Vox Populi, Vox Dei
speak as one, unified
no matter, you say
death of a butterfly, justified
secession from Heavens, ratified

Cowering behind divine intervention
children in their towering mud creations
ever closer, mortal fingers scraping skin
just below, judged in their harmonious intentions
near enough to condemn them all under the blanket of one sin,
your Ziggurat, a layered city wrapped around a societal invention,
determined to climb, rats in a maze, all of their days
they give to meet their maker, unaware all along, what gods do to towers
a race that all understood and lived together, confounded and cast many separate ways
for the ambitions, or no reasons at all, they had to trifle with superstitious powers
humanity dreams kindling for angels at night so the sun may burn it beneath its rays
nothing admired, wanted, loved, desperately hoped for or desired really stays

Etemenanki, a place and time on earth that could not be
you have everything, everybody, do you know if you're happy?
You've never been tested and brag that you're strong-willed
you'd starve for attention before your loved ones, gilded, jaded, know your stubborn hatred can't
be
killed
are you happy, one foot in the grave and three feet from the abyss, is this what it feels like to be fulfilled?
Fried wires burning through traumatic, relapses reminding unkind synapses to ignite like wildfires
no caps, music that echoes elastically through hallowed halls, sensory demands that snap-back like they're played on rubberbands, we rise to their demands, every tower falls, electricity in the adrenal glands, eternally juggernauts on the sands, ziggurats you can hitch the Hindenburg to, Shenandoah and the Challenger too, hopes for the literal and metaphysical ascension of man, swatted bricks by the tricks of a frightened, lesser-than,
humanity is what? Being, knowing what it is to be, seeing, believing, surviving,
a brain inside a skull that can't comprehend, stones on either end of a shelf for the Encyclopedia Humanitas, Alpha and Omega, where the books begin and where it ends
without it you're nothing but a bag of meat driven solely by appetite and agenda; a toolbox full of contacts you call friends
without them you're chemical actions peeling back friction, a fraction, catching a picture of the traction that glitch in the matrix of a matchbox resurrection, strikeout, your dead son and I play pretend    

Defiance is second nature to second nature, which is science
industrialized, militarized, the taste of copper in your throat
the Titanic sailed and sank, but they can build a bigger boat
do we court disaster, titans of machines, conflict and reckless responsibility for our Mother Earth?
When the bill comes due, unless other planets have been broken in too, we pay it all back in detriment or betterment for our place of birth.

The absence of evidence cannot be proven by a lack of what you have

your pride, a summary of all of the glory you can grab

it is weakness to hold onto love that can fit into a bag

the evidence of absence is apparent in the act

sentiment, kindness, present minded-ness, another slot a knife can stab


If you must insist upon these gilded tokens and hurled ideals like spears from Babel on

to fuel a spirit long since gone from a body faded to ash beneath snow, whose presence lingers in nervously grubbing fingers

then that only goes to show, your idol, image crafted by Coca Cola, whose Saint was Nicked and imprisoned for defending Christianity in the years 303 - 313

or do you not care for history, a lecture from a lantern lit lectern and how drab that all can be?


Puff out your chest on your past of hunger and hardship

these softer beds you sleep on now, rest assuredly

they are a bitter bite of mellow comfort compared to a fat lip

from the childhood Purple Heart you awarded yourself for poverty

if only the truth was not that the pain is what you must throw over your shoulder and carry

but how easily anybody can be right there too, in the mindset, broke and likely desperate to help their family

the real strength one gains from their life of having next to nothing is an appreciation for charity; an understanding for willing generosity.

Is there a true balance in chaos?
When the scales are a jawbone tilting towards flame or abyss
if there is peace in everything, in death and destruction, is there peace in this?
What good is love if it carries the fear of loss?
The morality of control is all amiss,
ease the open mind, dissolve into the air and toss
spilling a balm of requiem over all the troubles you come across.

Is that truly freedom, elevation to a higher understanding
or have I purchased a new plateau for my home?
It seems I'm always sinking low and never landing,
though I have no quarrels when I am free to roam
the cost of leaving is only all you have and all the comforts on hand
more for others and none for some, with these earthly burdens that we know
if you could set your destination to any horizon, with only the people and the past to hold you
would you look them in the eyes and say goodbye, unpossessed; an empty field with only room to grow,
would you leave them behind the bars of harsh memory, to spare your hardened self the sorrow,
would you wait until dark, without a word, or would you not be able to go?

Oh, you narcoleptic stars
don't go blinking out on me again
two shovels dig out scars
dirt they scatter across the fens
with a howl that cracks the marshal's eyelid
razing beneath the arch
oh, you sleepy stars, look what you did
you left the sky alone to focus on your march

Offsprings of life, water fills the path you trudge
who are you or I who do not drink of these puddles to know?
Who are you or I to twinkle eternal, but lightning bugs?
The less there is the more there can be, if we but speak it so
leave with lighter steps that your future is one none may judge
and a place you may beckon others to follow, but you alone may go.

I want to leave you on a better note, with kinder vibes and more hope in mind than what I last wrote
destitution is not inherent vulnerability, ingenuity thrives behind the lines of poverty
good will can be chipped away by promises that turn predatory
you'll get out someday, pay dues by coping, thickened skin quick to kick holes in drywall fighting with your next of kin
being white trash, man, I was comfortable in pain before everything I owned was reduced to ash and swept into a can

I was nothing before I let go of the idea that my materials were my value
and I was never happier with everything I have and nobody to share it with
than I was with a notebook and a pen and nobody who gave a ****
there's no doubt about my hypocrisy, humans, I love you and can't live without you
but step to my left brain and my introspective is anesthetic, I don't care and hate you
trying retain a positive mentality while remaining true
to this retrospection, filtered vision through brutality and cynical objectivity
how can I look at the world any different if I refuse to view myself with honesty?

Classism, like a caste system, stay in your place, predestined and determined from birth, endogamy
enforced in strange ways when it's not a native part of society, tilted thinking, you can buy a gun it's easy
catching heat is simpler than getting a degree, intoxications and temptations wait more readily than self-improving opportunity
it is a wheel that takes a different form, oppressing a variety of races and religions, sexualities and incomes in communities
I don't know who I am to point a finger anymore when I have stood in an open door and let myself be crushed by anxiety
depression, insomnia, self-destructive tendencies that I wore like both sleeves, validation, sure, it feels like one bad dream ended and no one believes
if not for the entirety of the building that collapsed on my classless ***, I don't think my own conscience would relent on finding me guilty to give me a pass, shut in and shut out so fast the doorframe was still standing when the force blew back wind in my face from the ferocity

All I'm trying to say in my roundabout way is
I carry names attached to emotional scars, but no grudges, no hatred
the roads I've gone down, the bridges I burn when I cross I have no need or desire to retread
I feel older for all the life I haven't lived, and sadly grateful to still be alive
meaning, purpose and balance find their own way whether or not we strive
if I could only give one thing to all people right now, speak one word, one tone
in a way that it could be felt, understood, absorbed and known
I would not give you respect, which can lead to love,
nor would I give you love; I would give you peace.

I want to leave you on a better note, every day away from this is like a broken toe, I lose balance when time passes by words I haven't wrote, I run afoul of vowels in slim corridors across the labyrinthian mind, A Major rings in sonata, tenor to soprano tremors, bells of horrors, tight and highly-pitched the orchestrated punishment of tinnitus, this is my mind's bliss, a warning issued at the fourth corner, warm up before you run there won't be any disbelief, no slab for the coroner, cold beef, a ghost you won't meet, like a sheet on a stretcher, the home stretch is the long run, bask in the villainy, I hound myself to waking nightmares like these verbal vibes that flow freely on tap for saps from the vines in my brains that pump through my veins creating this vitriolic viscosity, giving the impression I'm of equal likelihood to ascend to higher planes of peace in touch with divinity as I am to engage a killing spree with explosive, violent velocity, verbose verses versus society, I eat my own rage and bomb it back onto a page, ***** that into pieces, let my spirit leave and levitate over self-loathing so I can see myself clearly, before I am set to go off on any and every figure, past, future and present of authority, fictional or based in this unfortunate reality, I am the risen-to privileged proponent for anarchy, vicarious nature my pair of sights survey from the perspective of the hungry what possessions are beset in my vicinity, and they used to call our democracy one of two parties, that just kills me

I want to be known in my own time for what I'm going to write, not to live a life of luxury, not to be followed and affirmed by every other popular consensus crowd member who follows me, the opinions that are loudest and heard most often are deafening and ones on which we can mostly, almost, partially, chaotically rampage over those who disagree, so I'd rather never put my face on the back of a book and have to give you my biography, in my ambition, those who like it, look for it and when they see my pen name they know it's me, it'll be spoiled by the date I see that come to fruition, I am no role-model, and all the fish will wash up dead and frozen from a boiling sea before I'm a teacher, I'm no hero, I'm just a writer and barely a human one at times, for I may rarely if ever raise a fist and if I hold you in consolidation I may also commit the violation of holding your neck in a twist, I am no model citizen or proper young man I am the spirit of a writer holding this flesh vessel captive, a demonic denizen, while life leaves and all his passions incarcerate and hold judgement over him, driving natural desires away from the light and shadows further in, I see events unfold before me so many steps prior I arrive a kilometer before catastrophe strikes again, my mule trods beneath me, the oni jockey who races his disgraces and chases last places leaving all the trademark traces that makes us traitorous ingrates laughing in saintly, gracious faces with frothing venomous spit at the lips we split to inspire the higher seated those we all admire, the rich and smooth-feeted to hang themselves from their ivory-gold-laden towers by their silk shoe laces, that their laurels awaken to see the golden geese lives taken and then I'll beat my dead horse, and spur it on to trample the begotten generation of idols whose idle idiocy breeds complacency, degeneracy and self-generates the disillusion of individuality in unison of voices all voting in unity for their unique indecency, the power of the cult of personality, until I finally wither to finely ground dust before the over-trusting, ever-loving, new brand of nuke via the actuality behind the pop of the culture of popularity  

It's easy to be a devil's advocate, a spokesperson and a woke-person, while the world worsens and the arsenal of subjugation deepens, your subconscious doesn't register the seeds of indifference and supremacy, poison comes cerebrally, live across all the media, one lone voice starts to look like a medium for insanity or immediacy, impossibility and ludicrousy, intelligence comes into question and they ask why listen when you could stay sitting, divisive mathematics are the key, they keep everyone against each other, the art of snakes in the grass who agitate the viper pit they slither right in it and then shatter like a dagger made of glass, stuck deep so the powdered remnants remain, and no matter how much of their influence is removed there will always be pain, take it back to the top, the labyrinthian mind, that means it's easy to get lost in your thoughts, I don't feel overwhelmed by myself, sometimes I just get lost in my brain and I know I'm not one of a kind, no matter how proud I might get over some clever turn of phrase, you can't twist my arm to give myself a pat on the back, I'd rather be writing anyways, there's no shame in any artist's history that gets them through the days, concepts realized and learning about real misconceptions can give you the chance to wake from a daze, to find time when you've been drifting in a trance through a haze, the mesmerized eyes glazed that just need to get back in touch with one spark to reignite their craze, and hypnotists know this, creativity will never die as long as the game to weaponize control lives on, everybody plays, originality somehow suffers the Mandela Effect, an infrastructure of greed stays, to see the same rehashed creations with promised innovations, everybody pays



For rest, forests exemplify the upmost standard I would live and die by, my mind's eye wanders over the death of all things hungry for exfiltration from this fraught and weary tortoise back world as an expectant fly might beat its wings one last time before the dinner table, its hat hung on the rack, fourth quarter about to begin after it rubs its hands together in prayer and with silverware ready lets out a sigh, and now allow the sun to rise to the sky and all things to know the light of the moon and stars as this at last we rectify; forests fraught with fires raising forth four hundred more foretold score years forlorn of yore, shorn of shores for lore of fifteen forty, Jesus of Lübeck sailed with slaves, Christians filled hundreds of graves in the Red Summer, on domestic soil Jesus saves the foreign force you're in store for, dreamed of exoticism and allure, sure, maybe a cure to the core for the massacres that occurred, the gore and the horrors that four million klansman can commit door to door, they don't teach about the nationwide headcount in nineteen fifteen to nineteen forty four in school, or what happened on July first, second and third in nineteen seventeen before the US joined the first world war, talk about who the murderers were, ****** and morons moreover in their bedsheets, Georgian confederates opened the door for the second iteration of the **** which declined because they enlisted to hand Nazis defeat, the irony is sweet, the third iteration three to eight thousand members off hand, declared terrorists, one hundred thirty chapters of a book that activists and active listeners, anyone with a few braincells on hand just wants to end, their hatred ******, a tour of who's been shot by the luck of the draw, calling out to the white and poor, insecure, unintelligent bores, Biden their time for a public outburst, there was a poll in the land, not an invasion of Poland, I wouldn't even vote, these brats are the worst, so sore from their storied ancestral homes to the inhalants and never having the right bills on the trailer floor, flustered and face-flushed at the lack of sinister will of fellow whites, forgetting choice amendments when they recite them they might as well rewrite a document and call it the Bill of Whites, so hard-working, so hard-headed, outraged at welfare, well it's fair, when it comes out of taxes they can't even afford, if they hate everyone so much, just leave, homes on four wheels that are one doored, the only freedoms they actually use they manage to borderline abuse and then cite their weakness (constitution) of their own accord, truly subversive, you make your own race ashamed to be the same species, if nothing else the fully indoctrinated are to their own pinnacle as a jackboot scraping of feces, cannibals to zombies, crackers to crumbs, when Armageddon comes, assemble Four Horsemen, take back the fourth day of Genesis and the warmth of the sun, even if there is an ever after and Kingdom Come, there are some so dumb all their own, they'd rather be separated from, into a little cosmic barrel to form the fourth iteration, in the infernal eternal segregation of the pitiful, infinitely small-minded, multiplying in their mindset, forever trapped and cyclically blinded, bound to hate and be numb.

Won't the sun shine a bit softer, for pity's sake?

Bargain with the wind, can't your breeze be cooler,

or a little lighter, give or take?


You machine

with your vented tongue

averaging the truth from all your calculated lies can only mean

that your head is so full of steam you must blow from an iron lung

a chimney-neck, a smokestack, black cloud of thought that gathers

glowering coals, simmering down from a long night's work

now the pummeled odds, statistics stacked against the status quo

quote you against yourself, you hide your bent and burning rods

by burying your disheveled and spent state beneath a quota of snow

cooldown until scrap is repaired, maintenance quick, quips all witless, quite aware, quitting who cares

all the best times come and go, love is unquantifiable data, a memory you can feel and know


I hope today is a beautiful day for all those who want for it to be

and I can only hope that everyone I may never see is over me,

I've been the guilty party, my price of admission is not worth the memory

while I lose sleep, may you only know peace, love, respect, and feel pain dissipate, overcome and be burden free

I'd rather lay to rest with my heart light of anger, than my head full of thoughts of perceived enemies.