Detroit Flint Michigan

DETROIT
Flint Michigan

Within its brilliance gleaming
Cool black in lacquered polished silver chrome
Cranked up pistons bleached in summer’s heat
Hot steam rising as gears thundering
Beyond the crystal liquid neon city lights

Highways built stretch across the land
In hearts felt pride American dreams made real
Within its prime
Men in factories perfect their craft

Spit shined bright colored
Red white and blue
Wing tipped Chevy’s roll off
In the thousands
Sleek stream lined stamped
Made in the USA
Glistening in its iron steel

Pushed to the edge of the sea
Across the world they roamed
Hot off the presses
Home grown trade
Costumed culture of its day

Motown rhythm’s rock and roll
Hot rods slow driven mags
skid marked dragsters screech down
tar tracks left beyond the deserts
of the unreal made real within its memories

On the waterfronts crooners propagate
music of the soul through the
dark lit shadows within
the wisdom of the streets

to the people left stranded
beyond the hopes of change
Withered hands that work no more
glazed over eyes stare down as
Plumes of smog roll by their
post industrialized worlds


lightness lost to those without a trace
escaped by those that fled its coming end
the void of history left in its wake
despair in visions of what’s to come
Chemical wastelands left aside
Its rivers still run but filled with sludge
From the faucets to those so young

Language fails to fill the silence
Within its rage
no words left to describe
so divorced from reason
we turn our backs to
those who are our own

Alienated distractions
Signs of our times
Unwilling to wake
from our dreaming sleep
afraid of a truth
and responsibility it congers
we escape in denial of
our own despair

Back to the river we go

Floating rancid grease
Acrid fumes of acidic smells
Coagulate at the river’s edge
Expressionless stares
Empty hands reach out
To no one there

Carcinogens within its midst
Red rusted exposed in bending steel
To the river’s edge where mouths
Are quenched again
Waters dry as summer’s day
Turn to dust upon their
wanted lips

Corrupted cities that dwell in lies
Flint Michigan
Where they give pristine water
To corporations for free
To sell for profit fees
And toxic water for the people
This is how their money is made

Barren waste the waters run
Syphilis sewer stench while
Cities thirst
Neglected voices how will they rise
If their brains are all but dead
Opiated citizens the poppies
Made them sleep
Turn on your faucets now
Brown rusted lead filled
Dry throats thirst
And told its fine

Back room deals
Behind closed doors
Decisions made
A race to the bottom within the
Bottom line
Reap the profits from our blood
That’s squeezed from every stone

Back to the river we go

Waters diverted in the dark night of day
Without people knowing
What’s the price they pay
Vended contracted monopolies
Sell the bottles while people are poisoned
And are taxed just the same

Flint is an analogy of who we are today
A smoldering kindle where flames are born
To rise again some day
There is now no escape
Nowhere to run
We must face and decide
Just the same

From its surplus to its debts
From production to its destruction
The wars come home at last
Lost within the flux of time
Its own abstractions hollowed
within the sun that shines no more

the stainless steel gears glisten
Recoil now in bending grace
steel dusted rust in cogs of wheels
stop to a screeching halt

Dreams of past animate
a thousand automations coming
behind in the barrenness of its bleakness
grey lots grey beyond its greyness
blank faceless faces distilled from city lights

back to the river we go

putrid scents rise oozing from
Deserted fields
the Flint River comes pouring through
Its city walls to all that’s living there



Senate stalling’s congressional delays
Blind indifference to their constituents
Cloak themselves within
The vulgar stench of city halls
Within mathematic calmness
Of controlled calculations

Representatives of the people so they say
Parasite’s for their own special interests
Rape what’s left to fill their pockets
Within the framing games they play

Hidden crimes of inhumanity
Charismatic smiles within their
Smirking grins
Criminal thugs in pin stripe suits
Behind the legitimacy of state authority

Leaders of our dying land
Reap their benefits from greasy palms
When exposed their fingers pointing
To all but where the cause is faulted

Back to the river we must go

Tenement houses cramped till bursting
Faceless children widowed moms
Toxic water from their faucets
Rancid refuge from their cities
That tumble like dominoes
Of falling sticks
upon our deafening ears

Detroit and flint
A city like many others
Left behind to fend for themselves
Within the cutbacks of our safety nets
Closing libraries privatized
for profits sake within
Its desolation of our times
Failing schools where
children play amidst the
broken glass needle tracks
and flying bullets every day
urban schools that merge
before our eyes to prison cells
with little difference
between the two
Enfeebled wasted minds with
dreams differed explode before their eyes


Empty pastures of no plenty
Sweated labor that held the day
Memories past of workers on the line
Strength in numbers and picket signs
That forged the country in its time

Where heads were high and voices stout
With pride in craft and pride in all
Anchored to the ground it made
Reached beyond its shoreless shores
Temples of our factories that build no more
Mountains quivered among the many
For all one brothers sisters all
All for one and one for all

Back to the river we must go

Within the mirrors of its squalor
Debased divorced from within
Their actions legislated

Within the garbage of destruction
Twisted terror within twisted words
Bureaucratic mobsters behind the bench
And those who run their state
Through corridors of labyrinths
Deceptive orchestrations of their own
Orwellian language of unknown knowns
That comes alive again

Drumming drumbeats submerged beneath our eyes
Indifferent to their crimes
Stagnated lessons above their laws
Boardrooms filled with worms
Which bleed the wire bare
In uncertain certainty of our times
Perched beyond the common lines
Of bitter lands and their scents
Or from the consequences of their demise

Images fade the eagle becomes the vulture
Talloned claws reach across the skies
Ravaged dripping
in blood of earth and man
privatized justice that has its price
Quid pro quo is its prize

decomposition within its construction
when masks come off at last
witness of our times whistles blowing
to the wind
reset the kindles of its flames
the light restored
within the anger forged
we find the roots that’s been scorched
to find the cancer of its rot
to cut it out and make it whole
to what is there to see
decaying order of the day
from the factories of our past

back to the river we shall go

abandoned dogs in the call of their wild
howl in distant pastures
waste still spills at the river’s edge
drain pipe sludge in purple hues
fish lie belly up on their sides
oiled sanded shores amidst
the blackened stones

winged migrations pass it by
and children fish no more
the sun still rises there
crimson skies that leave
behind its remnants we still take in
miles to go before we sleep can again
let’s rise to face the day

unnamed voices find their voice
amidst the nameless names
in silences hiding within their risings
darkened rooms are lit again
descent from memories within
when delusions abandoned shadows awaken
initiation within these spaces now written
unwritten objectives toward
life’s creations are born again once more

Not yet defeated
Suns still yet to rise
Begin to waken from the night
What’s been lost but not forgotten
Can be rekindled within the will restored
That’s guided by its courses new
Unleashed to till the soil there
And grow anew once more
Uninterpreted molded new
In its own beginnings
When drawn to wake
To life for living
Reverberations soundings roar
Shall be heard again

The sun will rise as morning dawns
when flames are lit once more
They’ll shine so bright again
We will see their light in all

Indifferent to our indifference
Let us rise to meet our needs
Let us stand together once again
Beyond the raptures of our pain
Within the riddles of our age

Reclaimed birthright for life itself
We speak these things we seek
Essentials to life and liberty
Let’s drink and quench our thirst again
Untainted by our pasts lets
Reclaim our rivers and our cities
And restore them once again
Let flint and Detroit be our archetype
For our nation and its future
Let’s stand united tall and proud and rebuild
What we have lost
Through compass leveled in its circle squared
To restore our faith in man

Down to the river we must go