Where do they come from
Up out of the drain
In the trash can they swarm
Can not hope to contain
Them in seemingly ceaseless
Invasions each day
If I leave but a speck
Of a crumb
They will stay
Inexplicable ways
They can bite me all over
And scratching
And clawing
Ensues
On my shoulder
I just want them gone
Many thousands I’ve killed
But unyielding formations
Are soon to rebuild
And their armies outnumber
My patience in seconds
As pest control’s number
More audibly beckons
But last thing I need
A homeowner’s expense
When the rent’s too **** high
Write it off
As incensed

Reducing the time
Spent expecting
To earn
Not my usual
Practical
Way to unlearn
Inauspicious
Habitual
Preferences
Render me
Merely a cyborg
With some
Human tendencies
More like dependencies
On the pretending
I know what I’m doing
Convictions defending
What’s left to believe
To stay woken up for
To look forward
To future good things
Still in store

Acknowledge
Confront it
Then bare its hide
Vanquished
Showcase
Its disgrace
And deliver its anguish
Unto
Any would be
Assailants
Make safe
Its estate
With a state
Of surveillance
Invest in its fear
Appears deep
Insincere
And then watch as
Its dissidents  
All disappear
By enabling
Its boastful,
Accomplished
Facade
Like the dread of death
Feels itself
Closer to God

It’s like time just elapses
I’m there in its passage
But absent
Somewhere unbeknownst
Is detachment
From make this a memory
Cherish serenity
Let it define
Reassign your identity
To the Book Facing
Erased
Interpersonal
Words left unsaid
Ever dread
Irreversible
Say your goodbyes
To the moment
And look
To the future
As if
You are now off the hook
For recalling
What made it
Indelible,
Sellable
Some crowning moment
Achievement
More credible

This is my home now
You taught me to seek it
To keep it
To teach it
And need be
To reap it
Of every last drop
Of its lessons refined
And its ocean’s
Emotions’
Unstable
Reminds
This is not paradise
40 million confined
This is not a utopian
Grandeur’s design
This is not an oasis
Of free-flowing rhyme
This is Wild West crime
Within Rome in decline
This is prices will rise
In the flames of the tides
And from not but a gleam
In the stream
Came the dream
And conceived
In its nightmarish traffic
I scheme

I’ve wandered more wastelands
Than care to admit
For to her
Omnipresence
I couldn’t commit
Just submit
To mirages
A hajj
Without faith
In messianic
Guidance
I can’t imitate
Like a wraith
Neither living
Nor dead
I remain
But a remnant
A mendicant
Staking his claim

Reputation precedes me
Proceeding to please
With perfunctory effort
And optimal ease
I relieve you of duty
And duly note when
You assign me a task
And a time to hit send
And my record yet
Still undefeated
But benched
Temporarily
Permanent role
Method acting entrenched
Yet I’d sit here all day
Representing my squad
Though my cause
All works out
I’m still tragically flawed