Bent and Beat

they didn't care about the slums, the ghetto, the barrio

black, brown, or white

they left most of it alone

to continue to decay, rot, fester

just cleared and cleaned the narrow corridors

that pass between the airport

the zoo

and the sanitized downtown

the hung banners and lamp posts that look like gaslights to go with their redbrick fantasy of a yesterday that never quite was

they tarted up the shabby streets we played on

and put lights into the places we explored in darkness

the people we knew have been changed

or we have such that we no longer trust them

nor ourselves nor our past nor the redbricks and gaslights

we have all become deceptions

our histories are false and distorted and wine rose colored imitations

that we rewrite, edit and rework in the long and lonely night