Small Plate (John Arthur Brown Version)

I scraped my face across the skyline
Blaming witches and congress
For bloody wrists seized
By judgemental, metal cuffs, branding
Snow-covered hearts legislate the ghettos
Decorative blue and red lights notify
The runners course the winds for shelter
Beneath the laughable moon, tripping
Over stories lost in the sidewalk
In screams constructing the wilderness
Piercing my faith in messiahs and ages
Coming and going without an ear
As prayers and shell casings reach landfills
Neatly compiled as anthologies that I walk through
Hearing one million words, crashing
Into the thick night air

A man offers obscenities to Edgewood
Something about star spangled fabric
Sewn by corporate profiteering
Something about the blood of slaves
That line the walls of the Capitol
Something about facial expressions magnetized
To touch screen based algorithms
That stitch the fabric of the status quo
The people, they laugh as they pass
As they misunderstand his language
It translates only to; welcome to the city
He might as well be taking swings at the smell
Of freshly laid concrete displacing the natives
He thanks me for the leftover pizza
But I don't have a cigarette for him
He curses the cold and stomps away
Offering obscenities to Edgewood

Somewhere in time just after seven I left my place in the morning
Greeted by an old wooden box
Rested at the foot of the stairs
My gaze meets with the blue dome
Trails of condensation envy the clouds
Making a plaid mess of the scape
Curtain covers the cold November
Cars stretched along Moreland
Drivers under the rule of break lights
A man clutching a warm drink
Drives his workers, without a grasp
A gust drags the leaves
Across unforgiving concrete
Brushing the shoes of bystanders
Waiting on a day's wage to collect them
They are all but witnesses
To the day's creep crawl manner
It sneaks in the midday warmth
That blemishes the seasonal temperament
Without a lesson, or change of heart
Evening pours in slowly
From the celestial tap
I can hear the night wise, feathered
Perched and questioning
With unknown questions
Only to abandon the perch
To engage the evening sky
With nothing more to teach