They disregard
and then discard
the laborers
who are working hard,
but how long can a man
struggle before
he can't stand anymore.

When stress is razor wire
that cuts deeper than
any normal blade could.
When he wants to do good,
taking care of his family
like he knows he should.

He may have two jobs,
working dusk till dawn
with only a little break,
not getting enough sleep,
and barely getting enough to eat,

but the boss doesn't mind
killing his spirit
while murdering his time.

Till, the morning comes
when even if his earthly
works aren't done,
and he’ll be forced to leave all his
responsibilities to his son.

He'll pass on
all that debt
as he passes on
with the weight of regret
for all that he hasn't done yet.

Unprepared,
I sat and stared,
saw the despair
you shared,
not outright
but by the
fractures in your skin.

How your porcelain
starting cracking
and shattering,
how the weight
of everything
that was mattering
was just a smattering
expanding
and being pulled in,
an explosion, implosion,
finally denoting the eroding
of all that was once
your granite composure.

That thin blue line
is razor wire,
is a gasoline-soaked blanket
trying to smother a fire
that it started,
its apples that are rotten
from the very bottom
cause the roots are
soaking up lots of poison.

Even though, I know
we got one bad seed,
and he’s been convicted,
he hasn’t been sentenced.
So, I will need to wait and see
how this ends
for Officer Chauvin.

National pride
is a lie
the rich spread
to divide.

Clarity is a rarity,
clouds cleared
so, I can see
sunny shades
radiate before me,

and it only comes
with a good night’s sleep,
whilst eating healthy,
exercising, reading,
chatting, and thinking.

I am of
something that
once sparkled
fiercely and far above.

I am earth and mud,
cells and atoms
all that particle stuff
that doesn’t measure up
to enough
to stop all the pain in
the world.

I am of love.
Peace and poetry baring
sharing my caring
and creative heart
a pebble to start,
a ripple that turns to
tear apart oceans,
with emotions in motion
that will eventually stop.

I am life
bound for death,
not remembering
how or why
children cry
or when I decide
this is my right
to live or die.

I am.

They want to rehabilitate
the image that people hate.
Instead, of trying to change
their bad behavior
they distort and overstate,
debate just to aggravate
and obstruct you from trying to
relate real facts to take
and share the uncomfortable truths.

Grand standing
while demanding
we hand them everything.

They are ****** villains
like cult commanders
who panders
to worse leaders.

These fallen leaves
echo strange tragedies,
as roots rot, on the spot
and time’s fury does not
seem kind enough to stop.

Tiny green things, browning
and disintegrating,
as humans move to change
despite the desire to stay the same,
shedding memories like a lamb’s coat,
losing layers and layers to
our own frailty.
Mortality is the knife at our throat.

Fear is the thief of time,
and time is the rogue
who pilfers everything
we think we know or own.

The tree will go on but we won’t
leaves will come and go,
like the season’s melting snow
and all the rings inside the tree
will marks the passing of everything
including me.

The algorithm we live in
has become the dumb
nightmare we’ve been given,

a constant flow of concessions,
sad contrivances to survive this
cog in the machine existence.

The fight seems pointless
with only minor bouts of resistance.
If history teaches us anything
it is only labor movements,
those unions that win men
woman and children
any real economic equality.

There won’t be any eulogy
for this lie we call democracy,
while men of prestige and property
have been constantly fighting
against those who bring the lightning
of enlightening insights about this fight.

Shrinking borders while expanding profits,
supporting fascists regimes,
whilst demolishing and reorganizing
governments that try socializing
their own country’s resources.

Our local war mongers
want to rehabilitate
the image that people hate
twist and change the slang,
rework and spin everything
over and over again
as the kings of what is truly Orwellian.

They are so close to destroying
the environment and
every human edifice,
every ounce of progress
in the name of
capitalistic measurements of success.

I got forty-one exhausting years
of lessons in my rearview mirror,
some harsh, some painful,
some pleasant, some shameful,
but I don’t think that I am able
to overcome that education.

I’ve heard that steady drumbeat
pounding out a lot of doubt,
interlaced with the face of desire,
and in my love or lust I’ve
let my heart be hopefully inspired.

The curve of her jaw line,
the sweater slowly rolling over her flesh,
the breath that rises and falls beneath
her *******; her dreams and thoughts,
I long to hear, willing to pay any cost
to hold my dear near and listen,
just listen to what she wants to share,

and *** of course, sweet *******
after and before our delightful discourse.

But with each rejection I have become divorced
from expectations and any patience
with potential lovers.

With each observation, seeing how people
hurt each other, how they smother
or abandon, I find I am done with them.

Angry at myself and those women,
seeing them chose someone else
and falling victim to the despair
that I find there when they decide
they prefer the violent guy.

So, I take my lessons and eat them,
love can just leave me be,
cause I will not join or beat ‘em

Our society is a symptom
of the sins of sick men
passed on to the next generation,
a slow disintegration
of our once hopeful nation
that never lived up to the principles
it was founded on.

Even when it sounded strong
it was always acting wrong.
The melting *** where
ingredients only belong
selectively and retroactively
when it's convenient for those empowered
by our corrupt society.

It's such a privilege
to witness and write this
practically garbage reflection;
I'm allowed to be witless
because of my whiteness
and dismiss any mess
that doesn't conform to my biases.

While political hucksters,
those suit and tie wearing
evening tv tricksters
these diseased minds,
news magicians
that claim thinking is sedition,
war is peace, greed is good
and only a seditionist would
question their perspectives,
talking points that are as fluid
and as gross as the bile and congestion
the curdles in my stomach as I listen to them.
While the fox news orators swim in,
stinking sewage, women and children
keep sinking, drowning in an ocean
of crippling poverty and emotions.

As of late I haven't heard
frogs croaking, a bird chirp,
or a single word
from someone
who hasn’t been hurt.

This pandemic has become
a sickness of rigidity and frigidity
in the face of human suffering,
leaving my entire being screaming,
seeming to be on the verge of combusting,
from the longing of loving the void;

While I am annoyed
by the corporate sponsors
who make immoral monsters
out of our political masters,
those pandering *******
who keep lying to you;
Then go on doing
what the corporations tell them to.

It’s a wasteland of confounding factors,
lots of knowledge but ten thousand stages
of played out bad faith actors who are after
wealth, pleasure, privilege, and power.

Old milk souls who are soured,
and so filthy with corruption
that not even a million showers
could clean the blood off their hands.

I’m certain no one really understands,
and I am tired of trying to hold their hands
and walk them up to the promise land
of wisdom, love, and compassion.

So, I spend the only currency
that has any true value to me,
time, energy, and creativity.
Then give it all away freely
hoping you will finally see,
what it means to be a humane human being.