27/30 GONE

(To all the gangstas the ground has loved before)

To the lad, the drug lord extends open arms

with more thorns than a peewah palm tree.

The monkey, donkey-riding on his back,

has its hands clutching at his neck.

On the heads of the youthful dead,

institutions of high reputation

launder dollars and dirty drawers,

mud-money washed unclean in lamb's blood.

Mothers moan and mothers mourn,

mothers groan for sons gone down

to the house of the setting sun;

to the sound and the gong of the guns,

the sound and the fury of gangs,

gangsta anthem of one more gone...

sentenced by ignor-ance and gore

to an ignoble early grave,

lifetime or death row and the gallows.

©2013 by G Newton V Chance