Forewords: You'll notice that this poem is different than "Wagon Burner". It's longer. The Wagon Burner Series should be read continuously, with breaks to change the mood between sections.

LISTEN

The Wagon Burner Series
By Gabriel Duncan

I. Introduction
II. Places 2
III. One the Rez
IV. 1st Ammendment Report
V. Overturical Attitude
VI. Wagon Burner

[Introduction]

No longer interested in dreams
Like social change
More like destroying everything
And laughing 'cause it all remains the same
More stressed now I've found
This world revolves around
A few selfish halfwits
Pissed 'cause they won't radio this
God doesn't exist
If so, how could it be
Creator would allow billions of history's inaccuracies

Native ones talk life like
Shit and pain and strife
Terrorized by ancestors
Too christian to know who they are
Driving backwards cars
Going near nor far
Meth has the habit
Of leaving time and space ajar

They called us diggers
Bet you know what rhymes with that
They busted up africa, too
And made them rows their asses back
Meanwhile, they were scalping us for hats
So the Smithsonian could find were the superiorirty was at
Now they've got us hooked on crack
Or Crank, ketamins phetamins
Or whatever's under the sink that we can see
It's REAL America
We're just endangered and extinct
Living in a box where we all disagree

[Places 2]

I came back changed
Sorta disarranged
Feeling the melange
Of having the government to blame
Spitting at the chains

I should have abstained


[On the Rez]

There's a desparity here
She's running with Gucci sandals
And we're relying on charity here

Our two feets is blistered
Walking a forgotten past
Trying to keep our land
How long can it last?
This community of mud bloods
Cowboy and Mexican
So white washed,
Our councilman is born again

While we sit, shivering
Bone-dry, praying for a gentle winter
Wood for our fires
He stacks his bills higher
Making towers of wealth
Through the white man's greed
There must be someone else who can take control
There must be someone smarter
But there's not, and the days are getting darker

Stark in the moon light
Looking over your pride
To find a dismal destiny
We will soon die

So now we fight amongst ourselves
There's no one else to blame
All the presidents are dead
And the treaties re arranged
This country's too ashamed
Too pround to admit
We've manifested oil, too
Now, nothing will be the same

Can't you see it?
It's staring you in the face!
But you don't even know about it
Our history has been erased

[1st Ammendment Report]

There's someone starving right there,
Among the shopping carts
And what you wish
Is a pile of clothes
But you forget just as soon as you pass
Just another day
You've passed that same turn
Once a day, for the past four months,
Five days a week,
You spent in the office,
Ten hours a day,
At a job that pays you what corporations call
Crumbs, compared to their salary,
But you call it breaking above even.
Sure blame them, it not like we give them money,
Not like their advertisements fuck up five year-old's minds
Getting them foaming at the mouth
For the next toy
Or the next drink
And the government
WHERE THE FUCK ARE THEY?!
Oh yeah,
Iraq
Ever since that god damned war has started
We've been starving over here
And getting even more stupid
All the children got left behind
What about our reporters?
The government's seizing them,
They're not letting the press tell the people there are plots,
People of color are tergetted by the cops
Who are only in the ghetto during office hours
And the ambulance never comes fast enough
'Cept in the "suburbs"
Can you believe they're letting these corporations
EXPLOIT us like this?
HOW DOES WORKING 39 HOURS A WEEK
AT MINIMUM WAGE,
NOT QUALIFY FOR BENEFITS--
AFTER FOUR YEARS?
So there goes the crude in alaska
They didn't even ask ya
Went through congress
They always wanted to get rid of us,
They only cared about themselves
How long was it before na'lens got help?
It's all about money,
Money's where it is,
The rich withold it
And the poor are forced to borrow it
Or fight for it
Take it
Make it
And sell it
Collect cans, bottles and cartons,
In hopes of getting a few bucks,
For a Mc Donald's Burger
Or a baked potatoe,
Or some hot soup,
Because living in a camp,
Under the bridge,
Surounded by four walls of tarp,
Is not right.
But there's so much to pay attention to,
There's that commercial again,
Or Halo 2,
The meeting to attend,
Already late,
Jotting numbers and dates and times,
Every waking minute,
In the car,
On the cell phone,
And soccer practice,
Or begging for food,
Looking for drugs,
To induce forgetfulness,
Or something that looks like it,
To look away from death,
Just another vicious cycle,
At least there's more democracy in the world,
We need to be like America.
We need to be model citizens
And keep our mouths shut.
Forget our roots and
Excersize our fifth,
Forget what the Bill of Rights stood for.
Forget the Constitution, too,
I never liked that version anyway.
So here's my 1st Ammendment Report:
Fuck the government

[Overturical Attitude]

I make you uncomfortable
It's the words I use
Profanitys and slurs
Because the words
I use are not like yers
It's uneducated, you think
That "fuck" subsutitues a thought
An entire sentence explaining
The conclusions I brought
Ah, were if it true
You'd savor the moment
But my words are misconstrued
They lead you to believe I represent
The torrent of ignorant
Angry and billigerant
Simple minded
Rabble rousers
Whose tomfoolery
And anarchistic-mongerings
Left you wanting
When it comes to trusting a teenager
From revolutionaries, to beatnicks
To organizers, to punks
It's our job to point out how
American life is defunct
So sit down please,
And listen
To an ambitious revision
Of our mentality
As a nation
Of slaves to corporations
Let me know if this is complicated
I know your mind is subjugated
But sublime lies not in daily sublimations
Obssessing over possessions
Regressing under the twisted carress
Of one-hundred and forty-five channels
For just a minute without stress

[Wagon Burner]

No, no more social change
I've lowered my social expectations
I will never awaken social consciousness
You will never stand up
You're just slaves to the system
And that's why I say Fuck!