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    corvus
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Stories posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
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Poems - 8. American Vaudeville

Infernal muttering follows me
on linoleum streets--
I hear them, and I recall
words of my mother, the fish:

wild-eyed fury with fins.
Such sounds--screech, craw, and song--
tend to bark like locusts,
and my trees are stripped,

poor things, slender in the wind. I refuse
to be content or satisfied, silent or appeased,
until the obelisk is crushed
on the sandy white crest,

and proud lady liberty
of green, fantastic flames
at last regains her hairy chest.
Because my fathers and forefathers

have launched, burned, lynched,
stank, and mobbed--
except my father, the flagship down--
I demand, without compromise,

the liberty of a denuded race,
and the image of a dressing gown,
left flapping in the wind.

Copyright © 2010 corvus; All Rights Reserved.
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Stories posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 
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It is the words of this one that carry me away. I think it is a protest. But I am lost on "linoleum streets". Those two words open so many images and allusions. Even the title American Vaudeville resonants with a different sound on streets like these.

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