Rock Bottom
by Nevada Kerr

Thriving city slickers in a mercenary mood
Chisel the edge off sculptors curt and crude
They extort fluid assets from the farmer's wife
Siphoning milk from a bloodstained knife

Behind the locked doors of some cheap hotel
Seizure and forfeiture grind the abiding
In an asylum for orphans in search of glad tidings
A foreman with no limbs and a destitute doorman
Are forced out of hiding

A tramp from the dregs deals drugs and begs
By day he donates his tainted blood
By night he removes his artificial legs
Deformed by hunger and Fortune's curfews
This wilding rekindles a survivor's virtues

Meat shoppers moonlight as political snipers
And hobble the comatose in designer diapers
Plantation vipers drain citizen ciphers
They unarm and unman hillbilly hikers
Bearded bikers, and defiant strikers
Turning them into paraplegic gripers

Stragglers and beggars are back from the slammer
But the 'now renting' signs have all come down
Have-nots scrounge for gene-altered nourishment
Because the scarcity business is always flourishing
They raid the back streets of southern white towns
Like dogs without owners, sent to the pound

Wayfarers, wastrels, and good-for-nothings
Hand saluting tourists without a native country
Hover on the borders in impermanent homes
In ravaged wastelands where nobody roams

Written by Nevada Kerr
25th March 2002.