Jungle Blues

pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Vlad Pogorelov/p pWalking down 16th street around Mission almost every day I see junkies being arrested-/p pThe scene is so familiar as if I had a flashback from many years ago while hanging out with dope rebels/p pWe were caught red handed by the Ukranian police- bSoviet style:/b/p pThey had German Shephards and a few soldiers with Kalashnikovs to help them.../p p"Hands up!!! The game is over!!! Give us the stuff!!!"br /br / The dogs were growling, and the soldiers pointed AK's at mebr /br / but I hesitated.br /br / -Smash! and I felt a taste of blood in my mouth.br /br / -Bang! and my nose crunched and turned blue.br /br / I was searched. Everything was confiscated except my house keys. But I wasn't taken to jail and was free to go.br /br / "Don't ever come back here," they instructed me.br /br / A block away I saw another junkie's face being massaged by an official fist, and the dogs were barking, and kids-soldiers were pointing their guns at him./p pNow, ten years later and half way around th globebr /br / I don't see much difference./p pThe official fists, guns, uniforms, control. Here, they read you your rights and then cage you like an animal. Maybe, just to remind you that no matter where you go- Soviet Union, Capitalist States of America, Communist China: you can't escape the ijungle/i, the brutality, the inhumanity...br /br / "Don't ever come back," they told me.br /br / And I wish them just the same/p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p