by LJ Frank
A bread line
black and white photograph
alone on a dresser without clothes
in an empty clapboard house
the genes of a forgotten past
a period in history filled with hurt,
the forlorn captured
in Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.
The wind howled across the fields
a dustbowl shattered lives
tattered garments covering
skeletons
of humans in used trucks and cars
as they made their way west;
“Damn fat rich bastard” an Okie shouted
as the banker took his land.
Protectionism was the password
a Republican Congress
Hawley Smoot Tariff narcissism
made law earlier
but it was just a symptom not a cause
isolationism and protectionism
was the viral disease
as the rich got richer
and the poor sought relief
a sign alongside the road read:
”This is your country
don’t let the big men take it away
From You!”
“This is the breadbasket of the world
but we’re starving,” an old man moaned
his suit coat worn through at the elbows
two days without food and tears in his eyes
sitting on the curb of a city street.
The polarized became increasingly angry
fighting amongst each other
power resided in those who controlled
the debt
for the common man was the pawn,
even when the child cried, “mommy it hurts,’
the other’s point of view seethed and spit
though empty inside
where the darkness dwells,
and the love of God was missing
in the middle of a cold night,
“Stranger these are tough times
and don’t I know it,” a weary faced man finally stated.
“We never saw it coming but we should’ve
it was staring at us in the face,”
said a woman whose silk stockings
were decorated with holes.
“I’ve been through hard times,
but not like what’s coming”
and Woody kept singing
…”the hard working folks have done something
that the bosses, his sons, his wives,
his whores and his daughters have failed to do…
they sang their way through the whole dirty mess.”*
And the crowds of men and women out of work
walked passed stores vacant of affordable goods
ghostly haunted banks money withdrawn,
and those with wealth lurked in the shadows
while those without felt the ache on their backs.
And oil was spread over hogs and other beasts
shot and dumped into rivers along with food,
“Best not to feed the hungry and lose money,”
the owners stated,
while too many children of Man were admonished
for simply asking: Why?
The downstream of a generation lost
under the rubric
the beginnings of the scripture of prosperity
while the Social Gospel was speeding into the past,
and loathing and hurtful words were repeated
civility loss
“why should I pay a preacher
to make me feel guilty,
when I can do that all by myself
without charge,” was a familiar echo,
to purposefully change thinking
means to rewrite the past
so as to comply with the now
and still people followed like sheep
it was too much to think about
besides the trains ran on time
at least for the politicians.
*from Woody Guthrie, A Self-Portrait (an exceptional work)
