Punk England

The cobblestone streets of London
began to crack in the mid-70s.
Trash rotted in the gutter
b/c the garbage collectors were on strike.

A Punk stumbled down the street in his uniform:
Spiked lime green hair,
a dog collar around his neck,
tight ass blue jeans that cut off the circulation,
and a filthy t-shirt with the sleeves
torn off at the armpits.

The Punks were crude, rude & raw.
An army of vampires in leather
who declared war on the British Empire.
T. Rex said they represented
"a violence of the mind."

After the Sex Pistols' record,
God Save the Queen, went #1
the week of the Queen's Silver Jubilee,
the House of Lords said they were
a greater threat to National Security
than the Berlin Wall or double-digit inflation.
Phone calls were made in the middle of the night.
They got the hell out before their heads
became ornaments on London Bridge.

Like the Puritans in 1620,
the Sex Pistols came to America:
the Land of the Weird,
the land of the free.
National Security strip searched them
at the airport, and "played with their willies."
They were followed & photographed
by the FBI, ATF,& INS.

On January 14, 1978
the band imploded
at San Francisco's Winterland.
Punk was dead.
The autopsy was a bloody mess.

Postscript: Sid Vicious died
of a heroin overdose
on February 2, 1979.