- Disorderly
Conduct
- To the
people of the world
-
-
- You’re all under arrest
- for giving in to your
oppressors
- anything you don’t do or
won’t say
- can and will be used against
you
-
- You are hereby charged with
- Complacency in the First Degree
- Possession of Ambivalence
- and failure to obey a distress
signal
- from your fellow citizens
-
- You have the right to remain
"violent"
- shouting down the Big Machine
- with words of rage till
daybreak
- instead, you crouch down in
silence
- drinking, smoking, choking
- while your own family stands on
trial
-
- You have the right to bear arms
up
- against the cold, steel face of
injustice,
- break down barbed walls of
dogma,
- You have the right to burn the
burka,
- the straitjacket, the
suffocating drapery
- smothering your daughters’
dreams
-
- You have the right to make a
left turn,
- you have the right not to be
straight
- you have the right to do the
right thing
- but you’re all guilty,
guilty of everything!
-
- You have the right to
- “not go gentle into that
goodnight”
- you have the right to fight,
- to break open the pale face of
Hatred
- and shut it down once and for
all
-
- All human race
-
- You have the right to
- steal the keys to
Freedom’s door
- dangling from Tyranny’s
drooling jaw
- you have the right to
infiltrate, to violate
- to launch a coup d'état
-
- You have the right to break-in
and enter
- instead, you break down and
bolt
- abandoning naked children
- lying, dying, crying
- beside crooked gates of hell
-
- You have the right to overthrow
the king
- whose castle’s walls your
own hands built
- you’re all guilty, guilty
of everything!
-
- Guilty of lethargy
- guilty of medicating your life
away
- from harsh truths that daylight
brings
- guilty of talking the talk
- but not walking the walk
-
- guilty of not working for peace
- guilty of not working for peace
- guilty of not working for peace
-
- Get against the wall!
-
- You’ve been condemned
- and convicted by the people
- for your crimes against them
-
- Look up at the sun
- through blindfolded eyes
- until it hurts you to see
- Remember those you betray
- and remember, you’re
guilty
- guilty of everything!
-
-
- copyright 2001, Frank Messina
- The refrain "guilty of
everything" pays homage to
- Herbert Huncke's biography,
"Guilty of Everything".
-
-
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