Stand-Up Robbers

by Grayson

Bullets fired by Bonnie and Clyde
in Platte City, 1933. Slugs found
in a bank in Grand Haven, sprayed
into plaster by Baby Face Nelson, 1934.

Banks in South Bend, Sioux Falls,
Bluffton, Indianapolis, East Chicago, Racine,
hit by John Dillinger and various
associates, Nelson, Makley, Pierpont,

Homer Van Meter; as well as armories
in Auburn and Greencastle, where they
helped themselves to shotguns, .45's,
and Thompson submachine guns.

John D. got away with $300,000,
a king's ransom in those days,
before he was sold out and gunned down
by the perverted Hoover's craven cowards.

Nowadays, the bankers are stealing
more than all the Dillingers, Nelsons,
and Van Meters since the invention of
money; the Wall Street boys have misplaced

more than Johnny ever dreamed of; yet,
not one cud-chewing pig-bellied sheriff
or sharp-dressed agent has been
dispatched to look for clues,

to follow leads, to track them,
to seek out snitches; no warrants issued
to search their hotel rooms or their homes,
to take fingerprints, collect evidence;

no order given to pick up
their wives, their girlfriends,
or their whores, for questioning;
no mayors or governors have offered

rewards for their capture,
dead or alive; not one G-Man has
pursued them across state lines;
no rangers nor deputies

have formed posses,
no deals have been cut with their pals
to rat them out, so as to lay for them
outside movie theaters, or hide

in leafy shrubbery at lonely roadsides
to massacre them in their cars
without warning, without so much as a
“Hands up, Johnny!”

But gee-willikers, wouldn't it be swell
to see some real stand-up robbers again,
with John D.'s crooked smile
and that spit-in-your eye wise-cracking

while he cleans out the tellers'
cages and hustles everyone
into the vault,
who aren't pretending to be anything

but what they are;
and wouldn't it be something
to see some good solid rounds
found in some banks again?