"Here the crow starves, here the patient stag
Breeds for the rifle…"

I.
With Tongues Cut Out

The knife is mightier than the pen
when the writing on the wall spells out
'hands in manacles
and feet in shackles for innocent writers'
while gangs run the empty streets
leading to overflowing morgues.

Banner shadow play falls over jesters
hanging from puppet strings
at the hands of trigger-happy
self-appointed kings
who write horror scripts
recited by the comedy production
at the united nations of starvation.

Clinics filled with prophets
who flew ignored warning signs
in the darkness of algorithm skies  
designed by gimmicks of  
clicks billed for profits.

Rouge vermillon flags and berets
form a red sea of people
with a full hand of joker cards in a game euchre.
They shuffle rival tables
for first draft deals
fallen from conveyor belts
serving meals of shiny plastic fruit.  

Blue birds plagiarize
and sing the olive branch song
while flying over white nights into a landslide
crash-landing from heights
signed on the first
exploding in tunnel-vision shouting
from left to right
  diverged and reversed.

  II.
Special Needs of the Entitled

Orange jackets dressed in disguise
as multicolored coats
in the town of naked emperors
on their knees
at the foot of a hollow throne.

Fifteen minutes of spotlight
is sold at crossroads
for souls
trapped under mouse mind control
damaged and caged
in happy-ever-after city.

Blue ticks bite through bright lit screens
pulling the strings of wallflower fever
in an echo chamber of partisan screams.

A falling feather in the arctic summer
rises on a pendulum weighed down
by a pinch of salt of the earth
sprinkled with spoons of weightless self-worth
and the nerve to disturb the universe.

   III.
Self Defense Classes  

Purple bags fall in the hands of pupils
seeking dilated nights
with sprinting minds behind wide eyes
in a race of blinkered horses
on a course inside a skull shaped coop
with lanes drawn in sandy lines.

Spiked seats on concrete floor stations
hide behind broken latch doors
in bathroom stall conference rooms
drip
           drop
                        dead
for the water of life is poison
and the medicine is venom.
Your daily dose of choices
lie between the bottom of a bottle
or staring down a barrel
(though red and blue
                                       are but two)
  
A recent review
for 'the last voice of reason' read:
/
too depressed to be iconic
too cynical to be ironic.

    IV.
The Way, the Truth & the Death

Stained glass distorts the view
through cathedral windows,
painting a rainbow over drowning floods
and warping the picture seen from pews.

Thorny-stemmed yellow roses
lie spread across sallow sanatoriums  
at the feet of newfangled sunset beds
    while some envy the dead.

The first visit tore the world apart
with unholy crusades and war.
The second coming will end it all
                        first with whimpers
  then the second big bang.