooch,
& kicks the turd
into the sewer opening.
She trots into her house.
And the crow is left
skulking
in the rose bushes.
Even if you're willing
to eat shit
it may not be enough
for some people.
BEHIND THE LINES
He lies on his side, eyes open--- watching.
They don't focus---his gray eyes just watch you.
Hugging the legs of an L.A. bus bench, his arms
are tangled around the iron in an unnatural way.
Naked legs thrust out onto the sidewalk.
Most people walk around. A few step over.
The bench back above him is an advertisement.
(maybe for him a bomb shelter).It has a picture
of a fat black man. He looks well fed.
Above him in red letters are the words:
ATTORNEY LARRY H. PARKER GOT ME TEN MILLION.
In small letters a disclaimer. It states each case is unique.
And as in life, there are no guarantees.
A bus hisses & thunders to a stop.
An Indian or Pakistan woman
is lowered off in a wheel chair.
Her chair can't roll over the man.
He blocks her sidewalk. She screams.
Brown & black faces gather to poke
& punch the guy. He groans.
A Los Angeles police car shows up. Two cops.
A white female, a black male.
Politically correct.
Suspicion swells---the crowd stops chattering & scatters.
Half don't have identity papers. Others are inherently
afraid of any police.
The police guy's very short, the female's unusually tall.
I imagine them as lovers.
The cops sit the guy up. He starts coughing.
Suddenly he pukes on the female officer's leg.
They stand him up against the wall
at Washington & Grand.
traffic's tangling around them,
for a minute I thought they might shoot him.
Suddenly the man stands to attention and says:
"Is this Baghdad? Am I under arrest? What are the charges?
I am corporal Jones serial# 2yusma
The small cop says, OK, soldier.
Almost gently---he touches his shoulder.
“There are no charges.
The female reads his rights & with rubber gloves
leads him toward the police unit.
They drive off without conviction.
They'll leave him somewhere behind the lines---
where no one cares too much,
maybe Chinatown.
FINE HAIRED SONS-OF-BITCHES
Willie Sutton when asked why he robbed banks
simply replied, “because that's where the money is.”
Bonny & Clyde were a little more complex---murky.
Consumed by sexual failuresflirting with death.
Butch Cassidy and Sundance---asking then--- the question
we ask of them now, "Who are those guys?"
Black Bart the California robber-poet
left poems in exchange for stolen cash.
I've labored long and hard for bread
For honor and for riches
But on my corns you've too long tread,
You fine haired sons-of-bitches."
Why had Joaquin Murriet'stried to right the wrongs
of Americans stealing Spanish land grants?
Stepping out of another century
Highwayman in lace & silver buckles.
Stand and deliver!
Down comes a chest of golden Sovereigns!
Everyone pays.
Except attractive ladies
Today Enron types are not called BRIGANDS
but Vice Presidents of internet infidelity,
or a CEO at Coitus.Com
These corporate criminals jack-up prices
Sell swampland as real estate
Flood insurance in the desert
Education as if it weren't propaganda
Coffins designed with a view
Or sell Political Correctness as freedom.
Thanks---but no thanks!
I'll take my bank robbers as robbers!
My crooks clearly marked "crooks".
No secrets--No legerdemain--No hypocrisy.
Something Plainspoken. .
"Howdy folks",this here is a bank robbery.
Kindly reach for the sky!"
BIO:
Steve De France is a widely published poet, playwright and essayist both
in America and in Great Britain. His work has appeared in literary publications
in America, England, Canada, France, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, India, Australia,
and New Zealand. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in Poetry in both
2002 and 2003. A few recent publications include The Wallace Stevens Journal,
The Mid-American Poetry Review, Ambit, Atlantic, and The Sun. In England he won
a Reader's Award in Orbis Magazine for his poem "Hawks." In the United States he
won the Josh Samuels' Annual Poetry Competition (2003) for his poem: "The Man
Who Loved Mermaids." His play THE KILLER had it's world premier at the GARAGE
THEATRE in Long Beach, California (Sept-October 2006). He has received the
Distinguished Alumnus Award from Chapman University for his writing. Most
recently his poem Gregor's Wings' has been nominated for The Best of The Net
by Poetic Diversity.
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