Brianland

[performance poem]

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I was sittin’ on my roof in New Orleans,

When george bush came by sellin’ re-fried beans;

Now, “I’m a man of means, by no means,”

So he took ‘em back,

Said, “Fuck you, Jack.

You gotta have coin, and not live in a shack,

in any country that I attack.”

And he roared off in his Air Farce One,

as I looked around for a looters gun,

but wouldn’t you know  –  there wasn’t one.

Then along came Homeland Security, and I knew I was saved

since I was in my Home, and Land, and most well-behaved.

“Could use some security over here!”

I reached out for that Count Dracula Chertoff,

but he pulled back his hand and said, “You wash that dirt off.

I thought you were white, or I wouldn’t have stopped.

But I do have some babies you should adopt.”

I told him I didn’t have milk, he said, “Let ‘em eat cake,”

as I watched him speed off on our new sewer lake.

And speaking of cake, there came Queen Barbara Bush,

snappin’ her whip, n yellin’, “mush nigga, mush!”

I looked on aghast at her dogsled on water,

as she jangled the jewelry the Gulf Wars have bought her,

“They’re underprivileged anyway,” she said, horkin’ some phlegm,

“This is really working out quite well for them.”

                                                                                                            [actual quote]

Then along came FEMA, on a slow-moving barge;

They might be useless, but they sure are large!

It was that stunned-deer Michael Brown and his paperwork forces,

the guy who got his job after judgin’ show horses.

he said, “The check’s in the mail,” and then he laughed,

“What have you got in the way of graft?”

I told him I had some boxed dinners from Kraft,

but I didn’t have clean water, and could sure use a raft.

He just looked at me like I was daft,

and promised he’d send in a hovercraft,

then he laughed so hard I thought he’d cracked.

I was startin’ to get hungry when the army came in,

woke up squinting through the din,

. . .  but no, that was just a dream.

So I kept snoozin’ on the shingles and let out a yawn,

when along came a boat … with Dr. John!

“I was in the right place,

                        but it must have been the wrong time.”

And behind him a boat with the Neville Brothers!

and a Mardi Gras parade with a thousand others!

I saw Louie and Leadbelly, Jelly Roll and Ma Rainey,

and it was a helluva lot better than this bowl ‘a Dick Cheney.

The music came back!  It’s the strangest thing!

It wasn’t the uniforms who had the bling,

It was the dark black horn on the bayou singin’

Throughout the world from the delta ringin’

Risin’ up when the worst were downed,

Filling our belly with Saint Gabriel’s sound.

It’s the drum in the street, and the horn in the night,

That’ll get us through our pitiful plight,

They’re the soldiers who came here to fight,

And feed our souls and make it right,

And beat this bloody abandoned blight,

And bring about a new day light.

 

 

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Some other poems . . .

Where Wayward Jekylls Hyde — The Mighty Bama-Rama Rap

The Ballad of The Profiteers

Be The Invincible Spirit You Are

Love Is

Smokin’ Charlie’s Saxophone

A Shakespearian Cassady

The Royal Woods of Cassady County

The Carolyn Cassady Birthday Poem

A Song of Enid I Sing

The Boys Who Grew From Northern Lands

 

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by Brian Hassett       karmacoupon@gmail.com       BrianHassett.com

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