These four walls
are not made
to save
but built
to blockade
and enslave.

This cave
we engrave
with our strange
collecting ways,
soon becomes a
self-selected grave
for our histories
and all of our
distorted memories.

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.

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.

I saw hate scrawled
on rest stop walls.

I know how it is scratched in
the American skin
so deep that it has become the origin
of our country's identity,

but listen up closely
this isn't how it's supposed to be.

Cause you are as sweet
as the nectar from a tangerine;

As vibrant as the sounds of the tambourine,

though you let that corporate machine
destroy the music and taste of your being.

Mass media making a monstrosity of the populace,
turning crowd to this horribleness
that spits slanderous statements
of how and why we should hate other
men, women, and children,
how to see them as less than human,

but we are all sisters and brothers
in these struggles.

We suffer similar maladies,
falter and fail because of our shared
frailty and fallibility,
but I believe we have the ability
to be so much better.

They are the dark
overbearing powerbrokers,
not into power sharing
only lying and declaring
all that expands
what we are able to understand
an enemy of the state.

They lost the capability
of any sort of mimicry
cause they are deficient
in any sort of empathy.

The capacity
to imagine with even
the slightest bit of
accuracy
has vanished from these
social engineering
sociopaths.

So, from the depth
of their stupidness
and reckless pursuing
of personal gratification
they have set up
a system of stratification,
that regularly pits everyone
against those with the least
power and prestige
in our deluded society.

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.

Have you forgotten me,
the grey beard that lives nowhere,
hungry, and looking through
ash trays for some stray ****
with just enough tobacco
to get a hit of relief.

Awkward as hell,
occasionally, talking to myself
because nobody else
wants to even acknowledge me.

These are my city streets.
This is my cold hard concrete,
an indifferent existence
cause people go out of there way
to ignore my presence.

Slender man who scans
the eyes of strangers
for some opening,
so I can ask them
for a cigarette
or a couple of bucks to get
anything to eat.

Shoulders slumped,
back collapsing under the weight
of exhaustion, cause it’s getting late
and I don’t have a place to stay.

So, I stumble about till I find
the closest spot to safe where
I can sleep and no one there
will threaten or shoe me away.

Like groundhog’s day
I repeat, a shade of myself,
echoing just enough
to survive another night.

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.

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.

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                        A Student Walkout with Hissy-Chants

But

I heard of one student who refused to go
Who bravely thought for herself, and so said no
And she’s the one student I want to know