Angela's Hand

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My shadow falls on once green grass.         

My eyes see crimson and thighs of white          

And change is gentle amber brown                    

As smiles turn their soft lips down.                      

 

Smoke filled pyramids reach to the stars      

As the bearded Muslim wanders by.                   

The elm trees weep.  All the owls are gone.      

I embrace the sorrows of a misty dawn.  

 

An’ Rimbaud’s dreams infect my mind

And they turn my thoughts to chains of light

An’ hypocrites that force their rules

On senior citizens and Sunday schools.

 

An’ I see all the pain that they put you through.

Frustration paints the labyrinth brown

As the octopus with it’s iron claws

Draws our blood to ink it’s laws.

           

My idols fall in heaps of dust

As reality shatters the ancient sphere.

Where once the Venus stood so proud

A broken corpse now supports a shroud.

 

And Cerebus guards the jeweled gate

As the senators smile through the gilded bars

And they patiently repaint their faces

And they commit their crimes in other places.

 

And a thousand lives mean nothing more

Than plastic pins on a patchwork board

Where generals play their voodoo games

With serial numbers instead of names.

 

And starving babies bellies swell

As their fathers search through the garbage cans

And the rich man boasts from his house on the hill

About the dollar that he gave to show his good will.

 

And the soldier who lost his legs in the war

He watches as the diamonds and the furs roll by

And the generous lady, falling victim to pity,

Trades a dime for a pencil before leaving the city.

 

And the man in his nine hundred dollar suit

He stands on a pedestal and speaks to the people

And he tells them to protest through established channels

As he watches as the hearses dump corpses down manholes.

                                   

In a dream I was lined up with men just like me

And machine guns ripped at our trembling flesh

And the Fascist sergeant he turned and he grinned

And not one soldier felt he’d sinned.                  

 

An’ I dropped to my knees as the white pain flashed

I released the dove within my soul

And I wept for never having taken a stand.

And I reached for the warmth of Angela’s Hand.

 

© 1976 - RDT