he was radicalized in
the marshes of Vietnam
when they told him to fire
his loaded gun at a
group of school children

a dissident who
marched on Washington
with a Reverend and a King
and read Žižek Zinn and
Chomsky's reflections on direct
action and anarchistic philosophy

a staunch opponent of
police brutality in his
fifties he protested the
****** of Rodney King

he did not go quietly
into the black abyss but
raged against a putrescent
apparatus obsessed with control

he died waiting for the Revolution

it dawned on me as i
brushed my teeth this
cold and frigid Sunday morning
that Christianity is predicated on
caricatures of morality and desiccated
imagery guilt-tripping and manipulating
the emotionally malleable with sycophantic
fantasies of sempiternal enmity
simmering infernally within dogmatic
magma melting mundane minds

we aren't made in the
image of the invisible
and the more i study
the face looking back
in the mirror i can't seem
to find a single similarity
between you and me

you've spent nearly fifty years
in service to a deity Nietzsche buried
half a century bent-kneed but
somehow i'm the one who
needs to try an open mind

in the face of such
deafening and deadly hypocrisy
is it any surprise i rose
in revolt against this
putrid apparatus of control

it's sad
you see
you fancy yourself an image
of the Nazarene but you're
so unlike your savior
a Sadducee dancing like a cobra
to the whimsical melodies of
snake-oil peddlers so

by all means
pray for me
the clouds can't hear
your desperate pleas this
galaxy is apathetic to our
finite and fragile existence
a momentary blip on the radar of
a fourteen billion year old universe

yet you possess the audacity
to believe an intergalactic being
instilled you with predestiny so
you can judge and condemn just
like the villains in
your beloved fairy tales

tell me the truth
do you even read
the lines of red bled
across the ancient pages
of your gospels or do
you just pretend that
Jesus said whatever
makes you happy

clearly you fancy yourself
the center of the universe but
as much as i hate to be
the bearer of bad news
the world revolves around the sun
not the Son of Man

i'd rather brave the depths of hell
than grovel before your
narcissistic King of Kings
i will never beg for
you to forgive me
i freed my mind and like
a canary in a coal mine i'm
insistently pointing towards the exit
so crucify me if you will
even you couldn't escape the irony

abandon your holy text for works
of art and philosophy and science
your scriptures are a tale
told by an idiot
full of sound and fury
signifying nothing

i will not relent in my
blasphemous semantics
nor repent for my perceived iniquity
your Christ is interned within
an unmarked grave outside Jerusalem  
and before long now we
will all join him
though admittedly not in
the fashion you'd imagined

there is no feast prepared
for my inevitable homecoming
so keep your ring
a golden band reminding
those who read the
anthologies of history of
property and slavery

i'll deny until i die
i won't bind my mind to
your tepid theology
i am not the prodigal son

the pastor prattles on
and i nod off as my
phone shudders in the
pocket of my jeans

i fish it out
during the brief
interim where
everyone obediently
closes their eyes and
bows their heads
victims for a hungry
guillotine

the screen alights with
her name just as i
suspected and i voraciously
read the rough draft of the
poem she's just sent me  

the clock stops in the middle
of two separate seconds
i ruminate over the illuminated text
on screen digesting feminine
intentions between intermittent
glances to see if anyone's noticed
how even Father Time
paused to read her lyrics

i'd read dozens of excerpts
penned by her generous hands
sonnets wreathed in somber cadences
spoken word blistering with brazen passion
and compassionate pleas beseeching
all who'd listen to thaw cold hearts
and take heed of the lost
and lonely masses but
i never read something where
she referenced me

alas
the piece was
brief
and i can't help
but think i am
one of her many
footnotes

and the sick and subtle
tragedy is that she
instigates my exposition
rises in each action
and catalyzes every
climactic conclusion

vote for nobody
because nobody cares
that you're a wage-slave
that healthcare is astronomical
and college is unaffordable

nobody tells the truth
about global warming
nobody gives a ****
about smashing the patriarchy
nobody understands that
black lives matter

and since nobody
has an ounce of
integrity it's in our
own best interest
to let nobody have
all the power

if nobody can stop
the endless war and
ubiquitous surveillance
apparatus that subjects
the world to invasive
violations of privacy
then i will give
nobody my support

nobody pledges allegiance
to all brothers and sisters
and organisms on planet Earth
and feels the weight
of each life crushed
by the gears of capitalism

nobody sits alone in
the school cafeteria
nobody begs for change
on the front-steps
of Goldman Sachs
nobody pirouettes atop
a Charging Bull

nobody stares
back at you
in the mirror

a vote for nobody is
a vote for everyone

she has
half-a-dozen
nicknames

christened
humanity's helper
it fits her like
an old maroon hoodie
warm and cozy and snug

she goes by
Lexi
for the sake
of brevity

her surname
a monument
of stones
memorializing
philanthropy
steadfast and
resolute through
eons of anguish

LC
lines of code
ones and zeroes
connecting lines
between the dots
of geometric shapes
in interstellar space

she'll extend a
helping hand
to any and all
who ask
she is my
best friend and

she says
i am the
only one
allowed to
call her
love

we abuse our
most precious tool
the human psyche

misuse the recognition of patterns
in inane sameness
epiphanies of apophenia
misguided musings muddling
our addled minds

wasting brainpower on
fantasies of deities rather
than scientific discoveries and
emancipatory philosophies that
could liberate us from the
miasma of modern life

inquiry is free

if god is love and
god is dead then what does that
tell us about love

vultures feast on
carrion carcasses
gore crows gather in
black blotches overhead
clouds of soot
a conspiracy of ravens
happily gawking
flapping avidly
before diving down
to rip apart
putrid flesh
hanging sloppily
from bloodied beaks

the dead feed
on the dead

you still show up
every time i put
pen to paper
looking down
over my shoulder
watching inspiring
you inhabit every molecule of ink

each time i sit down at my desk
you peel apart my brain cells
as if you were pulling
back your veil on
your wedding day and
surveil tangential passages
bridging my synaptic gaps

i am a bee caught within your web
and i feel your thousand eyes
probing and poring over me
i couldn't escape
even if i wanted to

each black drop or generous dollop
has a hundred thousand
splintered fragments of you
fractions refracting strife and
intermittent anguish that
comes and goes without
so much as a
moment's warning
or a fond farewell

i have grown accustomed
to a lack of sleep

on the drive home i
spotted an absurd billboard broadcasting
a benign worldview an asinine
sign espousing a single word meant
to inspire endless iterations of hope and
worship in one bisyllabic phrase

believe.

it had a period
at the conclusion
as if this was
the end all and be all
a sycophantic
intonation that insinuated
pseudo-religious proclamations
independent of rational
thought and evidence
a foregone preclusion
to excluding others
on the condition that
they didn't share the
exact same faith

ironically
the billboard advertised a
multi-million dollar company  
Morgan & Morgan
a law firm masquerading
beneath the pretentious
pretense of their slogan
For The People
as if they were god's gift
to the city of Orlando
but if they were truly devoted
to the precepts of Jesus i dare say
they'd spend less time gloating
and more time defending the poor

'cause when you're making thousands
of dollars an hour on someone else's
pain and misfortune i somehow wager
the radical rabbi who entered Jerusalem on a
donkey would have a thing or two to say

what would the world
look like if the people
who call themselves Christ-followers
quit spewing sermons on billboards
and focused instead
on their savior's
greatest commandment

if a film fails to
pass the Bechdel Test
will you have the gaul to point it out

when your job forces you
to choose between paying rent
and lying to sell an ethically bankrupt
overly-priced yearly membership to your
not-so-friendly-neighborhood-bookstore
will you stand by conviction and walk alone

when your students ask
why you detest authority
will you tell it to them straight
explain that you estimate people
are at their best when they question
everyone and everything standing in their way

at any rate
no matter what
regardless of the cost
will you speak the truth
even when your voice shakes

i once met an old
man
who did
sudoku
with ink and
pen

black or blue
it didn't
much matter
one way
or another

so long as
it was never
pencil
he despised
pencil on
principle

on those rare
occasions
when he'd make a
mistake

he refused
to cross out the incorrect
integer

i asked him
why
one sunny
summer day
and he told me

that we can't cross out
our choices
or erase
our mishaps
we can only
turn the page

and on he went
to his next
puzzle

in the words of
a reverend and a King
human salvation
lies in the hands
of the creatively
maladjusted

defamiliarize the chaos

an absent-minded apparatus
addling brain cells
checks and balances
proliferate a status quo
of enmity and aggression that
propagates oppression and
dismantles genuine political
expression for those outside
the whitewashed coffin

recognize the enemy
in our own eyes as we
eradicate the apathy that
leeches liberty and
fabricates freedom

reformist rhetoric is
too little too late
revolutions are cyclical
and ultimately infantile

so fan the flames of rebellion
destruction precedes creation
raise hell and raze the system
of enmity that pits
7.4 billion
brothers and sisters
against each other

anarchy is order

hand-me-down lessons lifted
from leather-bound tomes
in iterations of half-hearted exultation
but i found definition in negation

i am the antichrist

for false hope mingles with
crippling self-doubt and
cerebral self-mutilation leads
inexorably to intellectual suicide

i won't follow the death drive

rejecting fantasies of faith
in order to
overcome the world
my struggle is undertaken

alone

i will not sacrifice
reason science art philosophy
for a paternal phantasmagoria
or pastoral paradise

black sheep weren't born to follow

there's a stranger sleeping on my shoulder
on this lonely overnight bus ride
to Atlanta

***** blond hair pulled back
into a loose and messy bun
cheeks obscured by the faux fur
of an oversized white-as-snow winter coat

i've given up on sleep

i can't help but wish you were here instead
that you drifted to sleep while we shared
earbuds and listened to rambling songs
as our fingers traced calligraphy tattoos
across each other's knuckles and we
huddled together for warmth

i'd glance over as you smiled in your sleep
and press my lips to the crest of your head
and as the sun rose and cast its gaze on our
little band of troubadours and
you gave out a warbling yawn i'd say
let me be the first to
cordially welcome you to Georgia

her boots have canyons in the seams
loose stitching comes undone until
it seems that the very fabric holding
the rubber and canvas together
will fracture like an unreliable narrator's
stream of consciousness
fragments of unreality

they will fall by the wayside
hand-me-downs to those
less fortunate and she'll
select a new set
to wear thin

some people swap shoes readily
bedazzled with glitter or emblazoned
with images of intergalactic wars or
Winnie the Pooh caricatures
characterizing our oscillating
personalities and whimsical fancies

i wear the same
beat-to-**** pair
each and every day
i feel at home when
my soles sink into
the warm embrace
of entangled laces
regardless of
where i roam

gigs at local venues
beach excursions after dark
vegan cafés
craft coffee bars
cramped classrooms
both teacher and student
i may wear many hats
but my sneakers remain

interminable

they say death is but
the next great adventure
i'm not certain i believe it
but i'll wear these vans to
my casket just in case

the mid-morning fog
cloaks the traveler
in a thick mist
a musk of weather-beaten
leather cloaks soft skin
a fragrant vagrant
wandering in the warmth
of a dawning star

she stops and
stares now and
again
a lingering smile on
her face, her eyes
twinkling with equal parts
mischief and grace

an exuberant jubilee of
far-flung soliloquies
enhance her reddened hair
and her rosy cheeks
as she slips quietly
through the cobbled streets

until a flower
small but fair
pokes its way through a
crack
she stoops and ponders
for a moment
whether she might take it

then climbs once more
to hardened feet as
a smile tugs at her cheeks
she leaves the flower
in peace not
in pieces
who knows
who might need it

still she sojourns on
a wayward adventurer
with no destination
save the secret joy of
knowing and being known
by a world she adores

the memories play on shuffle in
the back of my cerebral cortex
drifting like a drug up
and down my spine
intoxicating
stop-and-go
out of touch
intermittent illusions and
misrememberances

pomegranate lingers
on my tongue
sandpaper tiles rest
beneath knobby knees
soft flesh against my palms
glasses askew in passion
the stickiness of sweat
fingers still soaked from
forays into your wet warmth

inhabiting a cluster of moments from a
dozen different angles to dizzying
effect until i lose track of reality and
spiral into some intermediate realm of
consciousness where fact and fiction
are permanently merged into
one irreversible entity

a piece of you
is in every
letter
a momentary
stutter of an
amorous stupor
produces a rhythm
for me to flow
back into you

scratch poems onto
parchment with
ink and pen
or with my
fingers flirting furtively
across your skin

i carve them in
like calligraphy tattoos
and lay them to rest with
gentle kisses that
give you gooseflesh
and make you curl
your spine as
your eyes roll back
and you invoke
the divine  
that's just fine
because in this
polysyllabic string
of words and images
i am god

a pleasure of elation
growing
somewhere deep inside
bursts with
not-so-quiet
ecstasy so
come
under my spell
beguiled by my charms

what am i to do
if you're susceptible
to flattery that flushes
your skin like cherry blossoms
burgeoning in fertile fragility
can i be forgiven for
following my bliss in
iterations of thought
that might serve as
temporary kisses
touching the *****
palpitating in your breast
as i imagine laying down
to rest with you pressed
tight against my chest to
fight off the emptiness

if this tongue's simple rhyming
makes you blush
imagine how you'd quake
if you let it touch your lust

so give in to sin
when i knock on your door
don't be hesitant
lay anxiety by the wayside
open up
let me in

let your fingers slip beneath
the lace obfuscating your
forbidden fruit and pluck along
the strings to this tune
thinking how i'd savor the sweet
juices leaking from enflamed flesh
turning from pink to red to
soaking wet and saturated

i think thou doth protest too much

let your mouth go dry
as your breath catches in your throat
peel back the gauzy veil  
enter the most holy of holies
the sole authentic steeple
use your fingers to speak
in sign language
languid gestures of affection
come inside now don't be shy

bite back your tongue
hold on to your objections
this isn't some conjecture
or feigned misdirection

breathe
sharp
quick
light
just
let
go
i

think it would be best if you
forget about the fears and
latent thoughts that flow
and in this instance just let
go so you can explore
yourself the way
i wish i could every night

with lips pressed
indiscriminately
i'd climb the
mountains of your vertebrae
and find a home in the buxom valley
between the twin hilltops
of your chest
howling like a wolf as
i admire your waning
crescent moon

it's not too late to
disrupt the peace
that leeches
all our joy

in case you didn't notice
i'm just making this up
as i go along
does that turn you on

can i watch you
spontaneously combust
panting shaking wet
i can see your face as
you clench down
on your jaw and
bite back a soft groan
and try to run from
what you're feeling

but
love
fear is your
adversary
not me

don't fight me on this
gorgeous
i don't aim to be
misunderstood
the cadence of your
****** is generating a
fragrance i can taste
on my tongue
even from here
go numb

succumb

in Sunday school
Mr. McKinney taught me
god punished Pharaoh
for refusing when
Moses pleaded
let my people go but

Exodus 9:12 insists it
was god himself who
hardened Pharaoh's heart
like erosion turns stone to rock

which strikes me as
rather petulant behavior
displayed invariably within
vindictive vicissitudes

but what else
would you expect from a
megalomaniacal misogynist
prayed to by bigots and
rapists and racists

**** Yahweh

most days i daydream of
traipsing past New Zealand streams
hopping from stones as the rivers
rush past beneath our feet
walking on water like deities

in my mind we play tag like children
in the streets of Venice
criss-crossing over a myriad of
bridges interwoven like fabric
threads in an awning tapestry

and i take your photograph as
you extend your index and middle
fingers in the universal sign of
everlasting peace and smirk out of
the corner of your mouth the way you do
when you know i'm looking

the sun-kissed snow would fall in drifts
in the Swiss Alps as a chill wind numbed our skin
and the mid-morning breeze played with our hair
and we sang songs that echoed
through canyons carved by Father Time
and Mother Nature's scandalous romance

or maybe we'd just stand within the Guggenheim
sheltered from the elements
our fingers interlocked as we wordlessly  
studied the museum's latest exhibition
and you'd rest your head on my shoulder
as you traced the Deathly Hallows
etched into my wrist with
your fingertips and you'd
be the first to break the silence

i wonder what the artist was thinking
when he shot this black and white image
do you think the shadow in the lower left
means something significant or is it
just a trick of the light

and we would stand
statuesque at the foot
of sepia photographs
two additional installations
of artwork

the rain fell so i kept my head down
chance alone piqued my interest and
through water-logged glasses i saw
him sitting on the front steps of an
old Lutheran church built from stone
in 1886 if the proud sign on the front
lawn was to be believed

the oak doors were chained shut

it's been four years since i asked myself
what would Jesus do
instead i wondered
what she'd do in my shoes
so i offered him my last slice
of Karma Kollision and he said
god bless you and i replied
stay warm
this world is cold

placebos like religion
might work miracles for Atlanta's
rich white mannequins
but sugar pills can't fill
a broken man's empty stomach

the song remains the same

short
frantic
fast

thirty seconds of
aggression and
distortion and
******* punk

radio pop follows a formula
where experiment is anathema
and the flavor is bland vanilla
even lines of simple rhymes
gently fragrant cadences
for inane entertainment

unlike crooning ballads that
meander through soundscapes
pondering existential enigmas
in time with rhythm and blues
the banjo strings accompanying a
shadow on horseback riding on towards
a sunset setting the world asunder

we are all concertos
symphonies of solemn symmetry
a myriad of harmonies acquiescing
to the meaningless tunes of the universe
whipped hither and yon by the whims of
chance and happenstance in this
tumultuous hurricane of existence

some songs have not yet reached their conclusion
one began the moment the galaxies were painted
in broad-strokes across a tapestry of vacant space
still more have lost a beat they can't repeat and remain  
forever frozen in anthologies kept in some ancient
library in an extra-dimensional plane
presided over by Father Time
a blind watchmaker created by the words that
sprung forth from cracked and withered pages
containing endless evanescent anthems

it's like jumping
a short fall
at first
and then it ends
as quickly as it started

if only i knew
how they pieced me
back together again
stitched at the seams
until it seems like i
never died at all

then back to a building
a different skyscraper
crafted from durasteel
taller than the one that
came before

i don't even hesitate
one foot after the other
right over the ledge
only the fall eats up
more time and i
have a moment to think
of your eyes while the
meters flash by

splat

back to the lab again
to be reassembled from
the remnants of my
desiccated carcass

only there's less of me
bits of brain that could not
survive a second meeting
with the concrete
chipped finger-bones
missing teeth and
no heartbeat

up again
higher still
and again
and again
only to plummet
of my own volition

i fall further each
and every time
and they scrape
less of me off
the pavement

and it was as if
the entire universe
shrank to the size
of a microscopic dot
and found its niche
perched atop
my chest

there it lingers
spinning
at once
an unstoppable force
and an immovable object
a paradox of
time and space

void

a black hole the
size of a quark
swallowing everyone and
everything with an
appetite unlike anything
anyone in the galaxy
had ever seen

so complete was its
crushing gravity that
nothing escaped its grasp

neither fire
nor ash
not life
not death

its emptiness was total
it gobbled up the light
and garbled what mangled
remnants of hope remained
contracting on the event
horizon's scope before

digesting the detritus
in a series of  
torturous depravities that
would make even
Marquis de Sade
tremble with a mix
of shock and awe
in his padded cell as
he begged a nonexistent
god for forgiveness

the planet makes another pass
around its lonely star
an arbitrary point in space-time
delineated by a self-aggrandized
emperor stabbed to death by
those closest to him

et tu
brute

i spent the night
the sole attendee in a
dreary cinema
half-asleep
ignoring spasms
of guilt and envy
witnessing the depravity
to which the 1%
would sink to ensure
their profits never
decreased  

you were getting wasted
with strangers and
fair-weather friends
on cheap liquor and i can't
help but wonder if he's there

does he even ask to hold your hand

and i'll nurse
my jealousy
the way you'd
sip a lukewarm beer
it tastes foul but
no one wants to be
the only one at a
New Year's Eve party
who has to be
sober

some nights i imagine i am
the lone survivor of an ill-fated crew
the very last human being
in an apathetic galaxy
awakened from hypersleep
trapped aboard this
spaceship

a bee drowns amidst
expansive hyperbole
it sang an anxious plea and
she deigned to give it new wings

the sun falls on her as we sit
and drink coffee in front of
East End Market and speak
amicably about the tumultuous
events that've occurred this past week

i tell her how my heart fluttered
when she paused to save an insect
most write off as a nuisance even
as they gorge themselves on honey and
despite the fact that without bees
the world would also lack
fruits and veggies and
nuts and seeds to grow
new fauna from the fertile
soil of this ambivalent earth

without these enigmatic evolutionaries
who pollinate this planet
and permit humanity to persist
in spite of our knack for
cultivating catastrophe
our ecosystem would collapse
in complete and utter defeat

now it seems that i'm the one
floundering in sea foam green but
i'm not sure if i'm worthy
to hold the gentle hands that
save tiny bees

swallowed the bait
hook line and sinker
choked by the weight of
too many mistakes until
i'm strung up by
microfilament
like an unwanted catfish
a nuisance a pest
bash me to death
with a metal baseball bat
shatter flimsy bones
until nothing's left but dust
and toss my bleeding carcass
back into the murky lagoon
that i used to call a home
and i will float atop
the sea foam green surface
easy prey for
ambivalent carrion

it's an age-old quandary
posed in introductory
classes on physics and philosophy
pray tell
what happens when
an unstoppable force
meets an immovable object

at first
such inquiries struck me as
existential exercises on the
paradoxical nature of language
and the circumstantial limits
of our reality which i found
to be little more than petty frivolities
after all
this existence is comprised of
nothing less and nothing more
than subjective perceptions catalyzed
by our own eyes and

while i've since come to realize that
there are no black and white solutions
only grade shades that obfuscate
manichean and simplistic versions
of the truth
i must admit
i think i've found an answer
to this question that might
just be foolproof

because i've already met an unstoppable force
it's personified in her twin twilight eyes
that rotate like intertwined galaxies
in a nocturnal dance of evanescent starlight
manifest in the mischief that burns
as white-hot and bright as hydrogen fusion
every time she smirks at me

and if she epitomizes the
extravagant intensity of a
runaway train that refuses to be stopped
or a knockout punch that cannot be blocked
then i myself am her counterpart
an immovable object
solemn and sober at a standstill
withstanding an onslaught of elemental
cacophanies that shake this very
planet to its molten iron core

still i remain the silent sentinel
a giving tree
ancient
ageless
vigilantly awaiting her impending earthquake
which will shake and shatter this forest
of fools and frauds about me who reach
outstretched limbs like thieves and liars
she is a hurricane uprooting craven mentalities
and when all the barren woodchips are
spread about the vicinity i shall stand strong
on the mountain peak with those alliterative words
carved into my wooden feet

i'm "bent
but not broken
hanging on by a thread"
and while we might invent
a trillion reasons to steel
our resolve and refuse this
addiction once and for all
i can think of one monosyllabic
four-letter word that gives us
an excuse to do just the opposite
one that is as rare as it as pure
at once precious and effervescent
it is the cousin of faith and hope
but greater still and it gives us a
reason to fight when we cannot seem
to cope with a world tightening
nooses of rope around our throats

so kick the chair
my neck won't snap
and when they come to cut me
down they'll ask me
"after all this time"
i will conjure my
patronus in your image
as the word "always"
anoints on my lips like your kiss

like evolution or the Big Bang
this eternal question must have
an answer buried deep
waiting to be unearthed
and it begins
as always
with a simple hypothesis

were we to meet again beneath
the moonlight the way we did
three hundred and sixty-five days ago
on a rooftop in a distant neighborhood
i wager it would be a bad idea
dangerous and reckless
but our affection would become unbreakable
as we coalesced in ethereal bliss

so
while i do not yet know
what happens when an unstoppable force
crashes into an immovable object
try asking me again tomorrow
so i have time to conduct
some experiments
and i just might have
a more scientific answer

but
then again
it is only a
hypothesis

i hear the whistle of a mockingjay 
play every time someone says your name.
a rebel girl in a patriarchal world 
defying the absurd iterations of hyper-masculine 
oppression that manifest themselves in solipsistic
displays of impotent aggression.
how do you muster the compassion 
to forgive seventy times seven?
i want to learn to love like you.

the white noise fades away
when you and i fly
down the interstate.  
the breeze teases 
your hair, the sun
kisses your face
the way i'd like to.

i hope you hear my voice
every time one of our favorite songs
gets stuck inside your head,
singing in time to the rhythms of love requited. 
have faith in me.

and i'm trying hard—
real hard—every day
not to lose my temper 
with these circumstantial quandaries 
that leave us wondering whether or not 
we should press pause.

instead i'll climb the mountains 
of your vertebrae so i might find
a resting place in the holiest of holies. 
if only i could shrink myself down,
dance between the synaptic gaps of your brain cells, 
i could see reality through your eyes— 
twirling like twin nebulae,
galaxies inviting me to endless epiphanies.
i want to lose myself in your universe.

your courage is infectious.
when i hold your hand,
i summon the strength to smash the State 
and all the arbitrary authorities  
trying to dictate the limits of liberty,
that instigate injustice and propagate malice.
it all just falls away until it's you and me,
forever us against them all.

you're like Hermione,
time-turner included,
feeding the homeless, 
leading a women's health group,
acting for a short film, 
directing a play, 
writing a novel, 
all in a day's work. 

and you breathe white-hot fire 
when you fight for the disenfranchised 
recognizing that those who are neutral 
in situations of injustice have chosen
the side of the oppressor and it's quite 
impressive how you stand-up for
the little guy or invite the social acolyte over
to your table to have a bite of whatever 
vegetarian dish you cooked up last night.

i see you on the silver screen,
in each new book i read ,
in every single note i sing,
latent remnants in recited rhymes 
of poetry from the one and only Bukowski:

i found what i love 
and i want it to **** me.

how many times will we
draw lines in the sand
just to see the brine of
the ocean wipe them
away once again on
the whims of the next
ebbing effervescent tide

sandy structures on stony shores
granulated particles shifting
through our pruning hands
abject images of refracted light
glinting with frightening veracity
off the shards of shattered revelries
reflected in broken glass bottles
that still smell faintly of alcohol

bring the cigarette to your lips
e
  x
     h
        a
          l
           e
             silhouettes of m
                                          i
                   ­       x   i            l
                     a            e        k
                  l             s        y
                  a
                     g            w
                         y    a

in the evanescent starlight as we
recline on the beach and the
waves lap greedily at our feet
drowning us in the uneven
flow of the unknown  

i wasted time building
castles on shifting sand

an intrepid inheritance
predicated on delusion
processing profuse refuse an
iconoclastic self-absorption suffusing
each and every molecule
we’re confusing consumption
with an inane ideology

as we choke the atmosphere with
CO2 and pump toxins into
our food will we pause as
the doomsday clock tick-tocks
closer to midnight
and the terror alert
goes code red
to consider that we
are at once
this planet’s cancer
and its cure

if Jesus is truly the
reason for the season
do you suppose he’d
impose on those
who do not
share your faith

for the love of Christ
let’s depose the overlords
the Nazarene opposed
hell
that’s something even
i could get behind

Mary
did you know
that your baby boy
was an anarchist who
practiced non-violence
and met death on a cross
as a terrorist rebelling
against the unjust

to those who deign to
name themselves Christians in
homage to the divine
why profane the memory
of a socialistic hippie who
bred an insurrection and
bled for the cessation
of human conflict
the negation of
self-serving intentions
disguised in capitalism

in the spirit of Christmas
defy the death drive
propelling us towards mass extinction
abandon corporate bookstores
protest in front of city hall
the kingdom of god is within you
so go home
kiss the ones you love for

“if we are not the word of god
then god never spoke”
it’s up to us to recognize
that we ourselves
are progenitors of the divine

i buried god
in a shallow grave
just in case

i always put stock
in the old stories
maybe he’d claw and
scrape his way back
to the surface
and save the day or
else say it’s
too late for me
i’ve gone so
far astray

i once saw god everywhere
in hip-hop records and
Saturday morning cartoons in
coffee bars and concert halls
but i can’t seem to find him
anywhere anymore

i think it’s for the best

frigid homeless shivering
on Bank of America’s
front porch step  

propped up by
oligarchic investors and
solipsistic one-percenters

and we pass by
in apathetic
self-absorption

we are brainless
enraptured  by smartphones
while the State bombs
our neighbors

mutilating children
sowing seeds of terror
with every abuse of power

we convince ourselves
that there's an afterlife
and raze Earth
as we raise hell

the only home
we’re guaranteed
infinite growth in
a finite world
consuming joylessly

inculcated
inane and
vain beyond
all measure

we’ve ravaged the planet
we will all die

alone

pull back the thin veneer
of pretense that obfuscates
this holiday season
profuse excuses of joy and peace
are hollow and brittle and leave
bitter proof of our lackluster compassion

expose the specter
of greed
dormant in capitalism
vestiges of a dying culture
the refuse of an apathetic
American people numb
to the trauma inflicted
by megalomaniacal leaders
consent given implicitly
in the complacency of obedient conformity

will we refuse to acknowledge
the stains on our hands this Christmas
red liquid misting our faces
bloodlust and endless war
there’s no
rhyme or reason
to these
sycophantic intonations
deafening these words of treason
in vain attempts to assuage guilt
with endless iterations
of false hopes and puny gods in
brainless trying to defy reality

we belie our true intentions
our self-serving obsessions
and inane consumption
hazes of the mundane  
in suburban graves

if the greatest gift is giving itself
we won’t find solace in the holy temples
of strip malls shopping centers
and corporate retail palaces
a Friday as black as our fractured hearts
witness the death of humanity
choking out all we were
grateful for the day before

she has eyes like ice
and a mohawk the shade
of bubblegum

she's an artist
and a misfit
outfitted in
ethereal attire
the flows off her
alabaster skin
like wisps of shadow
or tuffs of smoke

she chews on her lower
lip when she thinks you
aren't looking and has
a nervous habit of
biting her nails
the polish is chipped
and cracked in some
places and sorely
needs a new coat

at first glance you
might think her fragile
but the subtle smirk
that tugs at either side
of her mouth belies a
quiet confidence
a take-no-prisoners
sensibility
a ****-it-all
attitude

not grounded in apathy
but nurtured in non-compliance
her lack of conformity is more
than some youthful
stage of defiance

she is disobedient and
everyone says they're afraid of her
that she scares them senseless
but i kissed her once and
we stayed friends after
i think she knows me better
than i know myself

she stands in the corner
of seedy concert halls as
cigarettes leave a haze above
the heads of pre-teens and
old metal-heads nurse their
alcoholic beverages
everyone pretends she is
somewhere—or even
someone—else

but not me
we stand together
sometimes we hold hands
and i catch her smiling
out of the corner of my eye
from time to time

they say you'll never forget
where you were on 9/11
i was nine
i sat in the kitchen
and watched the television
play out the violence hour after hour
my child-like mind conflated the Two Towers
in Tolkien's literary fantasy
with these acts of misanthropy  
and i was taught at the dinner table
that very evening
that all of life could be reduced
to capital letters defining a
cosmic struggle of Good vs. Evil

and yet
regardless of their affiliation
on this defunct
political spectrum of
left left
left right left
politicians canonize a legacy of
injustice and oppression and
in order to suppress
democratic expression
they propagate the notion
that dissent is treason

because the wars we wage are blessed
by the sagely insight of rich old men
who sit safely in mansions protected by
picket fences as white as their skin
while they play off our emotions and
turn us into thoughtless sheep
content to stomach the whims of
politicians propagating vengeance

i will speak this out even
when my voice shakes
because i have seen the hypocrisy
of this war on terror
that relies on terror
to cultivate more terrorists
in order to perpetuate the notion
that Orwell posited

war is peace
freedom is slavery
ignorance is bliss
isn't it

in my naïveté
i rejected the reality of
torture and murdered children for
i nursed a secret hope that
despite the pictures and videos
that served as empirical evidence
we were still somehow
the good guys and
they were the bad guys

but Americans rained white
phosphorous on Fallujah
dropped the world's first
and hopefully last
atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
we toppled democratically elected socialists
whose interests betrayed our self-serving agendas
cultivating a policy of extra-judicial assassination
regime change is the name of the game
just ask the CIA
they'd tell you
business is booming but
then they'd have to **** you

so i switched off my TV screen
and picked up books
i read Slaughterhouse-V
and treasured the way Vonnegut
looks at the lives of even
bees and butterflies as valuable
intoning "so it goes"
every time a living thing dies

i read O'Brien's
recollections
of Vietnam
a month later
he said that
like white lies
tall tales and
fishermen’s yarns
every war story
has a bit of truth

and i've seen the proof
in the photographs of
Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay
in the aftermath of drone strikes
that left pieces of kids scattered
across the desert sands of foreign lands

i see the toxic side-effects of
systemic violence in the eyes
of homeless veterans suffering
on the streets with PTSD
a flicker of fear livens a
deadened gaze at the sound of
every backfiring engine
as if they're a thousand miles away
on some distant shore

betrayed by their own
government once again
a Purple Heart is
a death sentence
when there are 22
military suicides a day
thanks for your service
now die in silence

like bad religion the phrase
war crime is rather redundant
and i testify not because i
aim to disrespect the
men and women in uniform
on the contrary

when i say
**** war
it is because i
cherish every brother
and every sister
who has perished in the
churning gears of conflict

they shoved tall tales of hope
for a collegiate education
and far-flung travel
down our throats
just sign here
right along the dotted line

we want you
to march into hellfire
we want you
to send missiles into
tiny huts and villages
tracking cell phone signals
we want you
to sit down
shut up and
just do as you're told

to every fallen human who
has been sent off to fight on
behalf of this
or any other
corrupt nation
i sincerely apologize
for not taking to the streets to protest
a vitriolic ideology

i regret filing my taxes
when 54% or more of our budget goes to
military expenditures so they could
stick an M-16 in your hands
and ship you off to die for abstract
and so often arbitrary phrases like
freedom and justice for all

you were robbed of your liberty
by a capitalist system that seeks profit
like a false prophet for
bank accounts soar in times of war  
and in my apathy i hammered
nails into your coffin

and i pride myself on  
being an anti-militaristic
non-violent anarchist because
i don't hate soldiers
if i did i would remain
silent and apathetic
and let the government
abuse its youth

i celebrate humanity
regardless of ethnicity and creed
which is precisely why i despise
this system that sacrifices
generation after generation for
conquest and imperial notions

pray tell
will we turn from the
error of our ways
wake up from
this terrorist daze
before it's too late
and say

the State can try to
whitewash history but
i refuse to let them
brainwash me

i see the words floating on
message boards or perched
upon the lips of jocular hypocrites
double-standards that demand
sensual chastity and virginal sexuality
in endless iterations of irony

the concussive
monosyllabic words
slung like stones
cast like arrows

****
*****
*****

all labels for
women possessed of
the courage to pursue
their own passion

once upon a time a
Nazarene insisted a ******* had
more integrity than a rich
statesman throwing self-serving parties
so tell me why so
many Christian politicians
propagate patriarchal notions of depravity
in blanket attempts to regulate
the bodies of women

if being anti-choice was really
about preventing abortions
why do rich right-wing conservative
Republicans spend all their time
and money picketing free clinics
when the solution lies in comprehensive
****** education universal healthcare
complimentary birth control
and comprehensive child support

don't dare use the reprehensible
rhetoric of pro-life unless you're
at once anti-war
and anti-death penalty

riddle me this
what pray tell is the
difference between a jealous
religious misogynist
and a secular sexist

it's rather simple actually
while the former bases his
****-shaming on the edicts of
a two thousand year old letter to
the Corinthians inconspicuously
sandwiched between a celebration of
love and a section on speaking in tongues
the latter’s learned behavior is
birthed by a hyper-masculine culture
grounded in dominance

either way we await the day
when wild women raze
these ideologies  
with torches before
rising like phoenixes
from the ashes of
decimated passages
dismissed by intellectuals
as archaic and outmoded
deaf blind and dumb to
the vestiges of modernity
that sap unscientific
philosophies of their potency
and render them utterly obsolete

in their wake
these proud women
erase the hate
from words like

****
*****
*****

and reclaim equality
with a far more
comprehensive term

feminist

now don't get me wrong
i love wordsmiths
semiotic story-tellers
rhapsodists rhythmically reciting
love languages from memory
connecting disparate lines
between discordant thoughts like
gods breathing life into dust

for these steel swords we've
conjured up do not rust
nor do they cut flesh

with mouths like ink fountains
we espouse words at the whims
of pens that often seem possessed
of their own volition and
we are their mere harbingers

they slice to the quick
past bone and marrow to
the human spirit and
tap into sentience through
sophisticated sentence structure
measured meter catalyzing cadences
of consonance in confidence

so by all means
spit rhymes and chime in
on current events
i love the rally cries
that seek to stymy injustice
ridicule bigotry and
foment dissent

but don't preach at me
your words of salvation
fall on deaf ears
you cannot save me
because i'm already divine
one-of-a-kind
just like you

i don't fancy myself above
satirizing fictitious and megalomaniacal
depictions of godhood
i've found that humor
helps us navigate the
half-truths and veiled threats
that inundate our daily existence
regardless of whether
they originate from
preachers politicians pundits
or poets

****-shaming and victim-blaming
are pathetic attempts to cull dull minds
no thanks mine's full to the bursting
you think you're clever for slapping
together a couple of words brewed
for maximum effect but you haven't
got the faintest clue do you no

you're nothing but a bully with a pulpit
fearmongering and shouting damnation
mixing Church and State and business
in a trifecta of tyranny
an orgastic oligarchy
of eternal enmity

when we die we pass
into the black abyss of nothingness
each of us a blip on the spectrum of
life under constant duress
before we ultimately perish
a meaningless speck of dust on
an endless shore of who was
who is and who will come to be

this is not a nihilistic proclamation
nor an atheistic defamation of
human beings but a rational
refutation of misanthropy
masquerading as community

your love looks a lot like hatred

i seek to offer an alternative
to the endless cycles of
condemnation that sprout from
the pages of holy books
like gnarled trees bequeathed
unto us by the seeds
of false prophecies

let's face the music
we will all die alone
and there is nothing
and no one
waiting for us
no white light or
loved ones on
the other side
no arbiter of fate
waiting at the gate
to permit us entrance
to a heavenly place

if we could only muster the courage
to divorce ourselves from fatalistic
fantasies of the afterlife
that keep us bent-kneed
we might find within us the strength
to seize the day and
live life so brilliantly that

we'd create a heaven on earth
if merely we departed from the
hellish impulses that divide us
into despondent collections of
self-righteous hypocrites and
simply admit the only thing we
know for certain is that we
know nothing for certain at all

perhaps then we could salvage
a modicum of freedom from
the wreckage of shattered
egos and emaciated lies
that plague this planet
with circumstantial evidence
while relegating our liberty
and inhibiting conscience

in the spirit of free inquiry
then let us question
everyone and everything
starting with yours truly

last i heard you were
reading Oscar Wilde's
The Picture of Dorian Gray
have you mustered the  
courage since then to
exhibit authenticity when
you say
i love you

to the golden girl
staring back at you in the mirror
can you peel back the
veil obscuring your self-image
to see a little clearer

ten months
since we last
exchanged
circumstantial
pleasantries

funny

we used to converse every day
c'est la vie is what i imagine you'd
have to say for yourself after all
it always did sound like an excuse
constantly reclusive your
imaginary deity the
only refuge you've ever known

so wander despondently
refugee of refuse
pilfer from the gutters
of garbage some semblance
of purpose some pretense of
predestination to validate your
meaningless existence

**** it up like
the rest of us
there's no rhyme or
reason for the so-called
seasons of life

you're a fair-weather
friend and though i might've
crossed oceans for you then
i don't mind you
out of my life

you should’ve paid closer
attention when they
once told you
be careful if you
befriend a writer

they'll make you
immortal
even when you
just want to
die

i guess that's life

six weeks later
i can still taste the
faint scent of liquor on
your breath the remnant
of our most recent tryst

the way you bit your
lip and grinned at me
your eyes flashed with
forbidden mischief
when i asked
if i could kiss you

we entangled
ourselves for a moment
extricated from the miasma
of complications our
bodies speaking words
in an ancient language
too sincere to
be misunderstood

six days ago
you asked me not
to write anymore
poems about you

i'd made you shake
your eyes rolled back
with ecstatic envy
in rhythm with  
an ode in the vein
of e.e. cummings that left
you quaking on the
brink of bliss
waging an internal war
fighting the impulse
to release the avalanche
of affection latent in
our day-to-day conversations

why stop the flow of words
tell me true my friend
my love
my muse

riddle me this
what would you have me do
when every line i pen starts
and ends with you

they say the road to hell
is paved with golden intentions
and they are not mistaken i
see it's latent
hidden within psychosocial declarations
of everlasting love from a narcissistic god
i don’t give much credence to
the insistent proclamations of eternal
damnation in a metaphysical realm
of torment and brimstone but

don’t get me wrong
i’ve seen hell in the
wolfish grins of pilfering preachers
in the glassy eyes of opiated masses
i was careful when i stared
into that dark abyss
knowing it glared right back at me
emphatically declaring that i
was the lost sheep
a fallen brother separated
from the good shepherd’s flock
a prodigal son isolated in
alienating atheism but

i’ve come to love my
outcast status i’d rather
rot in the dirt after
raising hell on Earth
than suffer rebirth in ethereal bliss
espousing endless reiterations
of worship for a
fictitious megalomaniac

god is dead we killed him
deicide stains these hands
in shades of scarlet and crimson
the triumph of humanity will not
fade once again to the putrid
obeisance and ridiculous reverence
or religious references to divinity

salvation lies within

two decades of dedication
to the Christian ideal
left me dejected rejecting the
shallow lies and overt
misconceptions of religion
chose to begin again in the
reclamation of self-determination
i found a dignity independent from
a deity perpetuating guilt and regret
and though i will never forget the
progressive lessons of a radical rabbi
offering a message of hope and forgiveness
i’ve found that those same tenants
are seriously lacking in the
contemporary Christian church

if your god is
omnipotent and not
merely impotent
than tell me why he
needs you to
defend him

come on coward
if you’re real
show yourself
here’s the chance to
prove me wrong
sling lightning from the skies
and take my life i’m
not afraid i’m ready to die
and part from the suffering
that inundates this existence

strike me down and remove
all doubt of your majestic malevolence
a malfeascent adolescent prone
to fits of jealous rage and
temporal temper tantrums

that’s what i thought

i only hear the sounds of
a theological clown show
self-styled scholars enumerating  
passages of mercy and compassion
in the same holy text that condones
**** and slavery and child abuse
which would be ironic if it
hadn't been slapped together over
centuries of violence and bloodshed
and used to justify two millennia's worth of
repressive oppression a
putrescent obsession with control

it's true what Sartre said
hell is other people
and we have No Exit
from the depravity that
obfuscates critical inquiry
in the immortal words of
Shakespeare the nether-realms
are emptied all the devils are here

your god maybe a figment of
fantastic imagination but so
much horror has been wrought
with his name as the justification

so forgive me if i seem hyperbolic
but it is no exaggeration  
when i declare that religion itself
is a hell from which we're still
trying desperately to wake up

did you know
if you earn $34k a year or more
you're in the top 1% of all the world

if that's the joke then
where's the punch-line
did i miss it somewhere
in the attempt to justify
political suicide

how could that appease
those of us groveling on our knees
living hand-to-mouth
from paycheck to paycheck
as the world's 80 richest billionaires
who control 50% of the world's wealth
do whatever they **** well please

by all means
fact check me if you don't trust my
ridiculously overpriced master's degree
in literary cultural and textual studies
because let's face it
we've all heard the jokes
an English diploma means jack-****
in this morally bankrupt economy
where literacy is literally repressed as a
way of keeping the downtrodden oppressed

a healthy discussion where we ask
critical questions is the natural synthesis
of any democratic debate and
challenging each other is a stellar
way to cultivate the intellectually irate but
let's not divide and instigate after all
unnecessary altercations over
trivial factoids only distract
us from the realists' explanation

we are ******
the world is burning all around us
200 species perish every single day
as we exorcise fossil fuels
and melt the polar ice caps
pumping oil into gas-guzzling SUVs
and CO2 into the air we share as

we poison the wellsprings of hope
with idiosyncratic politicians
who force idiotic semantics
down our throats until
we choke and splutter and mutter
beneath our breath about
how things used to be and how
we'd be happier if we just followed
passively like gentle sheep adhering to
the edicts and decrees of the
corporocratic oligarchy

see
i'm not standing here defaming
or complaining on the contrary
i'm stalwart in proclaiming that
if we don't pause to consider
the way we're fanning
the flames razing this
planet we will no longer
have a globe to call our home

with all due respect
there's no chance in hell
that i'll just sit back and laugh
while the Empire grows and
consumes life liberty and happiness

gorging itself on the apathy of
the well-adjusted privileged white kids
who don't blink twice at the
homeless transgender teenager
hiding out on the stoop of a
fair-trade coffee house to avoid
the Florida rain or the corpse
of a drowned emaciated Syrian toddler
buried face-down in the sand
or the arrest of Sandra Bland for
failing to use a
turn signal or put
out her cigarette
tell me how such
a mundane gesture of
defiance could warrant
the admonishment that
tied a noose around her neck

the 1% is not a people group
it is an idea nurtured at the behest
of capitalist demagogues
that inundate our culture with
fantasies of American exceptionalism
let's face it the only thing exceptional
about this lackluster nation
is the fact that we have the world's
largest prison population per capita
due in no small part
to vindictive laws that target
the poor and clap them in chains

it isn't Us vs. Them
that is the nefarious toxin that
brainwashes and destroys
community and philanthropy
if we would truly call ourselves
lovers of humanity than we must
muster the humility to admit that
we all have certain degrees
of light and dark
each of us on a spectrum
oscillating in stark contrast

it is We the People vs. the State
that three-tiered hydra that
guards the estates of the elite
and leaves others starving out
in the streets
a system predicated on
setting the classes against themselves
a self-perpetuating leviathan
looming god-like overhead
nurtured by the treatises of
outdated 18th century philosophers

the social contract is a lie
i didn't sign my life away
on some dotted line
so that my freedom and
independence could be usurped
by the stupendous guise of
capitalism masquerading as
the harbinger of harmony

we're not demanding economic
equality but fiscal equity
a concept that each man
and woman and child can
live and love in
comfort and in health and
worry not for the future
generations because a system
of slavery no longer exists
to inundate their lives
with shallow labor
'till they perish

if we sit idly and watch our
culture continue to chortle and
spiral into the idolatry of political celebrity
we may forget that the people
have the capacity to
reclaim our stolen dignity
hoarded by the specter of power

Foucault once wrote that dominance
cultivates resistance and i am the
expression of that latter people's movement
one aspect of an anthemic chorus
singing in unilateral unison as
the glass castles of the State come crashing down

equal to each and every sister
brother to seven billion
rebel with a cause
now
tell me
will you join
your voice with ours
'cause trust me we need
all the help that we can get

aren't we just arguing semantics
like we always do
our hearts race at a
breakneck pace there are
two sides to every story but
even two is
far too few

we're spinning in aimless
circles hopeless amiss without
a clue as to how we ought
to navigate this disparate landscape
of emotional turmoil
that soars at moments in the clouds
above Mt. Everest peaking exuberantly  
at stars through thinning atmospheres
before plummeting to an abyss
darker and deeper than Mariana's
Trench on a journey to the center of
this floating rock we call Earth

we carry our emotional baggage on the
roundtrip non-stop four and a
half billion year long sojourn
though time and space
weathering calamities unlike
any epoch ever known to sentient life

the five great extinctions snuffed
out the light of trillions of organisms
vanished without so much as a trace
and yet this sole sensation of
depravity has me spiraling like a
kamikaze hell-bound and split
apart like a molecule undergoing
mitosis i feel as if i'm being ripped
from you and i do not have the
answers to all these questions poised
inside my mind floating about

not unlike secrets in a glass case
the steel claw descends
and tries to clasp onto
one thought from the trove but
slips loose and my tenuous grasp
on reality skips hand-in-
hand with it free-falling in slow
motion right through the
cracks in the floor

i know this might
sound abstract or absurd but not a
night drifts past when i don't wish
it was you i was holding against my
chest rather than this lumpy pillow that
lies cold still and motionless

after we first kissed i remember
thinking you tasted faintly of
pomegranate and i can't forget the
sandpaper tiles of the roof on our bare
skin or the not-so-quiet gasps
that slipped past your lips as
your hips clenched tightly about my wrist
a wet warmth spread out released in
willing ecstasy to ease my curiosity
a faint scent of alcohol lingering in
the sweet sweat of your ******
my heart still starts to shake and shudder with
a sort of anxious bliss at just the thought of it

and while you insist
you're polyamorous
i see nothing short of the
universe gleaming solely within your
cosmic eyes and i nurse the quiet
knowledge that we might
never share another
night so i will try my best
to set this love aside

yet for better or worse
i nurse the private hope
that we'll be partners-in-crime
smashing the Patriarchy and
vanquishing capitalism and traveling
the world but for now
all i want is to hold you through
the darkness and drift asleep to the
cadence of your heartbeat
one last time

bumper-stickers of crosses
commemorating a Jewish hippie anarchist
are flanked by mantras of violence the hallmarks
of ambivalent compliance celebrating
barbarism the State’s chief contrivance

my fill-in-the-blank is an American serviceman
note here that it doesn’t matter if the individual in
question identifies as male female or non-conforming
they are a service man as if the
erasure of gendered complexities somehow
appeases the intricacies of humanity
beneath a blanket statement of hyper-masculinity but
i digress

my fill-in-the-blank is an American serviceman
reinforcing the spiritualization of militarization
in syncophantic intontations of
god bless our soldiers
and only ours
forget about all the other men and women
and children cursed by the pox of
foreign aggression and endless war
they are not our concern
on the contrary
they are just an obstacle in our path
a minor speed-bump we must summit by summoning
chauvinism and stepping on the throats of our enemies

dominance is our souls’ sole objective
we don’t have time for notions that might
challenge our hallowed perspectives or our
holy war in the most sacred spot in all
the world we cannot be deterred by the images of
broken bloodied babies on Mediterranean shores
‘cause the decimated dead with decapitated heads
only fan the flames of conquest
cultivated by the corrupt

i suppose i shouldn’t be so surprised
after all you did adopt an
instrument of torture to remember your
savior by when a dove of peace and
fraternity would’ve sufficed

your distinctly American Jesus stands shirtless
with a chiseled six-pack in camouflage cargo shorts
wielding a double-barreled sawed-off
shotgun in each hand he’s
white and rich and arrogant
as he trades blows with ISIS and
sits in consternate judgement over godless atheists
barking out damnation from the right-hand of
the lord our god the king of kings
salvation reserved for the predestined elect
necessarily limited to Americans his
chosen elite in their promised land

if only he could see you now
that same martyr you bless with one breath
before spewing vitriolic hatred with the next
what would the prince of peace
riding on a donkey
have to say to
bigots racists and homophobes

would he find the
stones you spew and shove
them back down your throat
the way i’d like to

no i somehow imagine that if your Christ returned
he’d interpose himself between you and the LGBTQ
and suffer the brunt of your bitterness
turning black and blue beneath the blows
willing to die for the least of these crying
abba father
why have you forsaken me

if the Nazarene came back he’d
overturn ballot-boxes in houses of worship
masquerading as venues for the 2016 election
he’d realize Sanders is no socialist
that Clinton is grotesquely hawkish and
i like to think he’d tell that fascist Trump
to *******

he would stand instead with the poor
and oppressed with men and women
of color at Black Lives Matter protests
smoke some quality kush with the dejected rejects
and comfort the back-alley addicts with
a soft word or warm hug to serve
as a reminder that the Kingdom of
Heaven is not above but is
built brick-by-brick in the day-to-day
interactions of compassion between ordinary
humans with an extraordinary capacity to
counteract the lethargy of apathy that
pacifies the populace and turns us into
cowed wage-slaves bowing in acquiescence

the rabbi would march to the gates
of the white house
and occupy the front lawn
to triumphant shouts that
rendered unto American Caesars
precisely what they deserve

a non-violent mass resistance of
leaderless and highly coordinated
civilly disobedient dissidents who
value dissent and populist movements to
voice their disillusionment at abject
apparatuses consolidating dominance
in order to remind the 99% that
in the words of one romantic

we will rise like lions after slumber
in unvanquishable number
we’ll shake our chains to earth like dew
for we are many and they are few

yet as much as i am loathe to admit it
Jesus of Nazareth was executed two
thousand some odd years ago
your god is dead and he cannot save us

if we intend to contend with the forces of
depravity that inculcate humanity with
putrescent fantasies of self-aggrandized zealotry
we cannot sit on our hands or
bury our heads in the sand and
wait for someone else to lead us to redemption

salvation keeps us looking down and shuffling
along suffering chained to our lack of imagination
rather than looking straight ahead
into the eyes of our taskmasters
and irrevocably declaring
we will lead ourselves

we have it in us to build a better world in
the shell of the old and raise a
culture of equality and liberty
provided we don’t buy into
all we’re told but
if such a dream could ever
triumph we must find the courage to
brave the cold winters of repression
that surely lay ahead and pour gasoline
on this ugly specter haunting our planet
before lighting the torch and tossing it
onto the detritus of misanthropy

watch it burn

come
huddle close now
gather ‘round
keep warm
if we stick together
we can brave the storm gathering
even now to purge our
peaceful non-compliance

as we carry the conflagration
to every nation to
each corner of the globe
we will overthrow the
ghost of governance

simultaneously i am
my own deity and enemy
at once a cancer and its cure
the sheep and the wolf
a king and a fool
subservient to none
yet obligated to all
a series of contradictions
and oxymorons played out
to define complexity in simplicity
purposelessness in post-modern artistry

a cornerstone on dry land but
sinking down in life's quicksand i
am defined in tandem with my
community but i also stand apart
independently spouting a philosophy
of non-violent civil disobedience
predicated on the heart informing and
the mind responding in kind
and my rebellion may or
may not be limited to
peaceful protest and direct action
it might also include
burning flags and bombing buildings
symbols of oligarchy come crashing down

i see utopic potential in the dystopian
narratives on Barnes & Noble's bookshelves
carry the fires of Prometheus to shake the
apathy of false hopes and leave desiccated
idolatry in the shallow graves that serve
as mouths spewing hatred and homophobia

i am an anarchist with Messianic tendencies
the infamous Nazarene
died defying Rome's empire and
i'll decry American chauvinism on my death-bed
born and bred in the home of
two happily-married conservative Christians
emerged a nonbeliever
i'll resist until the end

earning my master's in literary cultural
and textual studies and i've been told that
i'm prone to sophisticated soliloquies and
that i have a robust vocabulary yet
people always ask me why
my favorite word is ****
and i suppose it has something to do with
its versatility vibrancy and vivacious vicissitudes

i am in love with a girl with
forest-fire hair follicles that burn
almost as bright as the compassion she
nurtures in her chest a rebel girl
in a patriarchal world wielding middle-
fingers as easily as warm hugs
i adore that she is polyamorous
even if i have eyes for only her

i lead a democratic classroom
by modeling leaderlessness
a professor and a student
fellow learners use
my first name 'cause
we're one and the same
i'd be ashamed if i adopted
the illusion of authority and
tried in vain to tame the virtue of
liberty latent in every one of my students

i am my own damnation
an island unto myself
beset with the black plague of  
self-doubt drowning in the ocean of
delusion bereft of self-determination
betrayed the man in the mirror
i am my own adversary and accuser
judge jury and executioner
i signed my own death warrant

and i am my own redemption
i am the savior nailed to the cross  
nothing and no one
can stand in my path
i am the arbiter of free-will
the harbinger of hope and i
will vanquish the lies that
choke my throat like nooses of rope
and tie myself a lasso to pull down
the moon and sun and travel
aimlessly throughout the galaxy
as i did once
from star-dust i was
born and to dust i shall
inexorably return

simultaneously i am
my own deity and enemy
at once a cancer and its cure
the sheep and the wolf
a king and a fool
subservient to none
yet obligated to all
a series of contradictions
and oxymorons played out
to define complexity in simplicity
purposelessness in post-modern artistry

the invisible hand is in my pocket
pilfering everything
and there's nothing i can do
to stop it from robbing me blind

it does not guide it only destroys
personal expression under the
whims of an outmoded model of economics
capitalism
a philosophy that subscribes
to the metaphysical conclusion
that a spiritual malady
plagues every human heart
a harsh chorus that rings like a melody
of triumph in the multi-million dollar
mansions of the 1%

convinced we're born selfish
it seeks to reward us for our own malpractice
an edict predicated on social darwinism
that forestalls the possibility of future charity
as it drowns in the throes
of misanthropy and butchers any hope
of philanthropic community or basic humanity
to vanquish our more maleficent impulses

relegated to paying taxes
to ensure the illusion of security
while our money finances endless
war and police brutality rather than
healthcare or education
they know if they keep us sick and dumb
they can get away with ******

if the population shirks in horror
from the looming specter of terrorism
they can justify ubiquitous surveillance
that robs us of our right to
self-determination but
people should not be afraid of their governments
governments should be afraid of their people

they say we can't be trusted
that this is for our own good
but i'll call their bluff that
bull on Wall St. is full of ****
and like a matador i'll entice it to
lower its horns and charge
when itsjust a hairsbreadth away
i'll turn to one side and let it skewer
the slave-driver raising his whip behind me
that same skulking shadow that turns
veterans into homeless wanderers begging
for loose change in Central Park
a pale horse haunting the aspirations
of college students it
leaves the poor and
oppressed shivering after dark and
overburdens broken backs
god doesn't hold up the world
like Atlas we shoulder the globe

now watch us shift the weight

brought down by the people you tried to suppress
this is not some petty expression of vengeance
but the rallying cry of a dream deferred
exploding out to meet your injustice
mark my words

we're taking over the world

a black flag is suspended
above the garden in
my front lawn
it flexes in dawn's sweet  
breeze and ***** in the
mid-morning sun then snaps
in afternoon gusts
before weathering the storms of
early dusk and ultimately subsiding
into the relative serenity of an
uncertain twilight

a black flag prepared to
face the elements once more
at a moment's notice

even now i hear it slapping and cracking
as if it were possessed by
the manifestation of the people's will
an outcry indignant at the indignities
humankind and this good earth have suffered
at the hands of faceless men and
women who succumb to
the illusion of dominance

i take that black flag down
whenever i go out my front door
i fold it up into a tiny handkerchief
tuck it neatly in my breast-pocket
where it rests mere millimeters
from my heart as i do what i can
to teach my students to live
with such vibrant tenacity
that their very existence is
an act of rebellion

i wear the black flag around my neck
every time i go to shows it
soars behind me and i
feel superhuman as i stand and
sing in tandem with a myriad of
friends in the throes of some
melodious cadence harmonizing with
down-tuned guitars and pile-driving percussion
the rest of the galaxy and i lose track of
space and time adrift  
in the rhythms of resistance

i tie the black flag around my head
to keep back the sweat beading about my
brow every time i bend down and
break my back once more for my
corporate overlords who can no longer
see the forest for the trees let alone
be somehow appeased by the simple joy
of sharing books with random strangers
their eyes are glazed green with envy
and i wonder when they sold their
souls to the devils on capitol hill

i wave the black flag at protests
as we occupy the streets and
feed the homeless and cheer
wildly for complete liberty
in time with the beat of drums
our footsteps aiding in a
procession that shakes the houses of
decadence capitalists lurk within and
causes the corrupt to tremble
with trepidation as they turn to one
rich white neighbor after the other
and ask one another
what have we done

like no flag before it and no banner since
the black flag waves all humanity away
from the precipice upon which we lean
so perilously teetering over the edge
flirting with death inches away from
a bottomless abyss

its blackness stands in stark contrast
from the blue hues that evoke oceanic
divides or the red streaks symbolizing
bloodshed or the white blotches that elicit
some tacit implication
of supremacy and exceptionalism

it is black
whole and uniform
indicative not of segregation and
national barriers but of unity
universal fraternity that comes not
from conformity but out of a genuine
desire to recognize the inherent dignity
of all humanity—even those with whom
we might vehemently disagree

there is not a shred of
cowardice in the black flag
it means no surrender
it recognizes no authority
it is not subservient to a titular country
but predicated on the principle that
freedom equality and responsibility
are not trigger words for
selling successful political campaigns
but are the natural and inherent virtues
that make us sentient human beings

the black flag defies
the oligarchic minority and
returns once more to the wellspring
of individuality and community and in
doing so produces a space where
originality is the centripetal force

power to the people now
invert the stars and stripes before
turning them to fuel for the fires
in our chests like Prometheus we wrest
divinity from the gods masquerading above
us in the halls of congress and the senate
white houses are not temples of worship
we have it in us to create a community
where we don't need representation
where we determine our own future

revolution is a lived concept

a black flag is suspended
above the garden in
my front lawn
it flexes in dawn's sweet  
breeze and ***** in the
mid-morning sun then snaps
in afternoon gusts
before weathering the storms of
early dusk and ultimately subsiding
into the relative serenity of an
uncertain twilight

there is a nascent impulse that
echoes in every heartbeat
living within our blood
to regard one another with the new eyes
science has built for each of us
to see the world independently
unaligned with ignorant ideology
untainted by nefarious nationality
but nurtured rather on the premise that reality
is the faculty of the mentally complete
who realize if we don't pause in our
crusade to exterminate each other we will
ultimately deplete what it is that makes us

sentient beings possessed with the will to
determine our own future
divorced from the vestiges of arbitrary
authority we might still muster the courage
to reject this putrid dichotomy that inundates
every aspect of our humanity with utter
lies and disjointed hypocrisies

we dare feign innocence when
blood saturates our hands
from the drones bombing
Yemen to the murdered children in Pakistan
our politicians are manufacturing new enemies
with every shot that rings out above
blood-soaked foreign lands
our taxes are their supply
endless war is their demand

it's written in our hallowed declaration
of independence which—of
late—seems groundless and impotent
that each of us are intrinsically
entitled to life and liberty
and the pursuit of happiness and that
it is not merely our right but our
obligation to abolish this
representative republic so destructive
to those ends

anarchy is our next great adventure

after all it seems glaringly clear to
me that there are few distinguishable
differences between the eighteenth century
monarchy and our present day corporate oligarchy
the interests of the people are mitigated to
pitched elections between two indistinguishable
political parties that infuse our world not with
democracy but with hegemony
they're content to watch the world rot

this is not the land of the free
it hasn't been since bison roamed
across midwestern plains and
Native Americans communed with
the Mother we all share
everything changed when white
puritans fleeing persecution
spread religion like a festering ulcer oozing
poison into the zeitgeist psyche
a hive-mind mentality that fosters
brainlessness and stifles free inquiry
gods gold and glory

we need to learn to disobey before
it's too late to erase the mistakes of
the apathetic elite who've apprehended
our liberty and co-opted our ingenuity
for projects feeding capitalist insanity

we must rekindle the insurrectionary spirit of
the creative, dedicated minority
who rose up in the 50's and 60's and
fought not with fists and guns
but with words and deeds
against war and poverty and
white supremacist patriarchy

nurture the embers and fan the flames
of the Black Lives Matter
organizers swarming the stages of
defunct politicians like Hillary Clinton
and Bernie Sanders who propagate
the status quo
pour gasoline on the fires raging
in the camps of Occupy
in Oakland and Wall St.
our modern day dissidents serve time in federal
penitentiaries for blowing the whistle
languishing in exile half-a-world away
they wear Guy Fawkes masks and hack
anonymously from the deep web
exposing state secrets and war crimes
sometimes they look a lot like you and
you'd best believe they look like me

no longer can we trust self-styled
leaders of the free world
if we labor to cultivate our
own communities that vaunt
authenticity above authority and
integrity instead of inanity
perhaps then we might recognize that
the impetus rests within the crux
of self-acceptance
and we all will say in unison
it starts with me