PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

The revolution

will be televised;

it’ll be posted

on the Internet

3 weeks in advance

Tickets may be purchased

with any major credit card

souvenir T shirts

will be made available

Ralph Nader will

be interviewed on CNN

Dick Gregory will

have his new diet plan

to make for thinner

and healthier revolutionaries;

a séance will be held

to recall Bobbie Kennedy

and Martin Luther King JR

folks will both quote

and misquote MLK JR and Gandhi;

someone will sell buttons

and window decals and bumper stickers

and we’ll all think we’re for real

when we proudly post colors

and think it’s a statement

Street vendors hawking programs

of the Resistance;

the tour de force moment

 when we just say so

and the soundbites simply

don’t cut it anymore

Clever marketing might

sell really cheap but

but it doesn’t sell

radical ideology

and the wordplay of black jargon

and wannabe whiggers

who don’t have a clue

and don’t realize just

 exactly who is laughing at them

put it on a 32 ounce Slurpee cup

Let all the folks

see the statistics

can’t keep it

can’t touch it

plastic ain’t biodegradable

seems we fucked up the planet

without even trying

that seems the scary part

at least it does to me

Hitler had gall enough

to make us evil

we became evil

when we saw the dollar bill

Allen Ginsberg wrote a new poem

and LeRoi Jones changed his nane

and Random House flipped a coin

and gave Ginsberg money

Consumers take it up the ass

as the profits come marching in

and original thought

has been patented and sanitized

sold to the highest bidder

would that it were so

that we’re not gonna take it

just do it and gain your revenge

It’s about time

to cut to a commercial

so we’ll hold up the rebellion

while our TV sponsors get
to have their Air Jordans

and cheap beer and burgers;

gotta get that corporate dollar

and get yourself ahead—

folks we’ll be right back

after this exciting word

from our sponsors. . .

7-14-96