HOUSES OF THE DEAD, (c) 2001 by Bluebeard. All rights reserved.
Performed at the Houston International Poetry Festival, April 7, 2001.
By permission of Sam Delaune bluebeard23@netzero.net

HOUSES OF THE DEAD

Montrose and the Fourth Ward are disappearing one hand-fired brick
at a time
Crushed under the patent leather heel of
Midtown? Neartown?
What the fuck is that?

Wood frame houses with front porches where people could be
part of a community from where you could raise a family

Until the arson-causing, property-tax-foreclosing insurance company
absentee slumlords sat on the properties encouraging their decay so
there wouldn't be anything left for any pesky historic preservation
society to preserve

and Develop it
Plow it, raze it, salt the earth
and Develop it

into another square block of luxury high-rise condo lofts spewing out
more sewage and parked cars than this neighborhood was never
zoned for.

Every time I see another Lexus or BMW drive into the neighborhood, I
can feel the intellectual barometer drop another notch.

It's a beautiful day for NEIGHBOR-hood

But now your NEIGHBOR is another brand-name-web-browsing using
termite packed on top of all the other brand-name-web-browser using
insects in the whole big throbbing paper hive, but the nest has no
queen

The queens couldn't afford the over-inflated rents so they all moved
to the Heights

And your NEIGHBOR, now physically closer than ever
Has never been farther away
and if you lived in Hell,
you'd be home already!

From Bluebeard's Book of Verse Buccaneer Press, Houston, Texas
(c) 2001, Bluebeard/Sam DeLaune. All rights reserved.
With special permission of the author. Email: Sam DeLaune at bluebeard23@netzero.net

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