Poetry of Issue 7 Page I
A Clockwork Orange
Maybe they thought what they did
for kicks exempted them from harm,
made them more than four-bit, life
wasted, hoods that they were. While
young they were juvenile delinquents,
they were never children, they rolled
younger kids for lunch money. Moved
onto middle school mayhem as criminals-
in-training, selling reefer to 8 year olds,
on credit, charging interest that would
make a loan shark blush. By the time of
their first adult charges they were already
predicate felons skilled in the dark arts of street
crime. Saw themselves as moving
forward on a career path that would reap
larger rewards. Rolled street people and
busted wino skull with aluminum bats
because they liked the sound the bats made
when perfect contact was achieved.
Knew these implements would never break,
in the clutch, the way a wooden bat would.
Pissed on the remains after, because they could,
thinking of their victims, not as real people,
but a lower form of life. Stole pocketbooks
from old ladies in parking lots, pushing them
to the concrete to certain broken hips and limbs,
even after they made the score. The howls
they made on contact made them feel alive.
Even smiled for the security cameras as they
were booking to waiting cars. Thought, somehow,
if they drove fast enough, and far enough no
one could catch them. Liked to hit the same
places multiple times as if no one was paying
attention, as if every cop phone, lap top, message
board in five county radius didn’t have their
faces on the top of their watch lists. Tried
ransacking neighborhoods, parked cars, unoccupied
homes, storefronts, like they were barbarian
hordes. Were one black and white car from an all-
hands-on-deck call that would put out
all the raging fires they harbored inside
with gasoline.