If you don't love yourself
I'll seek thee
And rush down into you
Because it hurts
It hurts
From
Every
Pore-
Just like the same
To me.

The drums of death
keep rolling in
followed by
the lightning kin.

Chaos reigns
where demons sing
of signs
that portend
the pretend
end.

The storyteller
tells us so.
So, we find a way
to go
along
a merry path
of destruction
that lays us low.

The bribes that brought
the lies they taught
to keep us all in line,

is it love
that make fools of us,
or is it fear
that makes us blind.

Sometime before
or during the war
there were fields
of horrors
with concrete stacks
smoking back
sick choking ash.

If your children
ever ask
are these
terrible things
just a purview
of our past,
do not lie.

Because, we let
children die
right here
in school shootings,
and despite
our country’s wealth
we let them starve
somewhere else,
whilst the military
fat cats
get rich
of the scorched backs
of burnt out bomb
victims.

Life eviscerated,
scars in hearts,
parts that can never be amputated.
As the infection grows
everyone knows
that it can never
happen again.

Until, it does.

on the chance
I took my thumb and gouged
whichever eye was open
far enough to see death

undone
like the wide right eye of memphis,
weeping gasoline on the gashed grounds below

obitus, obitus

uncorked, I'll spill over
do they or do they not deserve it
for leaving me ajar?

they'll lie
and they'll take it to the grave
and their headstones will call me out by name

obscure, obfuscate

that last rattle of life from their lungs
push up from under their daisies
determine me buried

obitus, obitus

the overture,
the onus

just for chance
I'll open it once more
for the dance halogen gives behind me
for the bark of tread on ballast

one eye, one good one
to discern the cause of death

The dark white winter brings
Spring’s horrible creeping scenes
of corpses hanging lifeless
from redwood trees
in the early fifties.

Secrets once whispered
by family members
of the victims,
and celebrated
by the magistrates
that perpetuated hate
to seal the fates
of innocent
human beings.

How these
rag dolls hung
dripping soft drops
of crimson stillness.
Heads tilting
in terrifying positions,
with no physicians
coming in
to rescue them.

Such strange fruit
not yet ripened,
swollen
with the growing
gas that was bloating.
Until, bowls evacuated.

Soul singers spoke
of such tragedies
but who heard
their heart’s beating verbs
that broke against
a shore of stupidity,
and arrogance,

and who will listen
to the same insistence
as more people join
the resistance
to fight against
a new age of injustices.

A crystal pitcher; aptly made
My trembling hand upon it laid
Then to my lips, I did lift
With loving sips upon more sips
To feel the wet and languid kiss
Of innocence amiss.