Welcome to the me society
Look at me
Give me
Me technology
That builds a bubble of biasness

I want
I should have
Without giving back
Without sharing that
Which makes us human

But I want
To live to see
An us society
What can we do
To make life better
For our brothers
And sisters

All hail the return of the romantics
New age sages that fight consumerism
Poets that ride the roads like Kerouac
Going home then farther back
To old poets who fathered that
Rich traditions of humanity
With deep thoughts and sweet abstractions
Before dull poets and their dumb factions
Demanded we stick to form
Then demanded formlessness
Casually pursued simplicity
For the lack of eloquence
Thought they had to write to lesser men
Not figuring that we are them
And by writing truth we
Keep them growing
By showing the full strength and beauty
Of this brutal language
We all evolve
Till we are romantics one and all

Time is the bullet
That penetrates us
From all directions
Holes
We dig
Trying to fill it
Putting loss
In rows of monuments
While life takes
*** shots
Each moment
Has got us
Moving farther
Away from birth
And closer to
Our own hole in the ground
And the bullets pass on
To the next generation
As they to dance in
The crossfire

Love is a landfill
Filled with landmines

And I am a gun shy
Guy
Tip toeing through
The garbage to
Get to you

But one wrong step
I am rejected
Feet slip
The mine is tripped

I am shredded
Once compelled by hope
Now I am impaled
On shrapnel

And with each beat
The metal gets deeper
The more I love
The quicker I die

Till the lonely guy
Learns how to not love
And each little death
Helped him decide
He needs to be by himself
Rather than committing love suicide

I met the man by chance on that riverside town.

The only one around at the deserted strand
I asked him the shortest way out
after I had my fill of the river.

He told me about the fish market
where the fresh catches arrive every morn
and the place ten minutes farther north
where if I slowed down
could catch the magnificent spectacle
of the orange orb thirstily dipping in the river
and if I stayed back for the night
would surely go insane
when the moon sets the river on silver fire
but if I was really intent on leaving
a half hour's drive would get me the highway.

I was thinking of the amazing mathematical probability
of my traveling over three hours to see the river
and his traveling ten minutes on a bicycle
to fetch his son from school on that riverside town
for our once-a-lifetime meeting on the life's highway
and then having him a permanent visitor in my memory
at sunsets and moonrises over the river.

Though I navigated their world with a poet’s compass,
needle pointed northward towards the stars,
sails set open to capture heaven’s winds.
Clear fabric flapping;
I found strangers laughing
at what I had that they were lacking.

But with the quill of curiosity
and the telescope of hope
to chart the rough waters ahead of me,
I became the sea scribe of humanity
wanderer in love with those
who will never love or know me.

Squid ink to parchment,
I write to the complacent
sending cresting waves of
hope, wisdom, and love.
The seas become the ocean.
My arguments become less cogent.
Till, my heart capsizes
leaving no survivors
in this saltwater wasteland.

You go to church on Sunday
And then you've done your part.
Instead of saying “I hate that *****
You just say “Bless her heart.”
Monday starts the week anew
With dog-eat-dog intention.
Live and let live and the like
Seldom rates a mention.

Help the poor and needy
Doesn't pull too much weight
When measuring by dollar signs
To decide what is truly great.
The Bible verses get changed:
“Do unto others” is rewritten
To “Do what we can get by with.”
Thus is the common man smitten.

So you allow the Congress
To do whatever they want:
Outlaw our rights and rob us,
Laugh at us and then flaunt
That nobody can touch them
As they bleed the land dry.
We're just to bless their hearts
While the watch us slowly die.

We can keep on pretending
That everything is just,
Then go to church on Sunday
And brag about “In God we trust”,
Or we could wake the hell up
And start to participate
In what used to be our country
Right now before it's too late.

But that would mean standing up
And not just going along
And not following on party lines
Not singing the downtrodden song.
It means questioning our leaders,
But, you see, right there is the rub.
If we stop ourselves from being robbed
We can't belong to the Hypocrite Club.

You call me alarmist
Because I say what I have heard.
You call me socialist
As if it were a ***** word.
You call me communist
Like this is nineteen fifty two.
You make an epithet
Of anyone who contradicts you.

You call me coward
Because I hate war so much.
You call people ******
If men should hug or touch.
You call people terrorists
If they don't worship your way.
You seem to hate the poor
Wish they would just go away.

You have a list of names
You use instead of using specifics.
You have a list of behaviors
You consider to be extra terrific
Like making fun of races
And calling starving people losers.
Make laws against cannabis
While you are a bunch of boozers.

You use Christianity
Like membership in the Rotary.
Won't take your credentials
To be verified by a legal notary.
You hide your profits
And brag about your successes
And become homicidal
If you get anything but yesses.

It's a sick world you sell
With your hate filled speeches.
Surely this is not what
Your spiritual leader teaches.
There is so much disdain
And even evil in what you do.
Let us all hope and pray
Our kids don't turn out like you.

Breath in
All that you were
All past selves
That link themselves
Through each moment
To now

Breath out
Now
As it is

Breath in
All hopes
And plans
For tomorrow
with all
Future selves

Breath out
Now
As it is

Breath in
The endless
Universe
Of why not
How come
And what if

Breath out
Now
As it is
And let
All that
Other stuff go
If only for
These few
Short sweet
Breathes

You tore our planet to pieces
Ripped up the land with your strife
Civil wars, and genocides
Snuffed out all that potential life
Creating a void that no light can pierce

With your war and consumerism
You closed but increased the distance
Between rational human beings
Stirring the masses on to
Mass extinction
Despite my pleading, crying, and screaming
Leaving me voiceless in obscurity
In the name of fake security
And false promises of prosperity

Oh, my dear humanity
If I could have died for this lost cause
I would have
But you have
Even managed to deny me that sweet mercy

I have been walking two lines converging on crazy
And what comes out could be dangerous or amazing
The poet, pretender to philosopher’s crown
Dark comedic angel in a deep demonic town
No magic, no spells, or special pills
Will solve the problem or change how we feel
I having been dreaming awake living to take
Absorbing the truths, the lies, and the mistakes
Duality is natural confusion to be expected
Course changes without maps till the maps have been corrected
Road aren’t marked and will probably never be
But I still have to struggle and share what I see and believe
There are shadows at night, darkness in the light
A speck of spurious people so curious that they might
Figure something out, may understand what this is about
Before I even finish this line in this poem
May die before I ever get the chance to know them
Though they sparkle and shine with human brilliance
May be slaughtered by vile corporate slash political villains
Marching with marked up manifestoes puffed up with pride
Pushing past boundaries built from the inside
Borders of nations, and faith erased, with me, one little man
Trying to help hasten this great geniuses plan
Lifting up armies of artist living to spread universal love
Raising families millions of miles away isn’t that tough
Great ideas sneak up on societies and start swallowing them whole
All we need to do is let go of the illusion of control
Get rid of the fools who think they know better than the rest
Keep open minds from being tortured or repressed
What is beautiful exists in everybody’s spiritual body
The spark of potential that no science or religion can control or copy
So we the children of love living on this plane of atomic vibrations
**** on the sweet milk baring *** of social inspiration
We work the wills of the world into the motion of our desire
We spread the words of change like a raging forest fires
No one can stop the ripples across the water once they have started
And no one but us can heal the sphere of the broken hearted

Blueberry brains with baked banana muffins
Artists do doodle and strain to abstain
From the tragic fallacies of the rational brain
Childlike wonder left under the covers
Adults will never see such joy again
And I oh so fool hardy so full of malarkey
Walk between both worlds my friend
Popping in and out again and again
Trading tears for fears and tripping on dreams
Making masterful failures of all of my schemes
Adult or child, neither or so it would see

Who could love a poet when a soldier would suffice
To warm the weary winter frostbitten bitter nights
To protect them from the wolf howling at the front door
And dare in dark and dangerous nights to explore
The ****** savagery of lust unencumbered on the floor
Who could love a poet for he is living in his words
Mind made up about the stuff no one has ever heard
Is he wicked, morbid, or only mildly disturbed
Yes, the lonely lovely poet no one has ever heard
Who could love a poet when a savage gets them hot
And though poets be full of passion savages they are not
Bumbling buffoons barreling through bottles of bourbon
Sharing sips of sanity to get through all the worthless working
You like him don’t you that mindless barbarian
That ****** with a rifle and the sickness he’s been carrying
Who could love a poet when desire makes them blind
Now years have passed mistakes become cemented in time
Bruises and broken bones, barely scratch the surface
In your heart you lost the spark and nothing can return this
Then you will love the poet, with words to sooth your soul
To satisfy that empty crater that you refuse to show
That hole dug deeper than anyone could truly know
You will love the poet then, but only the poetry will be left