The Green Jackets are coming

The park tunnel was long enough
to lose peripheral vision,
it dripped even in dry weather.
Sometimes I would sit in the shadows
watching kids run like bumper cars
sparking fear onto blackened bricks.
 
I was learning.
 
A test for the playground huddle.
Have you heard?
when we leave at four the Green Jackets
will be waiting by the bridge before the park,
its winter, it will be dark.
There was this girl walking home,
on her own.
Four of them jumped her.
“What did they do, what did they do?”
They stripped her and carved Green Jackets
on her back with a razor blade.
 
Children spun like sycamore seeds,
their coats twirling held only by the hoods,
a tribal chant began.
 
The Green Jackets are coming,
the Green Jackets are coming,
 
Through every class room at every age,
the story spread like falling dominoes,
tears where beating snot bubbles to lips.
By four o’clock the police where there
guiding panic stricken children
through school gates that creaked
with laughter in the wind.
 
I have grown.
 
You're weak, needy and vulnerable,
safe behind your screens,
pickings for someone as well schooled as me
in telling you what to dream.
 
Reaching out down copper wires,
I can listen through a billion phones,
watch you through your webcam
uncensored, unchecked and unconstrained.
 
I can sell you God in the morning
and whiten your smile in the afternoon,
I can make you drool.
control any gullible fool who still believes,
the Green Jackets are on their way.