Poem by Chris Robbins

Illustration by James Conant



In Parker We Trust

Colonel Tom Parker
carnival barker
had his hip-swinging
client singing
a tune we thought
was ours when we bought
the cookie-cutter mentality
of the musical mainstream
a narcotic invention
to relieve the tension
of keeping your money green
and your reputation clean
so that, just like the singer
that the fraudulent colonel owned,
we, too, can be cogs in the wheel
of the everyday machine