Poem: “Ferguson ev’rywhere now”

For Frank Zappa

 

Yeah we journeyed far in outer space

Crash-landed on a wasted hard familiar poker face

’tis our purple mountains’ majestic

Fall from grace

Into earl scheib’s grandio-o-o-se-e-e canyon

Where mista fat wallet’s got no-o-o companion

So it’s way way way too unfriendly hot

From all that nuthin’

That nobody’s got

No thanks to penthoused cynics

N outhoused fools

Who bogart the Frigidaire

N melt the community’s cool:

 

’cause it’s ferguson ev’rywhere now

We gotta get it all together

In the garden

To work that gospel plow

’cause it’s ferguson ferguson ferguson

Ev’rywhere ev’rywhere ev’rywhere now

 

Long ago faraway in a place called watts l.a.

A motherly music man named frank once sang

“no way to delay that trouble comin’ ev’ry day”

Fast forward to ferguson’s whirlin’ whizz-bang

Go ahead n change the channel

Go take yer kin

N jump down a manhole

Go brush it off like dander

Goose yerself with cliches

That are good for the gander

’cause it’s just another riot

Ya gotta put food stamps

On a Burundian diet

N hope there’s enuff retro-cling-ons

N true-blue ted nugent fans

Who’d love to wrap their cold dead hands

Around their rugers

If only to deny it:

 

That it’s ferguson ev’rywhere now

We gotta get it all together

In the garden

To work that gospel plow

’cause it’s ferguson ferguson ferguson

Ev’rywhere ev’rywhere ev’rywhere now

[2014]

 

Photo: Protesters march up W. Florissant Ave., in Ferguson, Mo. (Wikimedia)