There's a sadness
that flows through the veins
of people who survive empire.
For some, the sadness transforms
into a base fear of the unknown,
cowardice validated by con-artists
in the open air and by charlatans
who profit deep in the shadows.
The sadness in others can transform
into rage fueled by the thirst
for courage, truth, a moral balance.
Sadness that leads to action
to correct injustices,
that’s the only possible deliverance
from anguish and despair.

When a man can hear
a woman's screams and sobs
thunder across an empty parking lot,
from a lone truck
partly hidden by the blanket of night,
that man is faced with a choice.
He can ignore the cries
and continue to move forward,
or he can turn and fight.
Such terrible options are rarely requested,
and no matter which decision he makes
that man will be haunted
during the quiet moments
for the rest of his life.

One day I will die.
I'm reconciled to that truth.
My own death does not concern me.
The teenage boy who knocks on doors
in the rural white neighborhood,
he looks for odd jobs and new friends.
That boy really digs *** and bicycles,
girls, video games, and basketball.
One day, an older resident, propagandized
by cable news and talk radio,
they will call the cops in paralyzed fear,
and then that boy will be wiped
from the face of the Earth.

In younger years, I dreamt
about flying over lakes and mountains,
and I dreamt about *******
slutty women in ****** motels.
Sometimes I battled noble samurai
on ancient Japanese hillsides.
I've lived out those subconscious musings
in one form or another.
Now, I rarely remember dreams.
The few that stand out are simple
reflections of life's boring troubles.
Maybe the trick is to find new adventures
that will keep our dreamscapes active,
interesting, forever alive.

Calling out dead poets
as sexists or rapists or users
is the opposite of woke enlightenment.
The poet’s job is not to censor
his experiences or his madness
for sanitized comforts.
The poet’s truth is his gift
of insight, a naked wisdom
of hard love and difficult choices.
Narrow fools so often absorb
this sweat and blood poured onto the page.
After their souls are satisfied,
that’s when the fools unsheath
the long sword of ignorance
and ****** the blade square
in the poet’s back.

The problem with people-watching
in the middling suburbs outside Pittsburgh,
is everyone looks like they’re related,
a little too similar, bad photocopies
of the same dull morality.
The girls have similar haircuts
and the boys wear similar shorts.
The men and women,
they cannot stomach the ‘F’ word,
but they adore efficient order
enforced through totalitarian violence.
Chemical air fresheners are pumped
through department store ventilation systems.
Perhaps the compound is designed
to induce complacency for the status quo
and suppress everyone's style
or sense of fashion.

I often wonder
what the world wants
or expects of me.
Then I realize the truth.
All people from all places,
they search all their lives
for happiness.
Some people want and expect
me to deliver it upon them.
The smart ones, they pursue
happiness on their own.