booms of color
flashes of chemical light
thumps of battling thunder
with red and white and blue.

freedom comes at a cost
and we remind ourselves on the 4th
of the seventh month of the Gregorian
what shells of flashing death can do.

if i can't feel the compressing flame in my chest
or hear the shells combust in earshot
i ask that you stay quiet
and keep on with your way of life.

we're taught to love this day
to be proud of our stars and stripes
to support the troops
and honor those that served.

i do love them.
i do support them.
but if we are adults within an adult world
we are only reinforcing the idea of war.

i know that we wouldn't be the nation we are without unjustly ******
i know that we wouldn't be the nation we are without justly ******
i know that we wouldn't be the nation we are if millions had not died
fighting to believe this world is fair and just and can be influenced to into right.

i know we are confused; a home, a state, a nation, a world
i know we have done wrong; oh so much wrong.
but i know that we also do right
i just can't see if time has allowed the scales to balance

great powers must fall, that is the cycle of all life
great deeds do not go unrewarded. material or immaterial.
i don't know where to stand in the sand, or where to draw the line
i do know i love the lights and laughs in the first week of July.

charcoal lines define her face,
personal oils upon finger's tips
guide and blend her shape.
her highlights remain untouched
pure as paper, so smooth yet so rough.
she pulls away what she desires.
braised, there is no escape from her textured weight.
chiaroscuro female formations,
she hides her parts within the light.
solid, flakey, waiting for her fixative
tiny pieces may slip away
as broken memories of dark,
but chiaroscuro she was.

yankee cherry skin hides seeds of cyanide
pillow talk of poison, Hamlets Hebenon
sleeping eternity, persimmon.

persimmon.

A fire in the fall
A sunset in the summer
A sweater during winter

A vine that grew but never flowered
A tree that died but carried on
A seed that took just before the frost

the green of stone inside the earth
the white of bone beneath moist dirt
the blue that dyes the skin of a religion

their taste for seed toasted in the sun
their taste of herb bursting undone
their taste rests just there, on the tip of my tongue

your words were both, butter and the knife
your touch was like heat directly abutting ice
your love was like chaise lounge nirvana, lazy in the afternoon

enlightenment of some deeper kind
desires extending beyond all my given time
knowledge i knew but since long forgot

a fire in the fall
like butter abutting my blade
like ice before the melt

hello lovers
*******
go die

***** hair inside my soup
is like hate spewing from inside your mouth;
unwanted and undesired.

not many chefs will dedicate
a pluck or pry of private hair to design your meal;
painful and precise.

shut the **** up.
your opinions, like mine, are smelly and disintegrating.
stay silent and sensual.

if you have something to say
eat the weight of my ***** fuzz
to **** yourself in words.

right now,
i'm *******.
and i get to share that with you.
my words won't pass on the scent
or texture of **** as it passes out my ***,
but you'll know my bowels are at work
and my being
is alive
and that my words are fresh
like the smell of ****
inside the toilet
that you won't ever smell
or ever get see.
god bless technology.