In West Virginia they dig tunnels or a great big hole,
to extricate from Mother Earth the substance known as coal.
For centuries the coal was burned and smoke would fill the air,
but coal became outmoded and demand's no longer there.

So many miners were laid off as mines did stall or close,
and in Coal Country incomes dropped and unemployment rose.
But Donald Trump made promises to fix the miners' strife,
by saying he'd bring Old King Coal a-roaring back to life.

So Trump reduced the regulations that bring jail or fines
for harm to the environment from power plants or mines.
But all this is irrelevant - Trump has no magic spell
to make the world want coal again. To whom will these mines sell?

Trump may as well have promised to bring back the horse and cart;
for tinkers, whalers, schooner sailors, a rich and brand new start.
For Trump will promise anything and sell his very soul.
Next Christmas his reward should be... a big old lump of coal.

I found a box of words today

In a corner of my mind

I think my brain tucked them away

In a place I'd never find

The box was black and dusty

Full of words I rarely use

I think my brain had hid them

While I suffered from the blues

Words like "hate" and "prejudice"

Words that hurt and maim

I didn't know the box was there

Now, I've found it just the same

Now, what to do with this old box

And the words that are inside

These are true words of avoidance

Words I guess I thought had died

I don't know what just made me

Go into this corner of my head

I must have eaten Mexican

Before I went to bed

But, now I have a box of words

I can not use or sell

And some I see are pretty bad

So, I guess it's just as well

I'll put the box away again

And I'll hide it in my brain

And I'll keep these dark words buried

For to use them is insane.

Take a white woman and cover her in red paint
Take a black woman and do the same
Now you can't tell the color of their skin
You can only judge from what is within

We are taught from a young age
To hate what is different from us
Now it's your choice to be peaceful
It's not the paint that is deceitful

But we are the same kind of people
If you look in my inner reflection
It's not about thick thighs and pigmentations
It's about every heart in all of the nations

Who would you take a slug for
Who do you wish death upon
Don't waste your bad words
On the ears of that's all that they've heard

Speak life into strangers daily
I don't know you or owe you
But I can still call you my friend
And we will fight together until the end

We all bleed red paint
We all die sinners and saints
Don't label me something I ain't
This heart, is not for the faint

So bless my skin
An all that is within
From the tips of my toes to
Every part the good Lord to knows

You judge me if you like
I won't reflect on it
I have cracks in my skin
And all the paint seeps in

And so it fills me up
With all the love and the pain
Of those who bleed out in vain
Because fools speak words that sound insane

Different shades of acceptance
So judgmental in their minds
Because they fear what is different
It's not your fault they on ignorance

So color me blue
And let the sky watch
Because we have bigger problems
Than who's white and who's not

when I was a child
a tremor entered me
and did not leave me for several years
I sat quivering in fear
as I heard a belt striking bare skin
I could almost feel it on my own
'obedece a tu familia'
and I did
this legacy of destructive love
and punishment instilled
by the ancestors of my grandfather
it was in many a scorching summer days
that brought about unadulterated joy
yet so much misery
tempers flared
but we would just keep dancing
playing
obligatory kissing strangers on the cheeks
until it was time to leave
and then I would lay under the cool sheets
my bare feet blackened with the dirt
from outside
hoping that tomorrow I would gain a
little more courage
or become somebody else

He says "Geek Poet!
Leave the politics alone
Stick to Pop culture"

Cousin.
Politics ARE Pop culture.
don't you see?

in a world where businesses
buy natural disaster insurance
In fear of presidential tweets
McDonald's burger vending machines
You think this isn't dystopia?

We play games to escape.
where can we go
when the "real world"
is just as scary
upside down?

Tell me, Cousin.
Where do you write your poetry?
is it safe?

Do you surround yourself with muses?
back turned to a naked woman?
is there whiskey on the bar,
A journal,
your favorite pen?
Your cell phone,
clentching in the public restroom?

because no matter where you are.
that sanctuary
is a ******* pillow fort
compared to the Fort Knox
of an artists imagination

politics ARE pop culture
China is throwing unfathomable
amounts of money into Propaganda
targeting millennials though memes.
Fish don't see water, remember?

You are telling me
I can't write about politics.
There are Americans
who have never voted,
Radical left and right facebook profiles
protecting and attacking A Racist,
selfish, blemish on our history.
you wonder why we are scared, Cousin?

You want to know why I am so loud?

I watch Men step alligator shoe
out of Boston limousines
Slicked back hair straight
from wolf of wallstreet
belligerent screaming
"I do what I Waaaaaaant!"
"She does what she waaaaaaaaaaaaants!"
"We do what we waaaaant!"

This is the world
we're escaping from.
Excuse me if I break
from the zombie jokes
The vampire romances
Focus on the dead bodies
in our own city, Cousin.

Our demons are real now.

dystopian literature
called for the 2017 election
as far back as the 1930s'

Senator Buzz Windrip
from "It can't happen here"
by Sinclair Lewis
makes promises
to "return America to a better time".
back in 1935

buying validity for his ideas
in airtime on the radio,
tarring those who disagree,
as tools of mother russia,

dismissing woman,
as silly socialists.
naming the press
"a lot of irresponsible wind bags."

In the book "Parable of the talents",
Octavia butler Predicts a "Pox" In 2015
Wiping most of the population.
President Andrew Steele Jarret
promising to return the country
to an "Older Simpler time".
She wrote this book in 1998

Want to learn how to defeat Trump?
Read "Our Twisted Hero,"
by Yi Munyol

Read "In the Heart of the Valley of Love, "
by Cynthia Kadohata

All of these Dystopian fantasies
Prepare the Geeks
to rise up and fight.
Pop culture is the only thing saving us
Knowledge is the only thing saving us
Standing up,
Making art,
Being loud
is the only thing saving us
from the red button
in the orange hands
of the man who NEVER Had
the best words,

Because we do.

Repeat After me:

We The Artists
The Geeks who shall inherit
Swear to protect our words.
We will not bow,
bend,
or break.
Ink is the blood of prophets
The voice is a weapon

Excuse me if I fight
For education over distractraction.
Forgive me for preaching
Art as our gospel.

you can't Incite Revolution
by throwing dice at ghosts.

I am sick of being tall
because my friends
are too busy crawling
I'm putting all my stat points into
inspire

Let me incite placebo healing
for a small fraction
of the tortured
anxiety pretzels I walk along
each day.

I will spit
on anxiety paper-cuts
from this paperback of bigotry
in our future history
labeling myself neosporin prayin'
God,
PLEASE
let me be charismatic enough.

I come from a place
Where reality's a dream
We sleepwalk awake
Silent are the screams

Uncertainty is certain
Lies are absolute
Destruction just creates
The vital and minute

Consciously unaware
Of our intended mistakes
Reminded to forget
That giving only takes

I come from a place
Where eyes never see
Through the mists of illusion
Surrounding you and me

In between the Milky Way and the black holes
Of the universe inside of this ever expanding mind
Growing only to see itself ever smaller
Humbled truth feels the most
Adoring
The fragile perfection of sparkles inside the morning dew
And the mind flows in all directions and thoughts
So random but in this infinite state
Logic is only a string you use to control the
Beads of experience and sometimes it helps
And in other times you get a glimpse
Of something unfathomably familiar
And you know that no matter how much Blessings you gathered in life
Without a contact it left an empty space
Or was it there since before the beginning
What DO I know in fact that cancels the
Clarity of the feeling that through a sideways
Glimpse I captured a snapshot of home
In the strangest of places
All this rumbiling cacophony of worlds
Yet again fails to explain
The absence of logic in something
That is beyond logic for it is
The meaning
And despite it all
Life goes on
You play your part
The way you must
The way you feel
And you still know so little
Feeling the truth on the periphery