When your soul dies,
When a mother cries,
When the law denies
Your right to be free.
You know that you're trapped
In a twisted reality.

When children are bombed,
Yet you're told to remain calm
'Cause the justifications are psalms.
Then you know the world's in the palm
Of the hand of a madman.
Or rather a group of men and women
With diabolical plans.

When your leaders are your enemies,
Families in control for centuries
Yet we still don't know their identities
As they pray to demonic entities?
Then you know it's all insanity
And you're in a dark reality.

When the law makers break the law,
When the carnage leaves you in awe,
When kids slit wrists until they're raw,
And  patriots become outlaws.
Then I know I've reached the decline
Of this "Great" country of mine

What has humanity been worth?
Not just the country also the Earth,
Was doomed to destruction from its birth.
Because of a parasite so evil,  
With thought processes so medieval.

But as a wise man once taught me,
I cannot hate all humanity
For we are kept down on our knees
By the self-interested nature of you and me

Dylan is dead.
no, not Bob, you Philistine,
Dylan Thomas who implored us
to rage against the night;
so are a passel of poets
and penners, but not I

Emily heard her fly buzz,
well before her eyes shut; she
was a wee bit obsessed
with the reaper

Hemingway's also a goner;
guts enough to shove a shotgun
in his mouth--mostly I wonder if
he tasted blue gunmetal like I did,
and who cleaned his brains
off the wall?

nobody had to clean a red dollop
of mine, for the firing pin was askew
and all I got was a click, and a sense of shame,
and impotence more flaccid than
the one which put the barrel
in my mouth

hell, how hard is it
to **** yourself--I guess harder
than I thought, since I never bought
another rifle

so Dylan is dead
Em and Hem too, but you
are reading these lines without
contemplating your own demise
I suspect

after all, it's early spring
and a time of new things
clawing their way into the light
thinking nothing of the terminal
night -- but it's just a sun dip away:
ask Dylan or Hemingway, or even JFK
but I wouldn't bother the Belle
of Amherst

she would make parting
sweeter than sorrow, and she
never tasted the cold lead, or spoke
with fear or dread of the dumb
and the dead

she never murdered
men in black pajamas  
in a forest primeval...

I didn't see their spirits
ascending, in ribbons of light,
only rivers of their red blood
soaking the green ground,
yet today ravenous
for more it seems

why would she rage
against the good night, when
her carriage waited patiently for her,
and immortality, her vessel bound
for a light Dylan and I
will never see

i see everything now
through the eyes
of double vowels.

there
           is
                more
                            power
       ­                                  in
                                               nothing.

each line

i skip

holds meaning.

prim and proper

no.

P
O
M
P
O
U
S

little i's are the way to go
who am i to be capitalized?
no, i'm not so important.

i have been.
i am.
i will be.

Brittle, crumbling, falling apart,
Piecing together, mending a heart,
Frustration, a manifestation of agitation,
Ponder, wonder, lost in thought,
Finding a riddle, unsolved,
Break into losing wits, yet you still sought,
An unorganized, horrible mess,
nozzle your love, flaws you caress,
Don't do this darling, on shaking knees,
Insanity is all I could feed,
I am not the saving grace that you need

We are all dead
or we are all alive
We live in the grey
but there is no dividing line
Brown or pink
Black or white
Shades and shadows dividing
by what you think they think
  about why you are
  when what you are
            is living
In dying for difference
            we are lost
In thinking too much
and in not living enough

i'm just a blip,
just a glitch,
an oddity in a system of regret.
an event that someone's trying to forget.

Average guy tried to kick the snake, so it bit him
He could feel the venom
A similar incentive

Unnecessary villain
Made necessary by
The collective litter
Turning sweet fruit bitter