(it's cliché to admonish clichés in their entirety)

I. (love)

We are meant to live the clichés;
we are meant to resuscitate the words,
and rehabilitate their wounds
into a fertile viewpoint
where we build respirators from clichés
to filter the virulent dust kicked up
by the marching pigs.

(re-invented clichés offer back breath
in an exchange of circular breathing)

The swine contort love
into armaments of antipathy;
they push buttons,
squeeze triggers,
pull pins,
and aim where it causes the most damage.

Even though we are natural born hypocrites,
we don't have to let that knowledge corner us
into using love as a weapon.

The pen is mightier than the sword,
and I wield both;
I sharpen the quill on the blade's edge.

If need be, use the pen for a counter-strike,
but only channel love in defence.


II. (poetry)

The pigs march to a beat
of nuclear blasts
that bring poetry's flag
nearer to half-mast.


Poetry should stand on its own merit,
instead of leaning on shanks that hide behind smiles
constructed with aspirations of popularity
that churn out lazy, aspartame-laced lines
devoid of accountability and integrity,

or lean upon smiles filled with slivers
from far too much fence-sitting,
too worried about the trending majority,
to see the complexity within simplicity

and clarity,

or

propped-up against degrees
while writing poems that are drier than the Sahara:
husks of lines tumbling across dunes,
only to be imploded
by atomic-pork mushroom clouds,
their fallout marring parchment
into a poisonous terrain.
.

III. (dreams)

(revive, twist, and switch the clichés )

We must not fear saying "never".
Surrender to love, but never surrender
to the jealous captains who attempt
to hook and net the defenders of Neverland.

With compasses of conscience
beating in hearts kept young,
navigate through the smoke and mirror-smog
emitted by the marching pigs.

(we must never give up on our dreams)

Dream about the courage needed
to love everyone and everything,
including our enemies
who conduct genocide
on the language of a purer intent.

Dream about word-seedlings
pushing through the arid rind
of dying poetry,

in hope for a more organic fruition
to grow in our hearts and minds,

so that poetry gains back its strength and vitality
to once again stand on its own merit.



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