There are no right answers.
The sky rejects the birds, turns them
over to gravity,
embedding them in the concrete and dirt.
The grit refuses to become a pearl,
just as the wound refuses to heal
and the flesh eats itself.
The market sees a sudden spike in
sales of Champagne and cyanide.
Coordinated efforts seek and fail
to curtail the rising tide of violence
in the nation's dreaming.
You realise that this crude, barbaric language
that you can't understand
is your own.
Beauty glitches and pixelates.
Frightened, furtive confessions of love
are unheard over proud, visceral
proclamations of hate.
Tongues divorce mouths.
Every now and then, a voice
inside your head says,
'Thud.'
The measures of sanity become
more quantifiable and
totally arbitrary.
The horizon
tightens
like
a noose.

It doesn't matter if this is wrong.
There are no right answers.

Stretch me out and count me like clouds
Say she is vapour
Venom, velvet and vermouth
With hair of hazelnut rapture
Clutch the moments, clutch the moonbeams
Clutch the stretched out skies of cloud and mustard gas sunset
Sing she is a child of trauma
Supressed in the name of breathing
Violence in the name of skin
And she is venom, velvet and vermouth
She was born to pink salt lakes in the low country
With ruby pomegranate eyes
And hair of hazelnut rapture
Girl with the soul of a thousand pilgrim journeys
Girl with the soul of a blackberry bush
Girl with the soul of olive trees and sheep meat and oven bread in the fire country
Human smiles
And other dark things of value
She lies like velvet
She lies in the name of supressing traumas
In the name of breathing
She bleeds like a billion stars bleed vapour
She is venom and vermouth
With hair of hazelnut rapture
She is the sum of a thousand pilgrim journeys
The prayer of holy rivers in the canyon country
The smoke of incense burned by sages
The scars of bodies burned by crusaders in mustard gas chambers
Goddess of Nuclear energies
Red-eyed like ruby pomegranates
Like the dewy cauldron of morning
When tenuous steps lead bodies down the path of executionary revolution
To boarders, frontiers, walls of white-skin scar tissue
Sing songs of Babylon in the free country
Clutch the moments
Clutch your breaths and hold them in broken palms
Clutch the tides and teach them
Breach your rib-cage, unstitch and return the borrowed bones
Melt the metaphoric thrones
Breathe backwards in the name of unsupressing traumas
In the name of truth
Stretch me out and count me like clouds
Girl of angel-breath ambition
Soul of blackberry bush and smile of splintered terracotta tile
Sing your songs
Say she is vapour

You said to me,
" Wow, I think my heart beats an extra time when get I too excited."
I thought " Its because my heart beats in there too.
You are my heart disease,
As I've given my heart to you."

Dribbling crude slips through seams
as the icicles hang and the Robins play
in the snow fields surrounding Lake Oahe.

Distant stacks puke exhaust as
tractors come alive and
frozen tracks break free.

Roaring machinery drowns out moans
and wailing children hold tight to mothers,
tears stream down weathered faces watching
the destruction of their home.

From my home I witness the horrors
on grainy Youtube videos and
private Facebook messages gone viral.

With tied hands I witness a land *****
my eyes turn red and widen
staring
at the latest American catastrophe.

When I'm with you, I feel like a child
Just like a wee little child
Whose very best friend is you

If you must ever leave me,
leave a trail of breadcrumbs
I'll make it to that place where you're leading me to

When I'm with you, I feel like a puppy
Warm and fuzzy, playful, trippy-jumpy
Whose very best friend is you

If you must ever leave me,
I'll be lost and sad and lonely
So I'll wait and wait and kiss your face when that day is through

When I'm with you, I feel like a posy
Sweet and fresh and in your hands
Who wants just to be held by you

If you must ever leave me,
I will wilt and shrivel away
So come tend me in your garden when the spring rosebud is new

The cannibalism was back.
You were eating yourself
alive.

The guts spilt,
would meet the dust,
in abode of earthworms.

They creep and burrow
and bury the organic themes.
Unpolluted, untouched.

The bowels undulate,
to the thumping rhythm,
of greedy feet. White eagles?

How far this digging
of gold mines will go?
Someone had swallowed the glitter.

Black birds are joining
the procession of
empty hearses.

TAKE CHANCES
TAKE THAT ANXIETY IN YOUR GUT AND LIGHT IT ON FIRE
AND USE THAT FIRE
USE IT TO SAY ***** YOU TO THE PEOPLE WHO DESERVE IT
AND I LOVE YOU TO THE PEOPLE THAT DESERVE IT

BE COURAGEOUS
IF YOU DON'T WANT TO JUMP OFF LEDGES AND START A REVOLUTION
START A REVOLUTION INSIDE YOURSELF THAT YOU NEED TO FIGHT FOR

WORK FOR NOBODY BUT THE PASSION THAT KEEPS YOU BREATHING
OH
AND IDENTIFY THAT PASSION THAT KEEPS YOU BREATHING
LET IT BE THE DOOR YOU BUST OPEN LIKE YOU OPEN YOUR HEART
AND FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE OPEN YOUR HEART
BECAUSE WHEN YOU REALIZE NOBODY IS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THAT DOOR YOU'RE GOING TO NEED A KEY
THAT KEY IS YOUR HEART
THE DOOR OPENS WHEN YOU DO

YOU DO YOU
YOU BE WHOEVER YOU NEED TO BE WHENEVER YOU NEED TO BE IT
IF YOU WANT TO BE MORE HONEST
DON'T WAIT FOR THE RIGHT OPPORTUNITY TO COME CLEAN
DO IT NOW
IF YOU WANT TO SWITCH POLITICAL PARTIES
DON'T WAIT UNTIL THE RALLY IS OVER
DO IT NOW
IF YOU WANT TO PRAY TO GOD FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE YOU WERE A CHILD
DON'T WAIT TIL SUNDAY
DO IT NOW

START OVER
OR CONTINUE
WRITE NEW SONGS
OR SING OLD ONES
TAKE CHANCES

THERE COULD BE A LIST OF A MILLION THINGS THAT WILL HOLD YOU BACK
LIFE'S TOO SHORT TO BE ON THAT LIST
TAKE CHANCES