Pinch yourself, resist the slip;
Give your body breaks on leather wakes.
Take stock within coal seams that quake.
Criss-croos, mis’lign and jump again.

Letting off the city sleep,
Or, mattress stuck in toxic seats;
A drug, it soaks as wheat, it eats.
A dream, it’s known, they start at ends.

Blinking eyes at whorling lies,
Or, telling words and shepherds’ herds;
Clearness burns within absurd.
Criss-cross, mis’lign and jump again.

America the beautiful,
Or, Greek and Roman, British rule;
In vain, it pays to play the fool.
Daedalus: nine. Peninsula: dead.

***-aware , oo, era waxes;
Left and vexed, et al. complex, or,
Desperate: long to reach, connect.
Criss-cross, mis’lign and jump again.

A drunken wind, with knees to head;
New lovers heat to keep you fed,
Whether spilling wine or breaking bread:
An outlet towards which light shall bend.

Oh, take it out, or bring it in.
The spin and glow of broken snow.
What the cat drags in it’s hard to show.
Criss-cross, mis’lign and jump again.

Swept away with moving floors,
With secrets kept behind closed doors;
Move and seep in/out of pores.
Close those ears and play pretend.

Drawn in by the waters pull.
The belly aches, but it’s not full.
Tides ripping through that which was stole.
Criss-cross, mis’lign and jump again.

Come lumber through the urban nest;
Inside these heads: infinite jest.
Expand, progress, all to the west!
Say, no man stands to this extent.

I know, dear. There is low oxygen in a hamster ball, but you're told: "keep running! Keep running!" and you're like, "What the hell, Defender of Whatever, don't you know I need a break? It's getting really hot, but my heart is cold; I'm sleepless, but restless; my thoughts are stale, and my everything is irrelevant!" and the Defender of Whatever is all: "Mercy is for cowards! And, you, you're no coward, you're an American!" and then you respond, ever defiantly: "Where I exist has nothing do to with why I exist." The Defender of Whatever explodes…

In all of the pages that you wrote
There was never once talk of the past
In every single story that was sold
You locked away all stories to be told

All of these letterboxes used to leave me love
All of the hopeful words you could dream of
But now your past is dead
The future wades in your head
To your new self
I say goodbye

Well, should I change? Must I remain?
Should I love you all the same?
March on steady to the beat of that drum
If it’s gonna go- I’m going this way, on this line

All of the people had the notion to speak
All of the words, now so weak
Surrounded now, blank white walls
Paint a life, your world calls
To some motivation
I say hello.

I’ll walk until I think I’ll stop
Rest awhile ‘till you catch up
Put my boots next to the fire
While the body and my mind do conspire

All of the birds would sing their song
Don’t mind at all if I sing along
In a quiet world sound erupts
The chant of choir soon conducts
To this plague of mice-like men
I shed a tear.

Beat, beat on that black-laced drum
The march that gets every man from
A kingdom to a kingdom in the sky
Living in a world of life just waiting to die.

All of the eyes were looking stern
All of my letters have been burnt
Carry coal from that mine
Who knows, he, she, or mine?
And tip my hat to whom it may concern.

Twelve days without eating, and I’m feeling rather ill;
My failure to come to grips, well, it gave me a great chill.
Throwing Fists and throwing glass within my twisted haze;
Everything before now has been swept away.
So check the seams of your diamond rings
And underneath your rugs-
You may find somebodies blood.

It felt so wrong so dangerous to walk into the streets,
But I was tempted by political jive and jab and confrontation with the police.
Then I found myself stuck between pepper spray and a checkout line at the mall;
Think fast, everyone’s gone mad
This must be stopped or stalled
I’m a rag-tag revolutionary
With a pocket sized copy of Shakespeare’s dictionary;
It’s a good one…

Now truth be told I was all-alone in an alley with Peg-Leg-Pete;
With every step he took he nearly broke my foot, and with his hook pointed back to the street;
There was a greeting from a whaling trumpet, which threatened me like a storm.
In the blink of an eye funnels fell from the sky,
And Pete yells, “You’ve been warned!
You’ve got to keep your head, or end up dead
In a twisted up puddle of muck.
Keep on moving, don’t test your luck.”

The revolution is in full blaze, and the tires are spinning hot;
The examiners are walking all around, examining what they’ve not got.
Through the toxic fumes and burnt out storefronts they tried to take my life:
“Yes, I can give you hat you’d like, but first you’ll have steal a knife.”
And I prayed for strange, as I ducked away
From the rally-men, and their fights
-God help us!

The president of the united world is taking off his clothes,
And showing off his birther rights so everybody knows
Who he is, and where he’s from; they’re searching for a flaw
To Guarantee their living land is one of love and law.
From the screeching tides of TV sets,
To the valley of the ******,
Just people looking for a hand.

I say Yo-**! Yo-**! The pirate’s life for me!
I was feeling low and all alone, so I went looking for Peg-Leg-Pete
To find a job, or gold doubloons, but I just came upon a note
In the back page of a lonely book, it was Peg-Leg-Pete who wrote:
“I’ve seen twisted shores, and rattled doors
But never quite so much sin
What kind of world are you living in?”

And so be it:
our Ghosts are everywhere.
The final Gasp: now heard in the wind
The final Spark and Glimmer:
reflected back and repurposed towards the sun;

our Water, our Flesh: moving with the soils
Tear of grief and joy:
released and now to pool.

Multitude of Scream, Shriek, and Chatter fall with thunder!
Forest take These Broken Bones, create that shall not be sundered!

And so be it:
We are just as similar to those
called “fowl” and “swine;”
just as similar to those
whose weave and turn each vine.

And let it comfort You to know that,
of all enchantments,
death
is most temporary.