Oakland (after William Blake)

I wander down each corporate street,
There where the corporate cop cars go
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe

In every talker to her phone,
In every crackhead’s cry of fear,
In every laugh, in every groan
The mental shackles I can hear

How the homeless children’s cries
Beat against the bank’s blank wall
And the Mayor’s and Council’s lies
Stain the floors in City Hall

Then from midnight streets I hear
How the youthful gangsta’s curse
Blasts his newborn infant’s tear
And blights with rage his brother’s hearse

But now I hear my broken town
Rising in thousands with one cry:
“Your guns and gas can’t keep us down—
We are Oakland! OCCUPY!”