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On the Loss of Energy (and Other Things)

no more the chicken and the egg come


one of them

before the other

both

be fadin (steady)

from the supersafeway/a&p/giant

circus


         uh-huh

         the pilgrim cornucopia

         it ain’ a pot to pee in

         much

         (these days)


gas is gone

and alka seltza runnin gas

a close race

outasight/you

name it

         toilet paper

         halfway honest politicians

there’s a shortage

folks/please

step right up)

a crisis

(come in closer)

A International Disaster

Definitely Takin Place

(give the little lady down in front some room)

and (how about the brother in the back row/can

you hear me brother?)

                  WELL

                  I SAID THE HOT AIR’S RUNNIN

                  OUTASTEAM

                  I SAID

                  THE MEAT’S NOT GOOD

                  FOR KIDS TO EAT

                  TOO FULLAFAT

                  AND STUFF LIKE THAT

                  AND

                  IF YOU EAT MEAT

                  HOW YOU PLAN TO PAY THE RENT?

                  I SAID

                  THE OILWELLS DRIBBLIN

                  LOWER THAN A SNAKE

                  AND SOON WON’T BE NO HEAT

                  AND SO YOU MIGHT AS WELL EAT MEAT

                  EXCEPT THERE AINT NO

                  MEAT TO EAT

                  I SAID


                  BROTHER CAN YOU SPARE A DIME?


these things/they gettin more and more worse in

the time it takes to tell

you

how the country’s bound to hell

you

first

if you be middlin poor or poor or Black or Black-and-poor

this profit-makin mess the worst

mess we been force to handle

since the civil war

close down the crackers

reconstructed

how the north won

into victory the crackers like to celebrate/a

reconstruction of the facts

on poor and Blackbacks

but

I am digressin/folks

please settle down and listen good

I say you know

you know

the affluent society

starvin high

on the hog as pigs can get

I say you know

we all been pigs

but mostly we been little pigs/I say

the big pigs

got the whole big pigpen

underneath some tasty big-pig pigs’ feet

dynamite can move

where is the dynamite?

How come we tryin to cooperate

with this “emergency”/this faker/phony

ripoff

got you plannin

not to die and not to have a baby

on the weekends

not to do too much/

much less to start to die or start to have

a baby

on a Sunday

or on early Monday

got you/stiff and slow and hungry

on them lines the richboys laugh about/

Will somebody

real and prominent and smart

please stand

up here

and tell about inequities and big and little pigs

and other animals and birds/and fish

don’t know a thing about no hog behavior/where’s

the dynamite?

I say you know/I say

you know.

And so do I.

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June Jordan

June Millicent Jordan (July 9, 1936 – June 14, 2002) was a Jamaican American, bisexual poet, essayist, teacher, and activist. In her writing she…

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