Steve De France, 2/27/2011

Current Occupation: Retired
Former Occupation: Professor
Contact Information: Steve De France MFA has traveled widely in the United States. On more than one occasion he hitch-hiked across America. He rode rails on freight trains, worked as a laborer with pick up gangs in Arizona, dug swimming pools in Texas, did 33 days in the Pecos city jail as a vagrant, fought bulls in Mexico, and dove for salvage off a small island on the coast of Mazatlan. His poetry has been published in most of the English speaking countries of the world. Some recent publications include, The Evergreen Review, The Wallace Stevens Journal, The Sun, Rattle, and many others. He has won writing awards in England and in the United States. He continues to write poetry, plays, essays & short stories.

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FINE HAIRED SONS-OF-BITCHES

Willie Sutton when asked why he robbed banks
simply replied, “because that’s where the money is.”

Bonny & Clyde were a little more complex—murky.
Consumed by sexual failures—flirting with death.

Butch Cassidy and Sundance—asking then— the question
we ask of them now, “Who are those guys?”

Black Bart the robber-poet
left poems in exchange for stolen cash.

“I’ve labored long and hard for bread
For honor and for riches
But on my corns you’ve too long tread,
You fine haired sons-of-bitches.”

Why had Joaquin Murrieta tried to right the wrongs
of Americans stealing Spanish land grants?

Stepping out of another century
Highwayman in lace & silver buckles.
Stand and deliver!
Down comes a chest of golden Sovereigns!
Everyone pays.
Except attractive ladies.

Today Enron types are not called BRIGANDS
but Vice Presidents for internet infidelity,
or a CEO in Coitus.Com
These corporate criminals jack-up prices
SELLING swamp land as real estate,
flood insurance in the desert,
education as if it too weren’t propaganda,
coffins designed with a view & a cell phone,
political correctness as if it weren’t oppression.

Thanks—but no thanks!
I’ll take my bank robbers as robbers!
My crooks clearly marked “crooks”.
No secrets–No legerdemain–No hypocrisy.
Something plainspoken. MAYBE EVEN. . .
“Howdy folks—this here is a bank robbery.
Kindly reach for the sky!”