Forty Acres and a Mule

49th Parallel Blues

25 49th Parallel Blues From the hangman you saved my head And cut the pump to my heart and system With dry arteries and veins I now must choke So how can I say my asante? Your pound of flesh you expect Any way, I suppose? You whisked this mouse from the brute’s claws And dropped hard on a sparkling path With broken stones, cutting deep Quick, slow..? How do I want my exit? From the desert dunes you picked this lost seed Planted on these new England shores And refused to water A Barbie house you built me The fields around you torched Inside was buried my umbilical chord The link to my past The road to my future How do I feel? The pig’s feces we have carried Albeit in its intestines The source of some nourishment is found 26 A shelter a body found At whose door stands this beckoning soul? Notes: asante – Swahili for thank you Barbie – toy; something extremely superficial and worthless Wooing in Hollywood! In this back hood The Intolerance Of the Opium of Tolerance Chokes the mind As they take turns Loving and hating Mating and marrying, Dating and divorcing In a star-like twinkle Snatching from and pushing toward the other Hoisting, each, their trophy, ephemeral Arrows into one another’s Cupid As they make up and break up Love (and war) contracts and treaties Here and there to boot O, how variety spices These cyclical peace-war games ...