20150928 (cheating the natives)

Never did find out who got Rose's 

Cow crapped out in property 

In my second semester of law 

I wanted to go to law school in 

The worst way attended 

Cleveland Marshall at night 

A bad way if not the worst 

Confess I was ashamed of 

Showing up in my mailman's

Gray blue badge of dis-courage-ment 

When others' wear didn't 

Disclose their humble states

Beat myself in the head 

College grad with post-grad 

Credit only a mailman 

Get over it I told myself

Same foolish self-consciouness

Cost me art school a year earlier 

None of the others regularly

Took meds for depression 

At least didn't show it 

Now late in life I don't 

Give a damn who knows 

My kids are well on their way 

Whether I ever set any records

In my life none I don't care

I've thought about wrote about 

Everything to my satisfaction

Claim an understanding better 

Than most no one will 

Convince me I'm mistaken 

On Brenner Way today with

Cosette the sign apprising me

Of waterfront available raised

The question just how did all this

Become their land to sell this land

At the water's edge with towering

Pines a dead end road leading to 

It so secluded so quiet compared to 

Others off the city road lacking

A view of the Eld Inlet but still

Worth a staggering sum which

Tribe was recompensed for these

Beautiful shores nobody you might

Just as well ask which Iroquois

Sold the golden egg of my plot

Near the overlook of the Cuyahoga

Where did all the rich natives go

Why do so many live in poverty 

In ramshackle huts on wastelands 

Did they just give everything

Away for baubles once we got them 

Drunk it's so easy to deny hide

The history that overlays all this 

Fraud they've got a few casinos

But nothing like the wealth they gave 

Up reservations are rife with 

Depression alcoholism ignorance

Ill will they're dying off by their

Own hand quicker than we 

Could kill them were I to pay

Half a million for a hundred

Yards of the shoreline what

Percentage do you think

The natives would get





c. J.S.Manista, 2015