storms and stripes
You didn’t know there would be a storm.
Your 1929 lower-middle class humdrum seed-planting mind
Didn’t tell you there would be a storm.
You went to the market, your crops in a bag
And an unknowing air that smelled a little like
The American flag.
You didn’t think there would be a storm.
Your working-class capitalism steel-plated soot-dusted mind
Didn’t tell you there would be a storm.
You went into your factory, tipped your hat
At Robber-Baron LastNameHere
And whistled stars and stripes into your smokestack.
Industrial Frankenstein didn’t say there would be a storm.
You thought he was your friend,
Thought his smoking metal column was a wide-eyed grin.
But he was the storm--
And little by little you started to cough,
Confusion choking on betrayal, on those black fumes
You never thought twice about breathing in.
Jim Crow didn’t say there would be a storm either;
He just put you on his train to nowhere.
Nowhere but a big field of oil
And a ghastly pile of steel and rotten harvest.
You looked out your window:
Hustle minus bustle, mouth minus food
And a city block divided by ash.
Stripped of color.
Sepia Chicago and storefront starvation.
You kept looking:
Somber faces and a clenched fist.
What to hit?
To hit what?
Persecution and poverty,
Those old pastimes.
Hoover didn’t say there would be storm.
FDR didn’t tell you the New Deal might not care about you.
Capitalist overindulgence, your ass.
No food, no no food
No food to eat
No grain to spill,
Mouth to fill.
Civil War in Spain and at your kitchen table
But you were at the mill.
God and Morely said there would be a hurricane,
But they didn’t mean a storm.
No not rain, hail, wind--
But wilted money raining down the wallpaper
Like fools to Wall Street.
Factory chapel cathedral--
They’re all the same now.
Worship your steel,
Your sacrament of smokestacks and soot.
Your Capital Communion.
So the wind is blowing
And the chimes are singing
I’m telling you there’s going to be a storm--
A hurricane. And it will
Rip
You
Apart.
So grab your hoe and till your dead fields,
Tip your hat to the president and his mills.
Go to your run-down market and
Try to sell what just can’t be sold.
Look at the dashing stars and the crashing stripes
Hung high on that pole--
And pledge allegiance
To the fucking flag.
Your 1929 lower-middle class humdrum seed-planting mind
Didn’t tell you there would be a storm.
You went to the market, your crops in a bag
And an unknowing air that smelled a little like
The American flag.
You didn’t think there would be a storm.
Your working-class capitalism steel-plated soot-dusted mind
Didn’t tell you there would be a storm.
You went into your factory, tipped your hat
At Robber-Baron LastNameHere
And whistled stars and stripes into your smokestack.
Industrial Frankenstein didn’t say there would be a storm.
You thought he was your friend,
Thought his smoking metal column was a wide-eyed grin.
But he was the storm--
And little by little you started to cough,
Confusion choking on betrayal, on those black fumes
You never thought twice about breathing in.
Jim Crow didn’t say there would be a storm either;
He just put you on his train to nowhere.
Nowhere but a big field of oil
And a ghastly pile of steel and rotten harvest.
You looked out your window:
Hustle minus bustle, mouth minus food
And a city block divided by ash.
Stripped of color.
Sepia Chicago and storefront starvation.
You kept looking:
Somber faces and a clenched fist.
What to hit?
To hit what?
Persecution and poverty,
Those old pastimes.
Hoover didn’t say there would be storm.
FDR didn’t tell you the New Deal might not care about you.
Capitalist overindulgence, your ass.
No food, no no food
No food to eat
No grain to spill,
Mouth to fill.
Civil War in Spain and at your kitchen table
But you were at the mill.
God and Morely said there would be a hurricane,
But they didn’t mean a storm.
No not rain, hail, wind--
But wilted money raining down the wallpaper
Like fools to Wall Street.
Factory chapel cathedral--
They’re all the same now.
Worship your steel,
Your sacrament of smokestacks and soot.
Your Capital Communion.
So the wind is blowing
And the chimes are singing
I’m telling you there’s going to be a storm--
A hurricane. And it will
Rip
You
Apart.
So grab your hoe and till your dead fields,
Tip your hat to the president and his mills.
Go to your run-down market and
Try to sell what just can’t be sold.
Look at the dashing stars and the crashing stripes
Hung high on that pole--
And pledge allegiance
To the fucking flag.