(by a ninth cousin of Langston Hughes)

Breadline Blues

(by a ninth cousin of Langston Hughes)

Standing in the breadline
Forgotten by fancy (former?) friends
Stubbornly starving (doing just fine)
They have their means but I have my ends

Keep those pearls from the swine
Since they
Would only step on them anyway
God knows they have theirs but just let me have mine

(Not disinterested parties I daresay)

With the defenseless no one defends
Where nobody can spare a dime
Today
For poetry nor paradigm

Standing in the breadline
Left to marvel at the mystery
Of why
Suddenly they choose to be rejecting me
(Punitive and disproportionate)
They have chosen the wrong side of history
(Literarily unfortunate)

As I
Falling in (fallen out?) standing there
Politely with a part in my hair
Standing in the breadline

Start

To

Cry

(But by God I will never let them see)

+Steven Curtis Lance



Copyright MMVIII