And I brought all the words
That I needed to say
Dare I form them
Some rather
Material way
Some ethereal sway
Taken hold
Of my hand
And with dexterous
Penmanship
Each inky strand
Made its mark on the page,
Freed my soul from its cage
And let spill the life force
By the edge of my blade
Let it flow unreservedly
And
Unrelenting
Instilled
In serenity’s
Solace lamenting
And still
In calamity’s
Calming
Fomenting
A wrath only I
Could begin to describe
And a madness
Of malice
Too warped to decide
Which is which
Who is who
Where to go
What to do
In an infinite void
There is merely
Beware
We are here
We are now
We are locked in its glare

Grow up in a swamp
Dampen spirited
Sinking
There’s no coming back
No escape
From rethinking
This home
We are rooted to
Stone’s throw
From who we knew
Soon to submerge
In the dismal
Mundanity’s
Tireless dirge
May it serve
Unrelenting
From Quaker to Cat,
Like the memories’
Nemeses
Harken us back
To catharsis
In darkness’s
Walk through the woods
The reclaiming,
The changing
Of old neighborhoods
But to leave it behind
In the mired
Decline
Is impossible
Lest you
Return
Time to time

And that’s when I wrote you
Came right out
And told you
We were just
Reflections
Of similar figments
Our differences
Deeper than people
Of pigments
Upbringing
Diverges
In privileged
And poor
As the middle class
Widens the rift
Even more
What a chore it’s become
To among them
Reside
When a score
Of conquistadors
Seeks to divide
And presiding
Unprecedential
In his crimes
In his locked box
Of docs
In his Fox
Populies
Is the traitor,
The ******,
The racist
Tax fraud
Still enriching
His image
Like profits of God

Must have meant
Something then
Same old
How could it end
What makes us
Carry on
Forward from here
For the whole world imploding
Dark nights
To appear
For the fear
Sinking in
I go through it alone
Maybe turn over
Every last
Perfect match stone
Before finding the one
If such notions exist
As an actual form
Or a premature kiss

Apparatus
Against us
It wickedly
Works
From worthlessness
Into a purchase
Converts
Any currency
Currently
Rotting in vaults
Any hapless
Homemakers
Estranged in their faults
So deranged
In their stranger things
Bingeing
Addictions
Adrift
In the rifts
That still shatter the kitchens

Shards of a shimmering
Sanity
Slither
The rain,
Forest flame,
Mortal-stained
Rivers wither
And little known
Little me’s
Watery grave
Seems a long way away
In some newfound malaise
Where the waves
Undulate
Even out
Across land
And alone in its
Thralldom
I stand but a man

You can read
Whatever you want
In any font
You write your name
May it contain
The pages waiting
On the narrative to change
Upon the ways
Its flags are waving
Over battlefields of graves,
Beneath its shades
Belies the aisles
Mercantile
Sails of slaves
And if we wanted
To improve it
We would have to let them choose,
Even if it means
The winners
Would have nothing left to lose