Adam Francis Cornford

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!”

Poet, writer and editor Adam Francis Cornford lives in Oakland, California and is the sole proprietor at Precision English. The Occupy movement also inspired him in 2011 to write the poem
OCCUPY EVERYWHERE TOGETHER.