Manners over matters at hand, I do not stand, this is where I live, but it's not my land, you can live for anything and be killed for nothing, bring to bear a harsher march through marshes, a larger charge of volition, voices in unison with the same demand

the pandemic, it's systemic, of a cyclic, sick bicycle kick system, capitalist democracy, consumerism, candidacy cherry picked, politicians are an environmental hazard, one big oil slick, I feel the stress and anxiety, depressed and regressed as much into my shell as I can be, I don't look for encouragement from my friends or family, I'm okay, I'll keep my head down if no one has to keep their eye on me, if everything looks fine, nothing's wrong, see?

But I'm losing sleep, McClain, yours was an exuberant spirit, it was light, your smile was joy I could touch from a still image, innocence like that, I'm nowhere near it, your laughter is infectious and I'll never hear it, but your sobs, your final moments, burn like a poisonous fire inside, you were so full of life and you died in fear, it's *******, I quit, I'd never **** an American out of national pride, to be that lost as a cause my soul would abandon me because I couldn't even find my way back with a spiritual guide, I'd rather the right to remain silent be outright denied, so all the sealed lips are finally pried, there's no answers to anything without discourse and discussion, a dialogue from either side, when the people have exhausted all arguments, fight until the last drop of blood is dried, we celebrated independence, and Lady Liberty sighed, we lied, we're not United States, we are divided gates, I live in the suburbs, I know my neighbors are doing great, it makes my teeth grate, there is prolific hate, frustration enough to drive a man irate, it's like warmongers, embittered diminished returns, Iran, well I ran your license plate, found out where you ate, ready to catch you up and show you the drill, fearmongers, making ignorance stronger, wound up and ready to ****, tourists in your own home, killers homegrown on a bank loan, I'd rather dive off a bridge than enlist where I live, I'm in the middle of fair wars, I'm no fan, I'm no Afghani-Stan, they say power is measured in a nation's fleet of aircraft carriers, there's nothing scarier, than to have known, you could line em all up to hear the bray of ***** from the bay of pigs, a brigade of world leaders strafed by migs would get smoked like cigs, and they'd come for your kids in a draft before they'd come after me, offering up guns, they want your rising sons

I felt heartbreak for a young man I never even heard of before, cops mocked his death at his own memorial, I couldn't shake his beaming face and they pushed him through death's door, I'm unemployed, and I'm so ******* annoyed, by utilitarian standards he had every right over me to live, he was a massage therapist with a longer life to give, I'll never be half as loveable or kind at a glance as he is even now, if I could give you a second chance, you'd only have to tell me how... it's like they're big game hunters and big name hunters, with no shame under, remorse is important when you carry a weapon, if you use force you need to feel the brunt of that, it's no small indiscretion, being law is supposed to be tense, if you slip up on the job, people can die, and that guilt never relents, so where's the missing elements? There's ineptitude and attitude, shrewd and crude police, you cannot flash enlightenment, but the blues always come with some jazz and a sense of entitlement, it's a wonder where the good samaritan went, so, we live in this ongoing American Experiment, lab rats one and all, who knows what the hypothesis meant, equality was never sent, we can die for it and still be killed for nothing by the government, it's an abomination, the administration of conspiracies that bring stable geniuses to their knees, ******* generations and spread disease, no love for your fellow brothers and sisters, your voice they resent, ever since the end of the Obama-nation, we're dreaming of living within a wall, away from you all, with economic power and arms to stand tall, while from the inside out we fall, it's easy to pin every problem on Trump, he's the scapegoat to end all scapegoats, he excels at being the public punching bag president, but there's hail to the chief and there's head to the snake, it's a cancer, we're so strong, we held ourselves up for so long, trying to remain prominent, it's been imminent, if there's a countdown I'm giving it, under suffering, many people split, with no peace, no justice, only the declaration of a conflict unrelinquinshed, under the rule of total *******.

Do I live in the shadow of my older brother?
Everything that is left of me,
will there even be a legacy
from this dynasty, this family?
When I am gone will you love me for my mischief?
Take everything left of me to the forge, forgive nor forget
I have not denied my part  
wear the anvil down, until all arms against me are dogged
as I blaze into the drippings of a molten heart
no increment belongs to me, from the end around to the start
when I am gone throw all of my negativity over the edge, and let everybody know
love is all I want to leave behind, it's all downhill all the time, so look out below.

America I have bad news, the Experiment has been a success thus far, even though we’ve shown the world what an inside joke we really are, we’re on our knees and wounded, waited for this blood to become a scar, while the leader of the free world is hiding underground and golfing, Superman is no more a Superpower, we’re a bitter bunch of bullies, all behavior scored subpar, so I present to you a date to bear in mind from one hundred fifty five years ago, April 9th, 1865, put your hands down if you know, that’s where your Confederate flag belongs, the past, put it up in a museum next to the Iron Cross, you franchise the oppression that held back three amendments like the South would ever last, you want a dignified preservation of history? North Carolina, Virginia, all of you hotbeds of hotheads with your Civil War statues standing, take em down, dig up the past and lay the sites where your people protest to rest, nobody’s gonna miss a soldier they never knew, the worst thing you can do is stand by your self-imposed word to honor the sacrifice of a roadblock to progress, men who fought their own brothers, and lose artifacts they left there too, but stupid is as stupid will do so to thine own self be true, I was only raised in Texas, a state you can live your whole life in and never spend the same two years in the same town twice, the climate jumps from Los Angeles Liberal to Backwater Porch, and the weather jumps around like a frying pan popping rice, there’s so much bigotry and love I go back scratching my head over all the opinions like I’ve been given lice, if everyone would shut their mouth for a minute, maybe I could make up my own mind, and wouldn’t that be nice? So I thought about Jean, Ramos and Floyd, a man from Houston who died in Minneapolis, people made jokes about it, memes and laughed about it, they threw slurs around and their moral conscience came into my doubts about it, I thought about laying face down in bed, I’ve got a pillow under my head, my airway is not constricted this should not even be a privilege, when did the police fail to stop murderers before they left someone dead, Chauvin killed him over nothing, and no one stopped him, I thought about Abbott, what he has and hasn’t said, I thought about Chappelle and 8:46, this Shotgun Safari is not okay, it doesn’t feel like it’s enough to just say, and I don’t have a lot of spiritual energy, but I talked to God a lot yesterday, I can’t understand the white world where I’ve been allowed to live, when I’ve taken more than I can ever give, and I prayed! Elijah McClain, I listened to him screaming, begging, no one was there to answer while he spent his final moments in pain, but the cops protect and serve, so I can’t scrub the infectious smile, the brightness of his life from my brain, this young man did not deserve to be slain, and I listen to people argue and complain, white privilege and all lives, what about their lives? You’re not afraid to die if you walk home at night, if you’re sitting in your apartment, if you spend a twenty dollar bill, if you call the police up like a hit squad, is it you they’re gonna ****? Your lives don’t matter, the inequality is so severe you don’t even get the meaning here, it’s about balance, it’s about shifting the scales back, you can’t tell me you feel afraid for your life surrounded by armed cops, when a man can plan to **** as many people in a theater in Aurora, Colorado in a domestic terrorist attack and live to go to jail, and a **** kid has to die over nothing because he’s black. Even the police need police these days, but who’s paying, the president is incompetent, it doesn’t need saying, it’s been self-evident, the voice of change is the minority of intelligence in a swathe of complacent Americana morons, cries for effort earn you a place within the margins of the estranged, no we can’t all get along, we’re not friends, I won’t leave my home, I’ll fight you with my words to see it be the better place it can be, because I’m free to do so by any means, until I can’t hold a pen, until black lives matter and my life ends.

Seems to be another,
same, shame, clone by name
set placement next to any other
then, suddenly, before a butterfly can bat an eye;
before the rays of sun can capture moments' rapture  
and settle down one gorgeous golden gown
upon a dew-blushed flower royal's crown
there from above clouds, who roll over asleep, afloat on currents
seen from the sky
weary, lazy, no concern or worry, go by
cast a shadow between the sun and land
yawns of thunder across the ground
spawns many sad and cantankerous groans, they demand
clouds roll away, let the sun beam down
ears not breached from so far below, clouds nap-happy beneath the blaze
as the storm rages on, another peaceful moment gone, flowers drown;
trees blackened by bolts of blue,    
a valley carved from a serene plateau, took only a matter of days
destroyers, clouds, all awaken and observe, the path was taken, they do not mourn for them the loss and release cycle has come true.

I don't belong here
so what am I doing?
Sitting before you, feeling the knots in my back
quivering fingers, lingering over letters
sending each with high hopes and precision
arrows shot in the dark;
hoping to poke holes and see light
this is all that I offer, bowstrings crescendo
shooting stars that fizzle out in the night
harsh on the harpsichord, striking forth with harsh accord
I feel the rise in my chest, chimney smoke fills my breast because I write

I wander the sky, a beggar and traveler
as I crawl through the gutter, a singer and teller
were I not scratching at the outside of this gate
you'd find me chasing the wild hairs to somewhere else
my home is not defined, my roam is a joy of mine
I run around with no aim, nothing to claim
no plan or agenda, no reputation to my name
when I see the hideous terror that mankind can commit
paired with the beauty, I revel in the chaos that does sum it
shriveling my skin, frozen to the bone, never not alone
the world is all a mountain we have yet to near the summit
so I celebrate the suffocating, loss of sense as high as we are
because it only means the bottom has fallen out, we've come so far
and I inhale that feeling to leap with a shallow breath
knowing all of this is all this is, I will write even when I am nothing left.

I'm no comedian
I have never told a joke
when I die I want you looking for me
no impostors, no mirrors, no smoke
nobody happy to see me
no joy; you better jump at ghosts
you better be sure, I better be ash
I'm no foreign man, I feel just as important
when I am laying with dogs, as I would be with trash
there's no song and dance, I am a portent
a wormhole in the warm earth, wet dirt deterrent
merely a spec, with what grandeur in mind
indeed, to conceive the things I would design
I feel closest to dying when I'm laughing
my lungs, the lines in my face, restrict me even expressions
I feel farthest from the stage when I hear whooping and clapping
my past is all one melted blur of disgrace and transgressions
I feel decades beyond my own life away from home
and I would feel worlds away from you, even if I could feel your breath in the morning.

I am so angry that I slip away from a recognizable persona in my rage
in my younger days I called this temper by a name, mistaken
for a personality all its own, I called him Thomas
I hated him, myself, separated from my actions
to claim responsibility for wicked mischief, misdeeds
amoral, apathetic and unconscionable misdoings
that by burying him I only cried wolf to seem safe
to those who loved me, as even years might pass
and I would be so well-behaved and never slip
but the bitterness is repressed, bottled
it is the Irish, my grandfather dancing a jig on my heart
and my father before, who withdraws into remorseful isolation
from standing over me with his belt and seething,
who works away for weeks,
it is the curse of all the men in my family
the predisposition to heart attacks
we who die of broken hearts; explosive
ignoble, ignorant and all the damning damage we do
only the very best of men grow beyond themselves in this regard
as my father did, though in his shadow I cool my heels
content for this poison to run its course
that I might die in touch with an honest merging
of two sides
of one dead snake.