She is who she says she is
Perhaps in another time
Her muscles rippled with a mannish gleam
And her labors where of the masculine
Herculean

But now she is feminine
Concealing her strength
Beneath soft garments
Concealing her past
Under a new name

Genevieve
Who was once Gene
Now is free to be
Who she wants to be

The rooster
Becomes a phantom limb
Split and turned in
Sleeping
How freeing
For her outsides
To match how
She feels within

Thick lips strong chin
Broad shoulder
Deep voice
I am fascinated

It never bothered me
In fact I saw it beautifully
Variety in humanity
Why should you be
Bothered

I can’t say what day the knots gave way
To full blown anxiety
When the hopeful parts
Gave way to the broken heart

Was it when my withering heart
Took one to many blows
One rejection stacked upon
Another broken promise
So on and so on and so on

Was it when I lost a job
That I really loved
To an *******’s misconception
He can stick that thick
Jagged and dangerous attitude
Up his high blood pressure
Sphincter

Was it when I gave up
Retreated to the dark corridors
Of a dead and dystopic
Fantasy world
Where even my daydreams
Became dark things

Was it just now
Cause I don’t know how
To reverse my pain
To get back the good things
Find the old me
And be better

I just can’t say

There is no dignity in the bootstrap
The sad lack of facts that fat cats spread
The lies that said to be strong
You must pull yourself up
But the rope that they would have you use
Is the one they use to hang you with
Boot laces and straps don’t hold up to that
They will snapped withered from the labor
Tare and be shredded before the vetted
Ever get high enough to overcome
Where they come from
While the rich man’s son
Doesn’t even have to bother with one

As a little child I prayed for the pain to stop
for a my heart to burst, becoming
A ****** bloom under a corn red moon
No answer came just silence
Leaving me to stew in my room
Under the doom and gloom
Of the oncoming matriarchal storm

I create the cycle
Bait the hook
With my mournful looks
With my sad shows
And depressing music

Letting the shadows
Stack upon themselves
Letting the waves
Crack my bookshelves

All that dark poetry
Pressing into the heart of me

All my potential
Left dull
Could have been shimmering

But I kept feeding my misery
And like the black hole it is
The darkness ate it all up
Swallowing all the light inside me
Causing time to fluctuate

Reminding me how to hate
The person who needs my compassion the most

I am a ghost
******* child of my own making

What’s so hard about being human?
Knowing our roots seeing our kin
in everyone
every father, daughter
mother, and son
is someone.

What’s so hard about being human?
Seeing other humans in pain
and knowing
that the growing
of their suffering
is wrong.

What’s so hard about being human,
about being humane?
I know it’s a struggle.
Struggling in vain
to impede the stampede
of the diseased or merely deceived
human beings
who think caring is a weakness.

What’s so hard about being human?
About feeding the hungry,
helping the homeless,
seeing a stranger as family,
seeing another nation
as distant cousins,
seeing a neighbor
as a neighbor
and not a competitor
for better
things.

What’s so hard about being human?
Giving A helping hand
to help us all understand
loving can
make the world a better place.
How hard is that?

I was there for only a fraction of her grief.
I only softened her hunger pains slightly.
I only shared her burden lightly, by listening
to her mumbling anguish.

One dollar sandwich,
one good ear,
one cellphone call,
to make it clear
that I cared.

I let her vent her pain incoherently.
I listened carefully,
watched her eyes swell with tears.
Swollen cheeks and wrinkled face
looking for an inkling of hope,
but I could not offer that hope.
In that place I could only spare a little grace.
Till, she slipped out the booth
hustling to the door to disappear
into the world that was hurting her
with a pound or two less
of stress and pain.

The clock in the waiting room
hasn't been changed to
reflect daylight saving time
just like the one in
the coffee break space.
The black liquid tastes
like a remedy to my lack of sleep
but since each clock is off
I am constantly caught
thinking my weekend
is an hour closer than it really is.

All choices are final.
Situations may change,
but the decisions once made
cannot unmake time.
You may change your mind,
but you most certainly will find
that you cannot rewind life.

The tellers don’t seem
To want to talk to me
So I try not to intrude
Want so bad to not be rude
But like all other humans do
I want to be included
So I turn my attention
To all the interesting patrons

Just off eleventh street
He walks by wobbling
Time worn still keeping
Most of his teeth
Looks to me
At least sixty three
But a double amputee
Smiles and says
He is from Detroit city
Which is where the frostbite
Bit him
And the winters there
He don’t miss them
He just keeps smiling
Still grinning
When he leaves
Makes me think
I got it easy

Sweet lady smiles and says
Today is my birthday
I’m turning seventy two
And my son is coming to
Take me to dinner

Skinny white wino
With white hair everywhere
Keeps smiling and laughing
Toothless and miming
His planned activity
As soon as he gets his money
Still laughing  
Pretty red head freckled face girl
Comes in in an Eagles shirt
Holding on to hotel California
Tells me about how her dad
Used to play the Eagles and Styx all the time
And that her ex won’t mind
That she stole the shirt
Kind of wish I had gotten her number
But I got to be professional
Man, what a ******

I hear two old men talking
About how those kids
Just don’t know how to act
With all this technology
They don’t know the value of hard work
I smile because I remember old men
Have been
Saying the same thing
Since I was barely in my teens

Rough looking guys come and go
Shuffling by the road
The last guard said
Just so you know
This is a bad neighborhood
But so far it seems pretty good
The people are interesting
At least they are to me

She had the unskilled hands of a drunken craftsman
Destroyer of the ******* child who encouraged her wrath
Annoyed her with his laugh demanding he take it back

How black where those unsettling jokes he told himself
Like there is hope and soon death will release me
But the beastly kept him locked up
Shackled to fake realities, chasing different cities
Till she was too tired to run anymore and he was to damaged to ever escape

When the rage became less unexpected and more certain
When the real world became less reality and more like
A movie screen seen through a window
A world more fictional than any tv show
Because he could not touch it

The carpet stunk of ***** but he could not smell it
One adapts to the filth of their existence when it’s all they know
Her eye were rank with self-hatred and anger
But when one lives with the violence hope is more dangerous then
The hands of the abuser

Shadows dwell deep within his corneas
Drops of dread drip in his head
Turning any friendly touch into a potential attack
How could he not flinch at that

The brick wall cracks under the burden
The plaster crumbles after the burning
The house that held such horrors fades away
But the horrors still stay the same
Buried in the cement foundation

The little boy becomes a man
But distrust every inkling of happiness
Until his doubts become reality
And on the last seconds
Of the last of minute of the last hour
Of the last day the nurses hear
The lonely man say
I knew there was no love for me

Little ember floats in the wind
Tiny paper dancing in the red road
Signs that speak of intolerance
Sparking the hate filled minds

I do not know how to unburn
That broken wooden bridge
To take back the fire that
Licked and snapped
Leaving tires and other rubber trash
That never turned to ash

Leaving mad men
Stomping and demanding
More violence and less
Understanding

The rabble turning life to rubble

Gun rights meaning more
To them then civil rights
For all my friends

Trapping time in
A tiny painful moment

One friendship down
One job lost
One town burning down
Miles behind me
As I escape this mad city

America the gutted stretch
Run by those rutting leches
A rotting wreck of corporate decay

Those shattered remains
Of splattered and strange
Human beings and broken houses

Scarred landscape
Murderously mutilated with skyscrapers
Those dammed land rapers

A hundred wooden shacks that
Housed such a wonderfully strange history
Traded in the economic bin
For one big blocked box
Where only wealthy men
And trophy women
Can ride to the very top