I’ve been trying to measure it,
find the source,
feel its substantial force,
and faithfully transcribe it.

Like it’s a universal code
that some genius should know,
crack that riddle to the divine
to find out how much
writing and time
it would take to make
people relate to one another.

It’s abstract and lacks
any substance,
so facts cannot precisely
quantify or package it nicely.
Still, I keep on trying.

It can be heavy
but has no weight,
cold with no temp
to register.

If you ask a stranger
she might not be
able to explain
it adequately
or even want to,
but I want you to
want to understand
like I am trying to.

So, I continue using
metaphorical musings,
and manically reading
studying, seeing,
and thinking
whilst hoping
that the ingredients
of empathy
are like seeds
that I can start planting
and then begin reaping
what this world has been needing,
since before I was ever born.

I'm a wannabe poet who's fit,
muscular and brilliant,
but drowning in ****
cuz I wasn't born to be aquatic,
caught this caustic illusion,
that perpetuated the delusion
that we live in a system
that is actually democratic,
and that I might matter just a little bit,

but I can no longer hold my breath,
sinking sullenly in a swollen sea
of one mind numbing atrocity
after another.

It's easier to deal with an enemy
when he's dead,
because you can change what he said,
reworking it retroactively
to make it so you both agree
like Richard Daley did with Martin Luther King
Jr.

But if you don’t want to wait for death then
you can co-op or cop people's thoughts
so you can sell them some slick ****,
that prepackaged can of emotional spam
that lets self-serving men rewrite history
to suit their capitalistic autocratic
caste system that casts victims
of the almost mindless majority.

In understanding
that fate does not
arrange it,
and that I cannot
rearrange it.

I am finding myself
to be a redundancy
that no one needs
and the point me
existing is a ponderous
bit of reflecting
that has not revealed
the reasons why
I act or feel.

So, I'm settling in
watching human suffering
but no longer struggling
to change it.

I used to shine
but now I know,
I’ll never get back
that perfect glow.

Little man
that I’ve known
since before
he was an inch grown,
now his frame
is withering
and I can’t stand
to see him hurting.

I used to see
and really believe
in the power
of human dreams,
hope reigned
here supreme
but now
nightmares
fear my screams.

Bone thin
scabbed up skin,
and I am not certain
if this is just from
anxiety and self-starving
or if he is **** medicating.

Life is a patch
of black ice,
is the eternal
night,
is the wrong
that won’t
turn right,
is the pain
grown from
delight.

I want to reach out
and give him a hug
but there is a part of me
that is scared to touch,
there is fear but
is there some disgust
hiding under
the loving stuff?

The day will fade
from blue to gray
and then see
light betray
kind warmth
to the cold eve.

I used to be
a better me
but now I think
I live selfishly,
turn my head
and walk away,
instead of dealing
with this person’s pain.

I used to shine
but now I know,
I’ll never get back
that perfect glow.

I am all for
celebrating
what we have
struggled to
recognize,

but here is
some critical
political analysis;

If you observe
how politicians
pervert the system
in order to maintain
the power they have,

you will see
they maybe
willing to cede
symbolic victories
in partisan performances
to prevent actual
institutional
and structural
reforms.

It costs them
very little to
make a holiday,
giving workers
a little break,
while dulling
some of those blades
of social outrage.

If you recall
Shakespeare says
“all the worlds a stage”
Yet, I pray
we do not allow
ourselves to
be played
by those
**** poor performers.

We are more than
seat warmers
waiting to die
while fresh suckers
sit down to buy
the same song and dance.

I am empty,
negative spaces
that do not reflect
or absorb
any light
or other
things of
great import.

Earth conforms
to fit the form
of my warm
footprints.
Plants bend
when I touch them,
but no one sees
my being
or hears a
single thing
from me.

I am the master
of nothing,
apathy embodied,
too tired to be
hopeful,
or naughty.

Warm winds work
their way
around my body.
Water falls all
around me,
but what
can a void feel
when it is not
even real?

Don't laugh.
I seek the
most apt path
to come back
from my black past.

Sitting in the weeds,
I see fools speaking,
mouths reeking,
like bowls leaking
hateful sewage,
dropping drips of
stinking rage
as they put
their anger
on display.

I'm reading up
studying stuff,
but it doesn't
matter much,
never adds up
to enough wisdom
to change,
and exchange
all this world's pain
for love and compassion.

I'm not in denial,
just trying to reconcile
the fact that I enjoy your style,
but if you’re hearing this,
then you must be delirious
if you expect to be taken serious
when you're spitting
misogynistic *******.
It makes you hypocritic
when you try to turn around
and consciously spin it
in a social justice way.

I'm not flossing,
but I cost men
a certain respect,
got those searching rejects
looking for objects
that might inject
a direct flow
into a system that's
too slow,
so they watch their engines
go too cold.

I'm not a bomb
but I blast holes
in those
violent episodes,
take the illogical
and repurpose it,
making poetry
with logic in it.

I'm not a gun
and I never want to
carry one,
but you'll get shocked
when you're shot
by the thoughts
that blow your mind
and help you carry on
at the same time.

I maybe grandstanding
demanding the handing
of banners back to the past
got citizens bleeding patriotism
cuz that cloth cuts like glass,
those symbols don't last.
After the harshest winds have blasted
flags just flap and go flaccid,
disintegrate brains like hydrochloric acid,
turning people into plastic
action figures that only think
and articulate in a certain way,
do what the corporate dynasties say
as the greedy businessmen repatriate
every cent they ever let us make,
while taking our rights and education away.

Night after night
laughter just feels right,
cuz it brings with it the light,
that relief of delight.

The closest thing to a one world government
we will ever get is a multinational capitalist
cabal of colonial consumer interests,
arms dealers, land stealers, and commodity makers
who use people as ingredients in a corporate stew
that allows the powerful to abuse their workers,
whilst propping up the politicians
who are stopping us from realizing
that we should be nationalizing
our resources and universalizing
compassion.

What a wild and wicked web we weave,
with sticky strings encircling me,
till I’m too ******* to ever believe
that there is any other way
this reality could ever be.

Like the bulbous bias bubble I’ve built
to never have to question myself,
creating a network that echoes back
things I think are obvious facts,
while avoiding any sharp parts
that might burst the barrier I bought
with my lack of introspective thoughts.

It is a dangerous mirror that
does not reflect but accepts
all those ill-conceived ideals
that confirm the way I feel
whilst I unconsciously conceal
anything that would be good
for clearing the crap that clutters
my unfulfilled potential
to be a better human being.

I'm a porch distance
from other witnesses
trying to commit this
human wisdom
to other men.

I'm a poet
always writing,
inviting others in
to a shared understanding
but it doesn't matter
if I master
the technical skills,
if I can't relate
to what other people feel.

Then I'm still
just a second-rate hack
wearing an off-gray hat,
a Mayberry man
with two hands
on my gun belt
as I shoot myself,
whilst dumbfoundedly
wondering “how am I
going to come back
from that?”

You don't have a good grasp
on those snakes in the grass
that will bite you in the ***.

The drums of war
are brutal blistering
battering rams of
rage that repeat,
beat after beat
pulsing as we
move and bleed.

A warrior
on an obsolete
sturdy stead,
losing one
cubic inch
of his pinched
and pulled skin,
palpating atrium
disintegrating
as his flesh
loses its shading,
as humanity
starts changing
needing a new
naming
because what
comes after
is a walking
disaster.

The master of
destruction,
a transmogrification
of childlike nature
to a new monstrosity
worse than any
Stephen King
horror creature.

War defeats
and repurposes
the hope
that humans propose
as we close
one door
and then
shut the window
to stop the wind
from letting
the sweet breeze
of loving all of these
strange things
that make us
decent human being.

It’s incomputable,
yet irrefutable.
Emotions are too
numerous to name,
range from strange pain
to shame, love, hate, and apathy
then back in again reworking
and adjusting what must be
excruciating
as inner monologues are debating
between placating the dissonance raging
or succumbing to one avenue that
let’s ****** picks specific emotions,
inspires wildfires, plucks devotion
from the rose of desire.
Till, that red flower expires
blooming and falling after
consuming all the air
inside and out there.
I don' t know who cares,
but empathy adds new levels
to this confusing and bruising
black brackish brew,
that mad man-made stew.
It is stirring, creating odd paintings
and then moving onto brand new
blank canvasses.
Who could manage all of this,
especially since it is just a fraction
of all actions.

I'm not nervous,
just searching for my purpose,
knowing that the word is
possibly the closest
I'll ever get to perfect.

I want you to take me serious.
So, you must be delirious
if you're not hearing this.

I didn't plan it,
but on this planet
people take for granted
the fruits of the labors
I've planted.
Some people can't even stand it
or comprehend.
I guess it just depends
on where they're coming from.

So, you demonize
great guys,
never realized
that those lies
you've been telling,
all that **** you've been yelling
is worse than the crap crack
that the corner street
drug dealers are selling.
Such a bad buzz cuz
it's buried so deep in your veins
that it’s burning out your brain
till the point no longer matters.
Has me crying and constantly rewriting,
echoing the same **** question.
“How many times can people explain
and you still can't understand a thing?”

But, I'm still writing love, holding out
hoping that all my doubt
wasn't right and that I
can still be the light
that burns the night
breaking *** barriers,
and stopping hate carriers.

Until, my artistry
becomes art history
and I finally figure out
what the point of my existence was.

Greed is sloppy.
It doesn’t care
about the air,
water, or land
that we share,
so it makes messes,
distresses
local populations
whilst decimating
their habitats.

Greed is lazy.
It seeks swift returns,
so it doesn’t matter
if all the bridges are burned.
If the profit is turned
then shortcuts are ok
as long as it
can find a way
to not have to pay
for its own mistakes.

Greed is entitled
and when it
doesn’t get
its way
it invades,
lies, and betrays
the values it claims.

Greed is
a ravenous beast
that eats itself
right up to its eyes,
and keeps chewing
till we all die.

I was told
that a digital code
could release
great wisdom
and give men
a chance to get in
an education
that serves them
because no one
really fits in
with ancient traditions.

Technology holds
powers untold,
a chance to network,
and not be obsessed
with our net worth,
to see the rebirth
of humanity's goodness;

That we could collect
and distribute
science's tribute
to mankind's evolution,
make life a grand revolution
that prioritizes
truth over
outrageous lies
that corrupt guys
keep spreading.

I failed and my penance is
to visit this sick monument
to our shared statues of despair.

I cared and tried to explain
how we share pains
but my explanations
were made in vain.

I raged against
greed and violence,
tried to craft the most cogent
arguments to prop up love
over hate and ignorance.

I survived
and my reward
was to live for a lost cause,
cuz I wasn't good enough
to get through
to all of you.

Now, I weep for all the youth
who will never get to try,
never be born so they can never die.

Cypress lumber wood sign rotting
as it slumbers sitting slightly slanted
on a rocky side road
where hardly anybody else goes,
but I know
there's a history behind
the paint chips and brown board
colored up business sign.
It's just that that history is hard to find
cuz most who would remember it
have left this world far behind.

It’s so frustrating,
what I’m watching,
seeing the hedonist
mealy mouth misogynists
getting up in all of this
social madness,
elevating and celebrating
America making a great end
when it's a hate trend
that's been a revolting revolving door
going out and back in again,
cuz it's making wealthy men
and politicians more money
whilst making plenty other citizens
edge towards revolutionary wars.

It's like football,
four yards down
and I took it all off,
balled it up to call your bluff
because you can't touch
or even tag the flag,
red clothing flailing
while we are failing
and finally falling
like dangerous dangling rags.

Now, I am on the line
cause these verses are mine.
I’m not praying but saying,
loving, and staying while
cheating hearts keep straying.

At the end of the field
and it all feels surreal,
stupid sports metaphor,
but who knows
what this crap is for.

I just walk off the grass,
let all those moments elapse,
then flash fast into the past,
sit down to clown,
and play with today,
such a great holiday
because it’s the best present.

There is sorrow in seeing
strangers weeping and bleeding,
people on the streets needing
a little respect and compassion,
but the cops keep blasting.
While the media is gaslighting,
the whole scenario’s so sick
that I can hardly fathom it.

So, I am using poetry
to process all the horrors I see,
using extreme means
to cut my thin seams,
while deconstructing
the blockage obstructing
humans from grasping
what it means for
a black mother to be gasping
trying to bring back the air
that someone stole from
her first-born son.

Police profiling then rewriting history,
has me on the verge of vomiting
in rage and nausea,
so tired of trying to explain
the validity of a stranger’s pain,
knowing these people
are just as worthy
of the justice America serves me,
as corporations go on
greedily slurping
all of our resources.

My privilege is to see
a blue shirt and not think
that they are watching
and following me,
to not worry if I hurry
cops might think
it’s justifiable to shoot me
in my back
because I’m black.
I don’t have to experience
or understand any of that.

As strange as it may be
to study the history
etched on the faces
of all those grieving,
to feel the shame
of not enough people believing
in what they are seeing;

Having the hand that points to the ground
be the one that forces them down
pushes their face in the dirt,
kicks them when their immobilized,
then goes on to demonize, telling lies
about how they were **** like.

The powerful keep trying to create
then put people in that fake place
that the wealthy claims their race makes
it inevitable that they will go to,
while the rich keep on insisting
that the state is and has always been great,
but it’s time to make it great again.

I'm nauseous,
ready to *****
on these creeps
that caused such violence;

Tired of trying to solve it
cause the rubrics
of this cube
have multiplied stupid
times all of those who
follow the hollow
Cheshire moon smile
for miles and miles.

The media splits mobs
into mediocre redhatter's
screaming all lives matter
as they charged the capital.

It is in the past but
idiotic patriotic treasonous
fools who are reasonless
keep trying to whitewash
the **** we all saw,
makes me real raw,
want to gnaw off
my own arm
and runaway
from the harm
these buffoons caused,
trying to prop up
a lost cause.

Sometimes,
I sit and wonder
is my brain wired
in the wrong way.

I'm working all day
on weird word play,
using premium unleaded
instead of the previously embedded
stinking repeated
cliches no one needed.

Watered down con artists
feed men
outdated whines,
have them *******
diluted delusions
and fractured facts
that don't add
up to good math.

I'm not a beast that beats
better techniques.
I’m the man who eats
whatever he reads
to replete my muse’s muscles
with the protein she needs
along with her emotional greens,
and random natural fruity scenes,

but there are not enough nutrients
to save me from the atrophy of
humanity’s inability to grow and love.

I'm not made
for the marketplace
or the safe space
where people race
because they don't want to face
how it feels to be displaced
and treated like human waste.

But why is it
when dark dreams visit
they are as stark
as a shark's
sharp teeth
as those canines
are embedded in me?

Why do they shake
and take
bits and pieces
but never release
what this beast is
trying to eat,
making lines of liquid crimson
that swirl and dissipate
as I lose my conscious state?

I fight the fright.
I write
the nightmares that most prefer to hide
because my mind
is an art form
born in a **** storm
torn apart
for the hearts
that abhor
the dreams I keep stored
on my moist bathroom floor,
under my feet
where other monsters plan to meet
then come out to greet and eat me.

I remember there was time
when all I knew how to do
was write a simple rhyme.

When syllables were sounded out
and I never had any doubts
that people would come to
understand what I was
trying so hard to do.

But as the days went flashing past,
as every single poetic query asked
in hopes of harvesting
some sort of understanding
saw my heart’s standing
slowly decline and fall off the vine
to be crushed into pulpy and ****** wine.

Days of devotions
turned to weeks of
just going through the motion.
My grandest schemes
turned into dusty dying things
and my spirit withered
in the desert, starving
and dehydrating.

Now, I have a skeptic’s wisdom
and the dreams I once tried to
give to all who live
have become the victim,
eviscerated and desecrated
by the lies of those who thrive
on making Americans
into automatons
and all other humans hated
for not being dumb and isolated.

What is grief,
but the withdrawal symptoms
of a drug we may not have known
we were taking,
the transmogrification
of affection’s deeper emotions
into the compensation
and reorientation
of our strained
inner identity,
in the absence
of the loved ones
treasured presence.

I am sorry
that I am only
partly
here
and far away
in the same breath
while living
and sleeping
as stilly
as death.

Time
does not permit me
a true moment of
serenity,
cause my affinity
is for the cosmos
that I adore.

Furiously flashing
expanses
that have been
outlasting
every mortal thing,
all human beings
are just sparks
that play
small parts
in smaller hearts,
which is why
as time passes by
I am learning to fly
way past the night sky.

That’s why
I am not the guy
who could settle
for a simple life,

even when I am
holding your hand
I am dancing on
foreign lands,
toes twisting in
Martian sands,
and as it stands
I have big plans
to expand
what I understand
as I study to create
and elevate
my mental state
right past
the fictional holes
that blast
our fat *****
way beyond
purple space gasses.

Even though, I know
you to hold
multiple universes
inside,
I can only offer you
half of my mind
cause I am so gone.

An atypical yet spherical mass of spiritual
madness hides behind the mad mind of sadness.

It is poisonous but I am glad of this
biological drug sandwich
that is wrapped in my cerebellum.

I am crazy but I try to tell them,
all those children, women, and working men,
something is not quite right in this system
that tries to lie and sell them lots of corruption.

Reality is harsher than the scraping pavement
that savaged my already ravaged flesh,
tearing away tiny bits of skin and bleeding
barely perceptible drops of blood that are not compatible
with the white and gray grainy walkway.

Metaphors do not explain much anymore,
just cloud the conversation with pretty abstractions,
petty reflections not worth anyone’s inspection,
cause they are diarrhea of my own introspection,
a manifestation that seldom add ups to anything more than
other people’s interpretation.

No matter my intent these words
are just whispers in cyclonic winds,
I can’t imagine anyone cares enough
to let my strange thoughts infect them
with empathy and creative confusion.

Skin to skin
flesh pressing in,
till our shared
compressions
cause a ******.

Then we could
finally relax,
and I’d be
fine with that.

Passion and lust
are so stressful,
struggling to be
successful
in ******
competition,
to fulfill
our desire
with no
inhibition
is such a sloppy
kind of mission.

It is harder
to master
than nuclear fission,
so my decision
is to do it myself.

I have learned to look away
form the gleaming day
to embrace the shade,
to kiss the lips of my pain,
and smile nostalgically
knowing there is no hope for me.

I have learned to love
unpossessively
because any higher degree
would probably be seen
as super creepy
from this old and sleepy
crater sized cracked
heart hole that leaks
poetry which speaks
to the innermost of my
cringy crying ghost being.

In observing from
a digital distance
I have forgone
the need for any resistance.
You can be as dismissive
as you would like to be
and will not really break me.

I am super friendly
adoring
the heart you’re exploring,
whilst ignoring
any potential heartache
because a heart that breaks
from this far away
doesn’t hold any shape.
It’s just pretty little
glittering glass shards
sparkling and dancing
in the early spring
as I lay down to sing,
its crystal razors shredding
my heart from
the equal distance of
fantasies and the sun.

In person I would
happily succumb,
lay under your thumb
green with envy
for any other who
would challenge me
for just a fraction of
a chance to love and see
those feeling returned to me.

But on the internet
you are my sweet 2d
daydream that screams
blood curdling visions
of inspiration into my being.

It's the same high stakes
bootstrap narrative that takes
a creative license with
the stories of people that really exist.

It's a biopic,
a fictionalized
version of some real lives
told with real lies.
Till we realize,
we need clear eyes
unclouded by corporate lies
to understand what lies
behind the underhand
and reveal how humans
actually expand
their consciousness.

So fatigued,
glued to
what I see
as heavy
lids pull me
down to sleep.

But just before
I am pulled to
the other shore,
where stars
and dreams
beckon me
to a place
beyond belief,

I lay pondering
all that I have been
squandering,
wondering
how long
can a road
roll on
till all
my family
is long gone,
till I can’t go on
cause I am
all alone
wondering what
else could go
oh, so wrong.

Sleep claims
that stress
that strains
my overtaxed brain
and I wake the next day
feeling ok.

Oh, how I wish
my tears
would steer clear
of the fear that
lives here.

I am tired
of the hate
that is inspired
by the spiral
of bad faith
actors working
in accord
with each other
to enhance
the discord
that smothers
compassion.

I am exhausted
from passing
my passion
from within
to my pen,
from my mind
to my computer
and pasting
pieces of poetry
on social media
sites
that profit from
greed and destruction
in the form of
views and ads.

It all feels bad,
and I would be glad
to grab
a long nap
and never have to
rise and see
the violent spree
of soldiers killing
civilians,
while the state claims
that these children’s
suffering is justifiable,
that these horrors
are deniable,
that these lies are viable,
going viral, and capable
of making some lives
less valuable.

I love rainstorms,
for their percussive
rhythm
that is relaxing,
and freeing
in hearing
and seeing
the soft trickles
these full clouds
are releasing.

I loved rainstorms
when I was younger
with a vengeful glee
cause I got to see
the children
who picked on me
disappointed.
While I was free
to sit and read
anywhere,
they could not go
outside
cause it was
wet out there.

I love a storm
cause my grandpa
would sit
and watch it
for a bit
while I watched him
draw circles on
the pavement
and see raindrops
painting
dark wet shading.

I love rainstorms
because I can
easily fall asleep,
but if I go deep,
they also keep
me safe
by keeping
others at a distance,
making it so
I don’t have to visit
anyone.

As a first-born son
of a terribly angry woman,
a lady of violent outbursts
and verbal degradation,
I love the rain
cause I feel safer
when the lightning
fractures the night sky
than I ever felt
when my mother
was nearby.

I curse the craven curs
who perpetuate hate,
ignorance, and redundancy,
while I personally long
for likeminded poets
who expose the struggles of
the questioning dispositions
which leads to depressing positions
of uncertainty,
because that eventually leads
to the new ideals we need
to improve our society.

I am an overzealous ant
marching forward towards
the winds that block any rewards.

Perhaps it is better that,
like a gnat
I can’t
fathom how miniscule I am,
because contemplating my own
insignificance
would paralyze me,
and in indecisiveness
I would succumb to
a predator’s predilections.
  
Sorry sweety that crap was
the last gasp of an exhausted brain.
Blood pan waiting to expand
as useless feces falls freely
from the top
that is ready to drop
and stop
thinking.

Poetry attempting to
discover ourselves minus
the lies imposed upon us
by others and ourselves
is quite difficult,

because we can’t always be as grand as
the deep blue sea or swirling space clouds
that pirouette in that cosmic mess we call infinity.

Many hearts could be broken
by the smallest token
of your strange affections;

How delightfully crushed,
cause hearts always want too much
as such jealous and hopeful
****** beating things
that turn out to be less agile
and more perfectly fragile.

As for me I will treasure these
sweet poetic interludes
at a safe distance from you,
cause I am certain
that you could put a major hurting
on my heart.

I will get small sparks
for little parts
of playful verses
throughout the day,
then type and save
them to my phone.
Eventually, working them
into to something by the end
of the night,

but if I don't have
any inspiration by evening's end,
I will play some instrumental music
I haven't listened to yet,
look at paintings online,
and read some poetry
from Tumblr till something hits.

Oh dear,
I would like to borrow tomorrow,
steal your tears and sorrow,
sip the salty water
from your well weathered well heart,
spend all the stars like currency
to buy you a bright new hopeful spring,
and hear you sing of poetic dreams,
of dancing fiends
who happen to actually be
super friendly,
while a little serpent slithers slowly
out of curiosity to a spot where we
can sit laughing at all that scars
our creative spirits.

Perhaps, I lack patience.
I am rapacious
for more rapturous
word wonders worked
from your weirdly wired,
but beautifully inspired brain.

It is a shame
that true gems
are not given
the light they need
to sparkle spectacularly,
whilst dull coal figures breed
contempt and greed,
spreading the diseased seeds
of creative mediocrity.

We mere mortals
are not granted
greats spans of time,
cannot cross
the expanse to find
the coal has compacted
cause the fact is
that practice
will outlast us.

New beauty perceived
will be retrieved
long after death’s
dark and dangerous reprieve
has collected our tired forms,

but I prefer to be
awed by the artistry
that you share gracefully,
exposing exploding shards
of your rapidly beating heart
along with the other parts
that presently bleed poetry profusely.

I have passed out
tiny parcels,
perfect little
packages
filled with
my hopefulness.

Given the essence
of my impermanence,
pursued truths
to earn a bit,
but my restlessness
has me rushing towards
shocking storms
of lightning and loving
all that is a detriment
to my mental health.

A poet obsessive
observing and writing
perspectives I didn’t earn,
and in turn
passing them down
like I am a clown
all painted and streaked
while tears leaked,
aching for what
I never seek.

I have given dreams.
In fantasies
chased the lips of
someone I could love,
fantasized about sweet lies
as she would whisper sweetly
echoes of my feeling.

Poetry presented prosaically,
as everything I am, will be,
and was, with just a pinch
of what I will never see.

I am ill-equipped
to take a trip
down the bits
of a broken
rainbow road.

All sparkles
and glittering
a smattering
of shattering
glass reflections
that shred my
bare feet
as I am
journeying
down these
colorful streets.

I’d prefer
the more disturbed
shadowy
sidewalks
in the city of
forgotten loves
and lost memories.
A realm with
clouds that flit
from one
gloomy day
to the next.

I guess
I’ve just
become adapted to
grays and blues,
stray hues
that I use
to paint a world
where abuse
is just the dimming afterglow
of a happy ending tv show
where I learn a lesson
but don’t really grow.
I write but don’t know
why the sirens scream
and poets sing
similar sorrows.

Maybe, I should borrow
Cinderella’s glass slippers
so those rainbow shards
won’t bleed my feet,
and when I finally
fall asleep to meet
someone strange and sweet
my dreams won’t keep
waking me in tears.

When dying won't save a life,
or change your mind
and direct it
towards what you expected
would be right.

When marching and protesting
doesn't turn night to day,
make wrongs less black and gray
as all those shades
fade to red blades
that hew through
innocent hearts seeking the truth.

There is no change,
cuz the powerful
want to keep playing
the same game.

How many times
can we all explain
until in pain
our shoulders slump
from the strain of the gravity
of everything we've been trying
to hold up and make better,
and we collapse into black holes,
falling just in time to float away like ashes
flying from a holocaust furnace,
as remnants of the worst tragedies
that we never learned from?

If you want to get your soul
stole by some swolle bro
then I know a place where you can go,  
but if you're looking for something
more like a lover who wants to
explore new venues with you,
to dance on distant shores,
those soft sandy beaches,
see swirling sea storms
and similarly moving whirlpools,
volcanic expulsions of passion’s ecstasy,
or the insatiability
of the cosmic spectrums and eternity
mingling with infinity,
if you want poetry to try to see
everything that is beyond belief,

then I highly recommend me.

All my thoughts are rhetorical,
as I have become Socrates’ Oracle
foretelling the swelling
of sad and sweet uncertainties
that will certainly
come to haunt me.