I want to be their eyes,
to light the match and fall into a trance,
becoming one with destruction by flame;

I want to be the fire,
to eat away the world around me
and rise my wings from the ash;

I want to be the bird,
to fill the hollows of my bones with dirt
and sink into the earth;

I want to be the earth,
to search the surface for your feet
and decompose you into me;

I want to be your eyes,
to see a world of melting flesh
and all things obsolete.

Old man; it is not that.
It is not that you can’t think of more to say,
that you rely on your drink to
persuade me to delay.
So, your wife died,
and your job is teaching children to fail
at what you wanted to be.
I also remember you’re from Durban,
but my first 3 numbers is all you will recall of me.
You see, I gave you the benefit.
That human interaction could satisfy
on a level far from fantasy.
But you took my words and made them opportunity
Where, if you’d been listening, you’d known the reality;
It is that, Durban man;
i’m not easy or stupid.
People are why I talk
and their words are what make me listen.

When you hear
the methamphetamine
buzz of a bullet
just missing your ear,
you wake up and know
you are really alive.
   ~mce

You are no longer the
tortured tumescent terror
you were at twenty.

After sixty, the ****** urge
waxes and wanes,
but still arrives
promptly when called upon.

A kind of peace lives in this.

Arousal now requires love,
whereas when young
it arrived at the glimpse
of a leg or a skirt's flounce.

This is more personal
and more satisfying.

The young deserve lust and
the tempestuous heartbreak
it inevitably brings
when mistaken for more
than it can ever be.

Those older need the touch
of a beating heart
as much as the touch
of simple, hot flesh.

No time remains
for the merely casual.

Your desire reminds you
of ruins, fallen towers,
the pressure of mortality.

You want the body beneath you
to touch your soul as well.

You want to touch it back,
to make it gasp and moan
but to hear it in your heart
as well as in your ears.

You want to hold it close
and keep it near forever,

remembering that forever
is not nearly as long
as it used to be.

No time to fool around;
find someone real
and clutch them as if
they were your last chance,
which they may well be
at any age.

I told myself,
when I got in-country,
I'd fake it,
act like a saint,
do enough
just to survive.
'Cause in reality,
I didn't really want to hurt
anybody.
Well, so I thought.
When I heard my first explosions,
felt a few whooshes,
experienced some automatic rounds
whizzing
just overhead,
so close,
nearby,
I thought
what the ****,
I want some blood,
those ******* are
really trying to ruin
my ******* day
by killing me.

An eye for an eye
a tooth for a tooth
violence birthing violence
an unfortunate truth

Attitudes today
put on a strong front
in the face of society
and its battlefront

We've created a world
of dissension and discord
and the a payment for this
we can't begin to afford