A dog tied to a concrete pole
In vacant parking lot
Mall adjacent
Man's doxology
This is life
Are we living

I see you upside down lying on great
High captain's house ceilings circa 1920
Strange babe you look down on me smiling
Quell my desire like what snowy night
Bus ride did I take to some bleary eyed
Character now too long dead like those
Cold empty nights we used to meet
Walking back alone long miles
Thru bitter wind east coast wind
Thru bitter east coast powder
How sad he seemed then as if he knew
And I knew  too but really knowing does
No good except through our brief
Shared solidarity experience not alone
That same look I now see on yr. twisted
                               Head

So I guess we know now too that really
I don't care for you and you don't love me
Tho we feel like this our last chance
What more chance left our tattered souls
               (If you believe in that kind)

Why speak words no words to wax
I pack up few paltry possessions
You keep old sea captain's house
Now ruined for me like pet geranium
Bloomd once then died from neglect hiddn
I cried 'why did my otter die
                     Why do they do that

I find one bedroom flat
Look over city lights holding cheap beer
Quiet dread you can smell like pheromones
Here staring walls eternity sleep
Cold drafts in bones
                Tho windows sealed shut

Through the darkest seed
Through the light split by blood and greed
They desire that which is forbidden
Yet persevere disregarding being forgiven
It's in disgust as infestations reap its greatness
Holding broken memories we soak in weakness
It's in these crown of thorns we rest in what we believe
Yet voiced with transparent lungs we grieve
We try to fight the silence but no one is listening
Screaming our emotions translates to whispering
As we bury their hope in the ground gasping their final last breath
We except their fate
Their destiny
Their death.
Even after death we feel their words resonate
As they breach the great white gate.
They are never forgotten, they are always loved
Looking down on us from above

-Joseph B Schneider

warm and fuzzy like a big blanket
all draped like a Newfoundland flag
over homespun homesick ** Chi Minh
shoulders, shell shocked soul soldier
mmm '** yes 'tis truly the seed of Morpheus
lo good old blowhard old god of dreams
tho I sleep not
thru barely eye opened
lucid reverie

forced to ask 'is it all *******'
this field of study just completed
this path now flying feet fleet'd
I, alumni all outwardly faux alacrity
but instead really inside shades drawn
hiding shame useless
waiting for the sun's forebearant rays
to pull dead drunk me off floor again
still sick sinning spinning lies
on nodal web patterns
of activation

just a narcissist sociopath-in-training
(was I?) being taught how better
to manipulate other's fate
for personal gain

great fat magnificent magnanimous beast
loafing on liar's chair o'great victory-defeat
doublespeak tho Orwell is long dead and we do mourn him so with eulogy eyes
that weep crocodile tears of
well hidden liars

having long forgotten how to believe
in anything aside from own ill-gotten
gains, they mean nothing more
than bloodstained verses
anemic murmurs
whispered great
whisky hopes
and sallow
cheeked
dreams