Coward
You felt it
I know it
So chase it
Don’t ghost its
Verboseness
Its lack of embraces
Its pauses in places
Its stuttering
Muttering
Fluttering
Bumblebee
Try as I might
There is lonely
My lunacy
Solely
My infancy
Slightly matured
More inured to the suffering
Sooner you bring
More restored
By the solitude sorrows
I sing
Upon feeling the jolt
Of your poisonous sting

Worked hard for this bastion
With masterful
Craftsmanship
Forged
In a crucible
Of my undoing
Secured
Rest assured
In catastrophe
Brewing
Like cauldrons
Of storms
Like calderas
Of potions
Like maelstroms
Of mind
In a sea of emotions
I’ve courted disquiet
Cocooned in unease
A tumultuous riot
Adorned in oblivion
Shrinking like violet

Running out of
Ways to care
You win some
Lose some
Grin and bare
The failure
Incomplete successes
Life is making
Cleaning messes
Shame,
Humiliation
Stresses
More or less
A desperate plea
A cry for help
Since infancy
Along the way
Some tend to hear it
Seek your truth
Then come to fear it
So, I’m simply finished
Trying
Here on out
Just keep on dying

I am the imminent
Detriment
Human,
The eat the rich
Feed the poor
Final solution
Delusions of grandeur
Commanded
Beside
Shadow valleys
And alleyways
No place to hide
Nor a refuge
Awaiting
My ego escape
Just the alternate one
That looks good in his cape
And the gaping vast maw
Of the void opens wide
And there’s no place to run
And still fewer to hide
Now coerced to confront
Its indulge affirmations
Its many minds,
Many lives,
Infinite faces
I still play the game
And claim victory
Seamlessly
Seizing my darkest desires
Since infancy
Infamy,
Outcast,
Pariah
Expelled
And despite how deep into
The distance
I meld
There is no sanctuary
In which I confide
The unspoken
More vocal
Than no place to hide

Is this why I do
What I picture
Undone
Why internalized voices
All rolled into one
Like a gun to the temple
Corroding the psyche
Gets triggered in silence
Appearing unsightly
Unloading its violence
In public now
No chance
I’ll ever come quietly
Not so politely
Conveying anxiety
Try as I might
To cast doubt
And aspersion
There’s something unspeakably
Sinister
Lurking
And surfacing
So close
To breaking the skin
Is its
Solace in madness’s
Most aloof grin

Had it all figured out
On my way up
From way down
Commitments to change
Into willingly bound
Just to meet unforeseen
Redirection
Temptation
Throw it
All away
On a whim’s
Inclination
In case it should vacate
Holistic embraces
The pieces all present
But in the wrong places
Or forced into place
Where they do not belong
Now it’s stuck in my head
Like some kind of love song

Dusk settles in
On my grimmest despair
Of my guilty subconscious
I’m all too aware
Too fixated on quelling
The faith reservations
Uproarious tirade
Of self-confrontations
At war with
Internal conformist
Resent
I nocturnally wander
The wastes of lament
Not enough for
My suffering’s
Love hesitant
But sincere
What I actually feel
Is content

Know just where to sit
Bring the fringes to me
And then centralize
All of it
Cable TV
And no thanks
I’ve got plenty
Of drugs to have fun
But still innovate
Later than
Never been done
I’ve been one with
Euphoria’s
Relative
Masses
Organically
Championed
It in my classes
The last of us
Wary
There is no escaping
This room
Or this tomb
Nor the gloom
Of heartbreaking
So listen
And learn
Then apply it painstakingly
Diligent
Increment
Progress ensues
When we talk to each other
About the issues

Friends lost forever
And families estranged
Does it go?
Does it turn?
Can it not stay the same?
I see holidays
More like malaise
And I hate it
Accustomed to work
When I once celebrated
Just stuck in my ways
Out of place
Aggravated
I never thought changes
Around me
Unwelcome
A pop culture reference
Exceedingly seldom
Confirmed understood
But I couldn’t care less
Retrospectively
Forward progress
Calculus

Embracing tonight
I feel lonely and pensive
I heard from my girl
But my home is so empty
Seems like a lot less
Than three years ago
Entered
Found purpose and cause
In the people I’ve mentored
A living,
A being,
A place to belong
A community
Hidden
Was here all along
And still part of it
Just at a distance
Transition
To next chapters
Elsewhere
Adventures unwritten

Attacking the man
Not the candidate’s plan
Nor his policy
Killing spree
Gun in each hand
Let the grandstand
Theatrics
Commence
The pretense
Can’t convince me
Some fool in a suit
Represents
What expensive
New spectacle  
Circuses
Act
On behalf of the people
Before super PAC

Extinction
It happens
The reigning claim
Wanes
We consume
And indulge
In the holy war
Games
We persist
In complicit
Explicit
Slave trades
Then they dig up our bones
Where we dug our own graves

I only know
So low it goes
Written down
And with each note
Composing
My hole in the ground
Be it of my
Enormity
Hubris
Reborn
As my self-esteem’s
Self-loathing
Vision
Reformed
Just remember me
Staunchly
And stoically
Stolid
Amassing my fortunes
Like orphans
In squalid
Conditions
From riches
To rags
I was given
My recompense
Just more expensive
Laments of my privilege
A whole village
Left
In the wake of my dream
Be at peace
With profession’s
And profit’s
Cuisine

And yet,
As I stumbled
And plummeted,
Spiraled
I soared to the heights
Of a hubris
Unrivaled
Compiled
My youth
Tribulation
Disgrace
As I fell
More in love
With its tragic mistakes
Not the least of them
Leaving
For more fulfilled shores
Nor the most
I could gain
From unsettling scores
Of the populous
Forcefully normed
To my kind
The metropolis
Downfall
Reformed
In my mind

They had a big heart
Know they did
Why they died
They were living
For eating
And dying inside
Unreservedly love
They imparted to others
But bound to their
Cravings
The decadence
Smothers
And deeper
In deeper-dish
Dissonance
Lingers
The blood sugar
Insulin
Plantation’s cane
Now the Neo-Monopoly’s
Game of weight gain

Like a virus
Just uploaded  
Human nature
Soon outmoded
Superannuated
Use
What purpose I have now
Obtuse
A recluse
More machine
Than man
The latest tech
Within my hand
Yet still don’t understand
The changes
What my role
In climate
Change is
Only my directive
Senses
What the coding
Fails to mention

Normalize
The no more lies
Cushions of privilege
Urbanize,
Demonize,
Vestige of village
The thrill is
The ****
And the millions
In shrill
Shrieking panic
Demand it
And they pass the bill
But then we foot the bill
And the citizens
Rest
While the rest of us jest,
Freeze!
You’re under arrest

The last words I’ll ever write
Her
Unobscured
For each day spent without her
To with ‘er inured
Rest assured
My finality
For her  
Undoubted
My feelings no longer
Illogically
Shrouded
Confounded she’d so much
As suffer
To take me
Unbounded
Awaiting
Her heart
To erase me
Or dare I hope
Soulfully,
Solely,
Embrace me
Again as she ever has
Tried to escape me
So let again lonely
Consume and unmake me
Replace me eventually
Fading from memory
Mine left to rot
In her absent
Serenity

Don’t think you can sell me
On more than needs-based
I don’t think you can tell me
I’m wrong
To my face
That the price justifies
What the world lost to make it
To take it to market
For product replacement
Of nary apparently
Valueless cogs
With the e-commerce
Metrics
Of new money gods

In bastions
Of Athens
In bathos
Unmentioned
We learned of my most
Civilizing
Pretension…
But miasma in the streets
The prices spike for gas and eats
And aisles full of the deserted
Still put ***** in the seats
Armada fleets
Exacting trade
By any force
Of commerce mightier
Than people it extorts
And it aborts its own last rites
To feed the richest
Their reports
And still under my aegis
My supremacy elitist
Representing staunch
And solely
No conviction
More egregious
Than my appetite
For sleight of hand
Subliminal starvation
My addiction to
The revenue’s
Casino reservation
To the totem
Status hierarchy
Token virtue’s
Price,
So tag the flag
Like body bags
And watch me wage a war
On rights

We are every bit as worthless
As the dirt is
But it grows
We just impose
And peddle
Influential
Genocidal droves
Is all we ever will accomplish
From the reaping
That we sow
Our own destruction seeds
Implanted
In enchantments of a scene
With ease
Entranced
By what askance
Dehumanizes us,
Machines

I work in the future
And thrive in the past
I live in the now
For I’ve mastered this class
Armageddon
Armed conflict
Is messy and grim
Is maniacal
Viral
Beheadings to spin
For extinct
My distinction
From that which
You cling
To popularity
As currency
Concurrently
A shopping spree
And I am just an old,
Fossilized,
Unwritten history
Predating
And presaging
Starkly raving
Of the grave
For I have been there
I have seen it
I have marched
In its parade
And I will be there at the end
To watch it all go up in flame
And in the eons passing by
They will assign me
A new name

Try to keep me from my students
I’ll be back with retribution
Execute
My education
Like an edifice
From ruin
For consumed
In long entombed
Devoid of purpose
I collapse
Without a point
Through which to put it
On this page
Within my grasp
I am aghast,
Must teach the class
That this divides us from the beasts
But has the power
To unite us
As a species that can speak

Eviscerate
Take from me
Leave me defenseless
Who knew
A mistake
Could become
So portentous
Incenses
Ineffably
Target acquired
But seldom is I
The object of my ire

At least for now
Can claim a living
Earn my girlfriend’s hand
Forgiving
Me for daily
Disappointments
Knows my pointedness
Is poignance
Shrouded,
Hidden
Not for long
I soon reveal
To her
What’s wrong
As if she wasn’t
Here already
In my head
And heartbeats steady
When her voice
Dispels
And quells
All levels of
My inner hells
Then only
Inner peace
Resumes
Where formerly
It just entombs

And I will never ******* matter
To a soul upon this dying world
Seems like it’s always ending
And into the setting sun I’m hurled
From once again
At pinnacles
Of hubris
I am circling
To unearthing
Tragic flaws
A cause
For which
The struggles worth it
Though a better off position
From what happens
For a reason
Must reveal itself in time
Or I’m
Deprived of my completion

Then parts of you fade
That once wholly you made
The most vital component
Of how much you made
Not financially
More existential
Affirming
That all intellectual
Causes
I’m earning
The chance to excel
Don’t expel me disgraced
For a harmless,
Albeit now costly
Mistake
But you make of it
Consequence
Where none is needed
And take from me more
Than I ever believed in

That’s all we ever were
At the beginning
And the end
From reservations
To the ad campaigns
Of bliss
Disinformation
Just Americans
Ahead of them
The dread of lesser nations
Ever conquerors
From wanderers
The squandering potential
On divisions
When the vision
At its best
Experimental  
Come together
When the weather seems
To mystify us all
And from the ashes of our ruins
We will grow
A shopping mall

My sorrow disarms me
When ignorance harms me
Had known you
This meant to me
More than a profit
Could ever predict
What it feels
To have lost it
Perhaps then you’d think
Not in numbers and code,
Not in protocol calculi
Heartless and cold

My dearest enchantress
My last second
Chances
Romance is revitalized
There by your side
Most profound
When I’m down
In the ground
Where I died
Or a part of me did
And there’s no resurrection
Not sure if a god
Would undo my transgression
No furthermore lessons
Nor tutoring sessions
No gainful employment
Of actual skill
Just robotic hack protocols
Running the mill
With their judgment,
Indifference,
All empathy lacking
Forgive and forget
Would be humans reacting
But no, cast me out
Revoke my
Humble claim
Make the smallest mistake
The worst I ever made

Not another word
About my misbegotten
Purpose
All compendiums
Addendums
End
In every bit as worthless
As these verses
Reimburse me
For the squandered
Fortunes fated
To be spent
In purgatories
Just a man
Incarcerated
In a prison
Of what vision’s
City ruins
Have created
I have crumbled
Inundated
Like a cookie dipped in milk,
By the weight of over-shaded  
Like a flower left to wilt
There were no pills
Or panaceas
To alleviate undoing
Only bills to pay
Atop already
Mountain debts
Accruing
All before we even come to her
To once upon a time
We were
Like fairy tales
Enamored bliss
Impaled upon
Unhappiness

No other way
To emphasize
I never asked
To be alive
But now that I’m
Beside you
Strive
To feel you are
The reason why
When at the end of love  
Retakes me
Only yours
Rejuvenates me
Makes me a holistic
Man
Still waits for me
To understand
Awakens some inherent
Calm
Before my storm of longing
Song
For ever long
I’ve serenaded
Visions of
A love
Not faded
Plain and simple
True, sincere
Heartaches
And breaks
When you’re not here
And when I fear you
Losing faith
My hope becomes
A restless wraith

Citizens
And denizens
Behold the city ruins
Sins
The toxic pit
Of veterans
Overprescribed
Their medicines
Americans
Addictive state
Its own worst enemy
Equate
In theory
Its ideals
Foretold
A sheepish populous
Controlled
And molded by
Their tales of old
The power brokers
Chokehold
Sold
Us all a panacea
To the ills of governed men
Just convince them they are free
Increase the ease
With which they spend

So this is what
Dying inside
Most resembles
I get all depressed
And I never
Write better
Just give me four walls
And occasional light
And I’ll gladly dwell
Well
In a cell of my plight
Not in spite
Of the doubt
I can make it out there
But in fear
I’d be living
The daily nightmare

Hey you guise
What is really your name
What primordial phantoms
Still dance in the rain
What enchants you
Romances your
Dark necromancy
And grants its surrender
Without sycophancy
Reveals inner-workings
Of secrets entombed
What it feels
Like a gentle,
Identical wound
And it sees through
To where
You must shed
The veneer
And it shows you the way
That you truly appear

Still slingin’
‘Dem warhawks
Right ‘outta the skies
And exposing the con-artist
Fascist disguise
Give a ****
On what side
Of the aisle
You’re on
If you lie, cheat and steal
From the people
You’re done

Try to learn from it
For there was a moment
In it
When you truly loved each other
You went with it
For you’d miss it
In the presence of another
For its absence
Was a future
Tends to spell
Impermanence
But we dispel it
As a nemesis
Of consciousness
Submits
Like flags in tatters,
Nothing matters,
It is useless to resist
So surrender
As it were
To her most enduring
Vow
And if it isn’t you
Still solemn
Be her sacrificial cow
And take to heart,
Not yet apart,
Remain rejoicing
In the now

This is the end
Of my life
I’m afraid
Where do memories go
When they cease to be made
Do they fade
Isolated
In coffins contained
Or live on
In some legacy
Shouldering blame
For the cornerstone laid,
For its labor unpaid,
For the road to extinction
For profits is paved

Crooked cops
Crop-dusting
Walking dead drops
Set up shop
Cracking rock
The crime lords of the block,
Never stopping
Mass production
Mass incarcerate
Consumption
Just repackaged
And reformed it
Into urban deconstruction
Underfunded housing project
For an upper
Classpiration
Gentrifying
Higher rises
Like a fentanyl
Sedation
Running rampant
Through the streets
And through the flesh and bone
It eats
And as the door comes crashing down
Its execution
Is complete
And so in summary
Impunity
With which it gets away
Has ever been
And ever will be
Making freedmen
Into slaves

In the farthest-flung fringe
A far cry from response
There resides an outsider
Comprised of what haunts
Him, a scribe to his host
To the world
A ghost writer
Askance in his stance
On the evil empire
Exile imposed
On his selfish desire
The ills of his making
Have taken too much
So afflict him with vision
But gift him no brush
For he will just
Depict it
As cognizant dust
As an infinite sorrow
Ephemeral joy
But what else makes a man
Of a scared little boy?

You would seem
So far away,
So old and gray
From me astray
Estranged in nightly,
Out of sightly
Slightly differing decay
Complacent discontent
Is swept
Under delusions
Wanting more,
What more perfections,
Burning questions
Could you possibly
Need answers for?
Is no
Togetherness
Of us
Enough to turn our bones
To dust
What must
Befall
Before it’s just
All future ideation
Hushed

Mixing the signals
Conflating attraction
With courtesy’s
Chemical
Overreaction
Unwanted attention,
Unflattering flex,
The presumptuous
Ego-dystonic
Wants ***
Nothing less,
Nothing more
Than to finish before
Recollections
Of dignity
Up off the floor
Or reflections
On mirrors
Preparing to split
Personalities
Rift,
We’re just not
Intuit

What if love
Was just fragments
Mere figments
Imagined
What draws bodies close
To embracing
Impassioned
Would tragic
Just typify
How it concludes
We confuse its temptation  
With swinging of moods
Could illusions
Enamor you
More than a kiss
What possessive delusions
Compel us to this
Missing piece,
Wishing more,
Holding dear,
Longing for
Bore the weight of its loss
Like misplacing one’s mind
And therein
It shall stay
It’s in one
We must find

Ghosts of my own
Shadows passing
From past mistakes
Drove a stake
Straight
Into remnants of fate
And erased every mark
That I made on this place
Pearly gates
I’ve been pounding on
Just empty space

So it’s back to the study
Of tending to legacy
How and why
Man persists
Writing his history

Down in the rabid
Whole world
Gone to war
Down in dumps
Of lined-pockets
That buy and sell more
Down beneath the extinction
Clockwork
Agent Orange
Down furthermore still
In its cluster bomb
Torrent

So back to the study I go
Tending legacy
Soon I will know
How and why
I write history

Barely an enemy
Faced on the front
But the one in the mirror
Undaunted confront
For we go to our graves
Free to liberate slaves
But we settle
For personal,
Tribal enclaves
Just a trivial anecdote
Lost in dilution
Delusions of
Sought after
Final solution

So back to the study we must
Tend to legacy
Soldier on
King and pawn
Written in history

Whatever I don’t use
Becomes the gloomy
World away
Electrify
Entire nations
At the standard
Rate of pay
For what remains
Of degradation
Is the only thing that matters
Only flag I’d sooner wave
Before reducing it to tatters
Silver platters
And the scraps upon
Could fill my empty bowl
But some primeval,
Greater evil
Is devouring me
Whole
For I cannot be in control
Of cultivating
Innovation
I cannot feed all the people
Empty promises
Salvation
Merely offer
But a morsel
Of my hunger
To fulfill
What a good meal
Among the rest of us
Collectively
Could steal

Living in
Transition years
Converting to
Transmission gears
I fear we are
Becoming death
Becoming
Less
Autonomous
Peacekeeping mess
Intent
To save
Content
With content’s
Shallow grave
Amassing
Mass extinction
Wealth
Relapse
Environmental health
Collapsing edifices
Fall
Behind the mask
Broadcasts
A pall
And after all we’ve built
To last
Somewhere along
The system crashed
So now we either
Disconnect
Entirely
Or redirect
The tech,
The mecha-
Intellect
Unto a course-corrected
Flesh

More passer
Than dribbler
The scritch and scratch
Scribbler
My flow is a river
In come what May
Winters
I swim in the shiver
And even in bloom
All my numinous
Withers
My luminous
Gloom
Still obscured
To the witness
My freakiest nature
Survivalist
Fitness
A wishlist
Of ashes
Compassion
Impulse
And with tact
My collapsing
Synapses
Convulse

Anchored
Drag me
Solace as ever
Serenity weeping
Cantankerous
Sadly
My life away sleeping

Can’t give up
Reaching for
Seeking
A meeting
Convening with clarity
All the more fleeting
The seating is limited
Lighting gets dim
And obscuring its absence
Oblivion grim
Underpinned
By the fins
Circling as I swim
Overtones
Of imploding
Corrosive
Head spins
Barely scratching the surface
Of where to begin
When I’m out on a limb
Saying
Find what is lost
But before you sell souls
Please consider the cost