The kid with the beard and the ***** apron,
he's just trying to make it.
His shoes have small tears on the sides,
from the way water saturates and weakens the material.
He’s got this way of gliding from table to table,
the same way a dancer owns a stage.
He slides plates of salt-ridden tacos currently in vogue
to a roomful of overfed, undersexed office drones

A woman in a skirt and flip-flops rolls her eyes at a salad.
A ******* in a blazer flicks a ****** under the table.
Still, there's a twinkle in the kid’s eyes,
like he's on the make.
If the right circumstances unfold
he’d snag a loose twenty
from a wallet or a purse.

This is the server's life,
always under the thumb,
hated and stressed,
but always laughing
at the end
of each shift.

Upon the soot-barren landscape
where serpents slither
in misery,
there are champions
of struggle
among the few trees
that defiantly grow
through the pollution.
We must only close our eyes
and open our minds
to sense them.

Simple words
that pour from the simple lips
of simple men
with simple minds
and simple values,
have always led to simple choices
and simple hatred
by simple followers,
who simply march over simple cliffs
to their simple deaths.

Sitting in traditional wooden pews
back in the mid-2000s,
a guest priest from the heart of the Congo
delivered a homily in broken English
about how his country had been torn to shreds
by warlords who control that region's
vast and valuable mineral deposits.

As the priest spoke in gentle passion,
a sea of sympathetic white faces listened
to him describe the rapes and murders,
the poverty and oppression.
One middle-aged woman in a yellow dress near the front
quietly sobbed at the reminder of true suffering,
a torture greater than mere death.

Out of a sense of courtesy
or possible humble generosity,
the priest did not disclose the minerals
that had brought on such gluttonous violence
were the very elements that make our electronics
flash and glow as perpetual escapes.

Instead, the priest requested
we pray with him
for future mystical solutions
to immediate physical problems.

As we filed out of the church
the older woman who'd wept
discussed driving to the local mall.
Apparently, there'd been a sale on mobile phones.
The crisp spring breeze had dried our tears,
and the power of the almighty dollar
wiped away our curiosity
and our short-term memories.

The moment the mind floats
on two shots of bourbon
our physical and mental ailments,
the stress of bills, the job,
and our resentment for ex-lovers
clocks out for the evening.
Don't worry.
The **** storm will return
in the morning,
but that break and a quick prayer
gives us the tools
to withstand the storm.

Gazing at the city skyline at night
through the living room window
brings peace to raging thoughts.
From a distance, all one sees are lights,
they twinkle peacefully
against a black curtain.

The rapists and the drunkards,
the hookers and the fascists,
they're all hidden in the landscape,
right below the surface.

If we allow them to ****** us,
even for one succulent moment,
they will consume every last ounce
of our reason, our purpose,
and leave us in madness.

An elaborate nightmare about fascists
running amok on nameless American streets
dominated a long sleep
after an endless week of servitude at the job.

In the nightmare, socialists in a nameless American town
battled torch-bearing white men without souls
in bland polo shirts and khakis.
A pervasive aroma of wood-fired smoke,
beer, and diesel fumes cut us off from the natural world
as the Neo-Nazis and their allies surrounded us.

In the throes of the crippling effects of dread and fear
the few of us, brothers and sisters of love and compassion,
the very young and the very old,
pushed forward to fight as warrior poets,
in remembrance of our grandparents,
for our children,
and for ourselves.

In the dream's periphery, blank faces of cowards
I've known for life looked on from sidewalks.
They refused to fight,
and instead they cracked sarcastic jokes
about both sides.