All they can make you do is die
He said, wise street boy
of forty years ago
eyes glittering with life
and with adventures waiting
for the fearless.
Did he glide and glow
as he invented and reinvented
himself and his own game?I was Alice
naively wandering
in a sequined Wonderland
and he was the
Cheshire Cat
telling me, we're all mad here,
love it, wallow in our madness
run in the dark damp streets
hand in hand.The mad need not embrace
those miseries
greed and fear he said.
fear and greed are for the weak
he said, who must
have many things
to prop them up
on quivering wobbley knees.But we,
who have no things
to steal or do not
love our things,
want only the air
and our hearts and feet so
we can dance wild
in the alleys and the shadows
speaking to the bats
and to the dandelions
and to those who sleep
in dirty tattered blankets
behind the ancient gravestones.We stood beneath
the lamppost smiling
at the torchy singer
and her saxaphone man
and all the people slouching by
hands in lonely pockets
avoiding the cracks
in the wrinkled sidewalk
and maybe fearing us
because we weren't
afraid of them.But no, we didn't play
their game, either
we merely
had our freedom
from greed and fear
and other people's
realities.- Daisy Sidewinder
backbround by David Jackson
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