in the wake of
the Baltimore riots
I saw a picture of
a young boy
offering bottled water
to the line of shielded police
right there...is the hope
for humanity....
I commend both the boy
and his parents for their actions
there is goodness everywhere
should you want to look

SLAM down the words
like a slap of your hand
upon a wooden table

SPEAK the utterances
of your broken heart

SLAM  your anger into my face
with the fistful of furious syllables

SCREAM your defiance to the world indifferent
to the magnaminity
of your none to silent pain

SLAM down tequila shots
one, two, three,
redifing absplute clarity

SLAM  your body into
mine repeatedly
mistake realease for
ECSTASY...

SLAM  the door as you go
and leave, all the while preparing for the next girl the next show...

SLAM  me into a box, and
bury me,
my time is up, my words
are just crushed up dust....

SLAM the gates of heaven
in my face...done too much
bad to die with grace

SLAM DUNK my b'ball ****,
my whole life, just a dribbling farce

SLAM  me down to hell...
let me roast a good long time

SLAM...that now ends
this redonkulous rhyme...

Cliche about love.
Cliche about depression.
Cliche about death.

Semi-clever play on words.
Stolen line, weak metaphor.

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Mediocrity complete.

A dark moonless night,
Envelopes and hides the field.
The puddles upon the ground,
Have lost their crimson hue.
The twisted stiffened bodies,
Hidden within deep shadows.

His perch atop the Bell Tower
A lofty lonely isle amid,
A sea of waste and destruction.
His filthy hands still griping
His instrument of death,
His eye straining at the glass
Searching for movement
In the silent depths of death below,
Finger on the trigger.

Three days have come and gone,
Since he climbed those stairs
And took his place among
The pigeons’ and rafters.
He had been a mere boy of
Seventeen three long days ago.
Now he felt a hundred sick,
And tired years old.
And even the pigeons had
Deserted him,
Or been shot to pieces,
From below.

His fingers took inventory,
Only sixteen rounds remained.
He had fired his weapon
Over ninety times and
Never once, had he missed.
Haunting ****** pictures,
Of their devastation continuously
Replayed in his head.

An hour ago he heard
Its treads and engine
Churning in the dark.
The tank had come for him,
Would **** him at first light.

Strangely he felt no fear,
Resigned and willing,
To make of this,
His end final and fitting.
Grown to a man and dead,
All within four days span.


Postscript:
It is a tragedy that any man of any age
is compelled to make that climb, to fire
a weapon, to take a life, to give up his
own. Wars are an abomination.
And sadly it seems mankind will
never understand that.
Somehow we always find another reason.

I see them still,
From time to time,
Their goofy smiles,
Their laughing eyes.
Still hear their *******,
Their growled complaints,
Their farts in the night,
from five bunks down.
The relentless joke telling,
The brotherly jabs.
Still see their sad empty eyes
When no mail from home arrives.

Oh and the lists of things
That they would do,
When back they'd go,
Into the World,
Added to daily, always growing.
Get that new Camaro,
"Set them tires on fire!",
Cruse the strip back home
and pick up chicks.
Put on their Class A,
And strut down the block.
Find that foxy girl from English class,
And make her his wife.
Tell his old man,
to actually "*******!"
We were but boys,
Too eager and green,
Posturing and playing at being men.
What I wonder, would they have become,
Given the chance to grow to a man?

Young lives cut short by ballistic pain.
So now still they linger, boys they remain,
Night visions left in the mud and the rain.

White cotton kisses
I pretend you occupy the space of this  pillow
I remember your navy sheets
I think they kindly absorbed the blood
it was there, somewhere.
beating or gliding within walls of muscle.
This type of loving has become liquid and electrical.
It is certainly electrical.
spiky pains edging fingertips
Strands of copper threaded into the grooves of your fingerprints
It has a real colour. I don't know what that is.
It's weight fits inside your body.
It is manufactured.
Maybe the ***** triggered it.
Or the serotonin shots when I see your face.
All I have with me now is bone dry fabric and wadding

In depth
there is
fear and insecurity...

Therefore
people prefer

The shallow
Tried and tested...