by lee reed

We interrupt this fucking real estate ad
I’m talking “buck-buck” on your fuckin development plans
Disrupt your corrupted condo settlements
Construction of demos as taxes embezzled
And schools get levelled and my community’s peddled
Until the “new steel” rents is 2 steps from untenable

But still plentiful… the peeps keep crawling
The numbers swell as they sell the concept
With the foodie booster boutique articles
And the bougie suits are talking possibles
City Hall and business is conjugal
Developers balls all dangle in the hallways
Of the city managers office

 

And they made our art serve this process
And they made our art serve their wallets
And they made our art displays into fodder
For ads in the business page of Toronto
The promise of profits on page 3
Property’s the “new steal” down the Q.E.

 

And so it seems there’s no slowing the process
Gentrification just takes what it wants
Displace who it wants, at the pace that it wanted
Changing the face of my city constant
And I don’t know how to slow, let alone how to try to stop it

 

But I’d like to take this moment to impart this…

 

This art is not part of the Chamber of Commerce
This art is not made to pave way for progress
This art says fuck an EcDev department
Fuck all of the coffee shop job offerings
Fuck the condos, fuck the marketing
Fuck the rich white folks it’s targeting
Fuck an ACTION squad stop and carding
Fuck the cops policing poverty
Fuck the very concept of property
Fuck this whole goddamn economy

 

This is art that is made to be sharpened
This is art that is made to be shot at it
This is art that is put in a bottle
Lit with a wick and tossed at their offices
This is art for the mob outside of the walls

 

This art
Does
Not
Fucking
Crawl