NOT SO BRIEF BROOKLYN RANTINGS

NOT SO BRIEF BROOKLYN RANTINGS
A reply to Diana di Prima's
Brief Wyoming Meditation

I studied
The selling of Manhattan: sold for $24.00
became Munuit's brass balls of beaded deceit
for the Dutch West Indian Company;
I hear
destitute Native Americans: still jingling their trinkets
In the headquarters of the United Nations
& all for land too expensive to own;
I remember
At least 1 1/2 million of you receive welfare checks
& are the Home of the SLoA (slum lords of america)
& and I wonder
I wonder
I wonder
Why you went to Colorado
to write Wyoming Meditations.
You would have served better
starting plunger control
in your own neighborhood
& become a member
of the Brooklyn Volunteers.

No, nothing last forever
but misguided word attacks
last just long enough to be answered,
& the mountains belong to
the people:
& neither mountains or people
last forever
nor, do touches.

Bobbie Kilzer Gogain