"how strange it is to be anything
at all"

sometimes i look
at my skin
and wonder why we have
branches growing out of lined palms,
and wonder why
our eyeballs look like galaxies
compacted

and i realize that there is no answer
but to stop thinking about it
and just
live
for ***** sake.

The white pages, they taunt me
Haunt me
Empty canvas stripped of colour
Somehow duller
And I'm dimmer too for that
A fading glimmer
Each line shakes as I run away
Disappearing yesterdays
The heat hardens my fingertips
Faucets drip
Grasping at thin red strings
My aching heart
Cannot sing

Born and raised under smoke towers
I grew up on soil that wealth powers
Greed sours - round here are found no flowers
If it rains, I advise you to avoid the showers
And actually - just don’t use the water at all
It seems one of the plants has had a close call
A strange kind of leak through their impervious wall
Select folks knew weeks ago but couldn’t forestall
After all, toxins in the river shouldn’t have anyone concerned
This water has been poison since the century turned
In a place of industry – poor men should have learned
Slaving along the Kanawha doesn’t entitle you what’s earned
When you take a deep breath, don’t savor it slow
On the job breathing easy is all about what you know
Which mountain you reside atop and your complete bio
Cause here nobody knows nothing unless they're some CEO

I drafted my dreams out on a string from window to window

                                                         ­                                               Where they could see some sunshine

                So that they could feel the breeze that whipped the willow trees

                                                          ­I lay on the grass for hours hoping something would change

                                        Everything seemed so strange and sadly serene

My dreams used to be such a large part of me
  
                                                           ­                          I finished my cigarette as the wind writhed, breathing

                                    Pulled down the preliminary principles made of follies, folded them quietly

       Walked inside, adjusting my somber eyes to darker lights

                                                         ­       I open the closet door gently, hands full of my old fabrications

                             I keep lying to myself & trying to tell myself I'm
                                                             ­                                                   putting them away for
                                                                ­                                                                 ­                     *'safe-keeping'.

This lesson learned the hard way is daunting
I live my life solitary lonely and wanting
But this is what happens for trying to trap a star
Let down - their light radiates endlessly far
The balance of things would be too upset
And the other stargazers aren’t going to forget
The pressure would quickly become unstable
It’s like searching for the truth in a fable
You may think you know who a person is
But blinding is the star that you burden like this
It’s bound to become an illusion of what you wish it could be
Hopes deceive - do good and throw it in the sea
Do not drink poison to quench a thirst
In lessons the sad man must become well versed

The train comes by every morning bout 5
I wish that train could find a cliff and collide
Before the demons with it arrive
Always, some poison they unpack
Wherever it came from, I wish it’d go back
That whistle blower must be the most vile of all
He probably blew whistles during the disaster in Bhopal
Sounding off as thousands of people died
Now I hear melodies of their killer pesticides
Echoing deep thru the hills, into the chemical valley
Here it continues adding death to it's tally
So rich men can be richer, they threaten a poor mans fate
Acting like life is worth less than methyl isocyanate