Poison

Poison                                          3/30/2017

Drink it down

Deep and satisfying

From the foam

To the dregs

Cold and creamy. 

Look at it now

And savor every drop

The world as it is

Slouching downward

Stumbling drunk.

The blood of the good

Saturates the earth

Heavily watered

And deeply sown.

Rising up

Knee deep in death

The guilty laugh

Hidden behind walls.

We who have seen

Know that they are liars

Sacrificing many

For another minute of power.

Long planned

And methodically executed

All of us sold out

In a managed decline. 

Herding us in circles

As they snicker

In their castles

Just waiting for us to dwindle

Roll over and die.

But it is they

Who will drink the poison

The one they brewed for us

Eternally dying

Every last minute

And every last drop. 

Face to Face

Face to Face  3/29/2017

Worthless as a bug

Splattered on a window

Cut off mid flight

In the middle of nowhere. 

Wasted chasing after something

There never meant a thing

Just a whole lot of nothing

Wasted on the way. 

Moving fast

We hardly notice

A thing

All our lives

Nothing but a blur.

Chasing memories

We pass by   

All the old houses

Witnesses to

A crumbling past. 

Weather-beaten tombs

Long ago abandoned

As all of us

Move, give up

And die. 

Some laugh at the loss

Gloating at the pain

While others pick at the scabs

Just to make it bleed. 

Hot and stifling is the air

Weighing down the rooftops

Sagging porches

And peeling columns. 

I have seen them all

And haunted many a dream

Climbing up the stairs

And wandering the halls.

When it all falls down

Will anyone remember

All who lived

And tried.

A new day has come

And we blink in the sun

Stunned by the change

Long ago planned

Predictable and dumb.

Corrupted within

And overwhelmed with numbers

A staggering giant

With millions

Of ticks. 

Stumbling forward

And unable to breath

Hunted on every corner

And thwarted in every way. 

The world wakes up

To see its own ending

What many have known

But no one opposed. 

See them all talk

And see them all argue

All of it a joke

And all of it staged.

I shook the hand

Of a man who shook the hand

And I also have stared

Death in the eyes. 

Give the good man

A cover

Standing in the gap

Against the many

And the proud. 

Scrutiny

Scrutiny       3/28/2017

Violent but not courageous

The teeming vermin

Eating us up

From the inside out. 

We wait

And we wait

But nothing every changes

Dying a little more

Each and every day.

Two weeks in Carolina

Hundreds of miles

From the city to an island

Arcing in a circle

All over and back again.

If I did not know

It wouldn’t change a thing

That some people seethe

And stew in their bile.

Credentialed but not credible

They stare with their eyes

Searching for a kink

To exploit

And to murder. 

 

But wouldn’t we be great

If we could just live

Loving people enough

To scrutinize ourselves.

Letting others be

Whether they like us

Or not

Together or separate

Free to live

And thrive.

But woe to him

Who cannot move on

Always jealous

And filled with hate.

Judging many

With no proof of all

And laughing at murder

Shrieking with delight. 

Blot them out

And close up their mouths

Forever forgotten

And burned away. 

Screamers

Screamers     3/9/2017

We see the earth

But not the secrets

We buried

And we see the sky

But not beyond the veil.

We who have lived

Also have guessed

What lies above

And beyond. 

Knowing only in part

And experiencing only a sliver

Nothing but a glimpse

Short as a puff of smoke.

We sense it

In a gust of wind

The kind that comes in summer

Full on the face.

And we dream it

In our sleep

The great deep untouchable

So real

Yet formless and remote.

Taught to disbelieve

And herded like animals

Punished and stung

Until we comply. 

Duped into an orthodoxy

That was never true at all

As we all nod our head

Along with the crowd.

Huddled together

While the dissenters

Are removed

Their reputations ruined

And livelihood destroyed.

Latching on to every lie

They hope against hope

The foolish, and the compromised

The paid, and the cruel. 

Unquestioned and unpunished

Protected and rude

The willing participants

Of civilizational suicide.

Destroying in a few generations

What took millennia to build

All of it avoidable

And all of it dumb. 

See them conspire

And trace every murder

Any who would dare

Expose the truth.

But now it is different

And now we have learned

Even though we are outnumbered

And even though

We are accused. 

Dehumanized, diluted

Debilitated and destroyed

The controlled decline

Of many

By the arrogant

And the cruel. 

Even now you can see

And even now you can feel

The circling demons

Shouting with glee.

Never giving up

And never giving in

Just waiting for us to tire

Or fall asleep. 

Boasting about a future

When they know

That they can win

Even while we know

How this story ends. 

Dead Level

Dead Level    3/8/2017

She left her clothes

In the drawers

And her letters in a bag

All of it severed

And all of it gone.

The air and the dust

Became heavier

And my throat dryer

Ever since that day

Many miles ago. 

I didn’t want to say goodbye

Even if I knew

There was no choice

A strange and painful feeling

Haunting my memory.    

She got the clean slate

But I got the ghosts

Roaming through the house

Rattling the knobs

And climbing the stairs.

I slept with her sweater

Until her scent was gone

Even though it was useless

And even though it hurt. 

The past is ever present

Even if banished from our minds

And that is something

I never mastered

Out of place

And out of time. 

For her it was easy

Just another page

And just another chapter

One character killed

And another added.

These are the things

That we do not know

The other part of emotion

We cannot see

Or understand.

Cut off from view

In a walled off estate

Viewed only through dense shrubs

And guarded by dogs. 

It all goes on

And she smiled

As if nothing had happened

Even when I was doubled over

Haunted by her ghosts.

In the end, I was dead

And naked in the morgue

Staring up with lifeless eyes

And covered by a sheet.

Nothing but a nuisance

To be fleeced

And used

A mere beast of burden

Sold for a song.

To look backwards now

Is to know the foolish loss

Angry at the potential

Wasted on the way.

The worlds wobbles

And life goes on

Long after we have given up

And twist in the wind.

They go through the motions

And pretend that they are good

Pious before the world

But cruel to the loved.

I really did try

And I really did pray

But even then, I was asleep

And not fully mindful

Of my own emotions.

The world is fractured

And the world groans

Under the weight

Staggered by the loss

By deception and hate. 

Today I have decided

That I will finish it strong

Choosing love 

Even if it hurts

Every single day. 

Staring down

Dead level ahead

Protected by faith

And guarded by prayer.