Gunning down horses, gunning down tails,
Gunning down archaic forces
That follow my nightmares through the eve
With its eye on my hilt and its back to its siege

I run and I run and I am never done
If I stop now, I stop for eternity
I lay waste on the Cimmerian horizon
And I drink to the gaps in my vision.

Fire crackles, sizzles like a tortured
Monk; Charcoal smoke lifts the air,
Turns the trees black and navy blue
As putrid smoke buries itself in my hair

The fire is my only hope now
I tell you they can’t see it
Their eyeless sockets will never know
And they’ll never find me here.

Long time coming
Long time gunning

Man dead on the ground
the soul still running

Flamed too ashes
Like a cigar filled with tree

Flamed too ashes
So there’s no more misery

Atleast that’s what he thinks
But to his surprise

He’s got grave problems
On the other side.

I urge that we make ourselves proud… of us
I urge that we go into and come out of these polls sober minded, responsible, uncorrupted, without ‘fight’ or ‘fuss’
Uncorrupted
I urge that a joyous feeling of an evolving nation moving forward be the only thing we can, in hindsight, say erupted… this upcoming Monday, the following Tuesday
I would like to state that a people gunning for peace in these coming days is the only topic I would like to be following in the news today
We should see what’s coming as the change of guard it is… and not as a dreaded doomsday
You may be black… I may be white, or vice versa… and that’s alright
We shouldn't even be asking ourselves “Who’s grey?”
I will vote with one heart for one country… my country
A country in which I’m confident can keep the peace, you see, we’re kind of good at this
I know this because we've had quite a bit of practice
I know this because deep down we all want to make peaceful transitions be the Kenyan way
I know, I hope… and whenever necessary, I pray
Happy voting.

this night has
      melted into too many
      casualties trying to reach the
edge of dawn
        where beaten voices
                  still believe in summer
                  dreaming about ages in the sun

w/ loaded gunning thoughts
tomorrow will never fade
                painted hands broke the ground
                stones reflecting off sapphire
                bombs always explode
at the most random times like
         when memory is sleeping..
           (my memory is wide awake)
& sometimes it screams so loud that I
can remember everything

what would it be like?
just a second of silence?
maybe it's like being thrown in that bomb of
gemstone safety..

smiles for yesterday,

          the future is running toward
          its own shadow:

a new song in this vein..

--And do not be indiscreet or unconventional. Play it safe.--

Listen here. I've never played it safe
in spite of what the critics say.
Ask my imaginary brother, that waif,
that childhood best friend who comes to play
dress-up and stick-up and jacks and Pick-Up-Sticks,
bike downtown, stick out tongues at the Catholics.

Or form a **** Club where we all go
in the bushes and peek at each other's ***.
Pop-gunning the street lights like crows.
Not knowing what to do with funny Kotex
so wearing it in our school shoes. Friend, friend,
spooking my lonely hours you were there, but pretend.

tea leaves and a bowl of mints, you're craving a time that left you years ago, now you're seeing yellow every time you blink, but life's not a filter on dreams and if you keep eating pomegranates without salt it could be a problem, your fingertips are already purple from holding too much ice so what will happen to your insides? sparks eventually die out, fires do too, but sometimes they don't, they just take longer to forget and you can't cut flames and smoke with chainsaws like you try to do with your feelings so remember to hold your smile in place and climb every fence it takes for you to slowly learn your red painted constellated lessons

they want me to be serious, to take it seriously. To look at sunrises calmly and seize coals and watch over red-blooded, man-fueled wars about bravado, integrity, and land. To look at money, a simple representation of labor, and see what it drives other to do, to do for me.

to crush cigarettes and testicles under my boots,
to crawl through mud and barbed wire, smiling

with grit in my grimace
salt rolling, sweaty brows
twisted locks of dark hair
tobacco-brown spit, ground
and filthy, caked in mud
teeth bared like an animal
white eyeteeth crunching

Scorching earth where my feet touch down.
A cigarette put out on a tongue. No more talking.

They want me to see and that, in the dark of the night, in the light of the day, when the sun rises and sets, there is pain, always, elsewhere and everywhere. So I will not tarry or joke or be frivolous with the battered souls of others and to think, to think about applying anything I know, to run along with the vigorous social constructs they ask me to dissect and then revolutionize, because I am young, and I will sprint faster, against accusations, and only briefly.

They want me to look at the world like a runner looks at the red track,
with their toes and sinews coiled as hard as steel, a pinnacle of human
at the height of athleticism and possess the ruthlessness of a rabid dog
drool rushed into foam and mad from dehydrating, my brain swelling

with my hormone driven
red, hazy, athletic rage,
gunning my ambition
for some organization.

No.

I will fight, yes, but I will not fight for a name on a card, shield, or building.
I will fight for the sake of fighting because I am contentious and I am wrong.

I side against hero and villain, because I am the ambiguity,
that languishes, resides in no-man's land, antagonizing both.

Being disliked in purgatory is sometimes more easy than chomping at the bit,
for blood and the power of cracking a black bull whip, so I can avoid this terrible avarice and corrupting beauty that comes with working hard, especially for the greatness
                        that I did not ask
                                       to be ****** upon me, while I wished to remain enigmatic.

Straight outta Ex Dee,
Crazy mother f@cker named Blatchy
Dropping sick beats, rolling hard in the backstreets,
Watch him roll dough as he hailin' a taxi,
Fancy f@cken suit, he's livin' in luxury

Fedora tipped-top on the tippy-top head
Gunning bad gangstas, better red than dead
Shooting spree, smilin' with glee
Don't wanna f@ck with a guy straight outta Ex Dee!

Whenever I taste your sweet menthol on my lips,
I inhale the desirable into my lungs,
And I exhale the tragic out of my soul.
But in reality, I breathe in death disastrously,
Filling myself with chances of possibility,
Artful ideas of being successful and extraordinary,
Forgetting any remnants of how I feel honestly,
With wishes to destroy every lightweight dandelion seed
I planted within myself, easily whisked away by a breathless wind,
Pushing my inner horizon farther and farther down the skyline.
Every minty swirl of hazy exhaustion I release
Finds me additional pieces to my jigsaw masterpiece
Countless shapes and sizes available for me to lease
But only one is correct and allows me to cease
My everlasting journey to find what I need.
A finger flick on a flame lights up my brain,
Igniting passionate affection for creativity,
For building up my future full of sovereign devotion
To assurance and indisputable positivity undarkened,
A clear-cut, twinkling vision of self-affirmative action,
Establishing a reality only seen in my dreams, me, chosen.
I always view the future haphazardly,
If I’m not a scientist what the hell will I be?
I just want to do is create and inspire and explain me
Looking through scopes and writing down numbers is not enticing
And I need some sort of stimulus to keep my body sane and happy.
My whole life I’ve wanted to make an impact, a change
Just now I know how that’s going to make way,
I want to write, express, let others know they’re not alone,
And if that is unsettling, I’ll just let your mind be blown.
My ever-expansive appetite craves for adventure,
I yearn for travel, for maps, for experience, new cultures
The globe is my home and I want to unlock every door
So my thirst will be unsatisfied until you give me the key for more.
Now I’m not trying to move mountains, stop war,
I just ask for a peaceful border, for safe travel and legal cigars.
Our society is mesmerized with beauty and love
But we lack the propensity to settle down and be content with ourselves
And if we can’t covet ourselves, who are we to judge?
She’s a little sad, he doesn’t curse,
Who is anyone to say that they aren’t worth a poetic verse?
Without a simple change to the way we perceive, we’re held back –
We, ourselves, block the borders to love and to peace,
Gunning down possibility,
Wearing away the concept of wholeheartedly,
Only accepting work done effortlessly,
Forgetting the importance of personality,
Living systematically,
Mathematically,
Temporarily.
We need change.
Escape the man-made Inferno of what we call society,
Climbing up the ladder of knowledge and inquiry and creation
Until we reach the omniscient sun and the moon,
To the stars and beyond.

In my New Day I arose from my
screen-tent-squirrel-hole-flimsy-bomb-shelter-for-my-soul
and walked down to the banks of the Missinabi River
at the Mattice Landing
with dog’s leash in one hand and my right hand
leading lady’s in the other, hearing and feeling tall grass
swishing against my pant legs
and the crunch of course sand under my feet
that once trod fields of green tall grasses swishing
against my pant legs in the meadows and rocky woods of
my childhood and youth where I spent summers working

at my Aunt and Uncle's farm in
New Liskeard, Ontario and in the woods and along the banks
of the Lackawanna River just over the **** behind
the house of my childhood and youth in the Anthracite coal
country of Northeastern Pennsylvania, which is light years away from the land of my birth where I now live in this Northern Ontario port in the middle of a deep
                                     cold sea of countless
                                     converging
                                     never-ending
rivers
lakes
trees
swamps
bogs
muskeg
and mountains of snow
where snow white and black flies freely fly.

I am always trying to go deeper into the trees and bush
burning deep inside my heart of hearts to follow the Moses
that is in all of us. This eternal Voice in pebbles crunching
under foot and tall grasses swishing and canoe parting
water that flows deep in my mind and spirit once only
winding past burning villages where man rapes and pillages
but now also following a more
pastoral             idyllic             and super-natural course.

A vagabond never quite understands the working-class
woman and man living their small dream with their offspring and slice of land. I thought they were all ostrich with head in sand. But I now see that we can't all afford to brood as I often do over the daily news. They must rise early the next morning, alarm clocks not set on snooze.                                             
Work ethic
Family hearth and home
Days of scent
of freshly mown grass  
barbeques                                          
campf­ires  
coffee brewing  
children playing  
TV and music blaring
dishes rattling
in sink or
swim in the lake.

Loosen the watertight mind drum and just dive into the
crunch of pebbles under foot treading fields of green tall
grasses swishing against pant legs. Not only wishing
but going deeper into the trees and bush burning
speaking to our primeval consciousness.
This eternal Voice in pebbles crunching and tall grasses
swishing . . .
The whooshing sound of wading in a stream streams
through my soul as I savour the body taste of wet gritty sand
between my fingers and toes, crouched down wet-crotch deep waiting long enough for minnows to tickle fingers and toes as mosquito’s pin-prickle skin.
Watching creatures much smaller than I gliding,
even walking on calm still water that we humans can only dream of doing in our motorised  sleep.

I think I now understand . . . to not be constantly mourning the plight of man isn't being ostrich with head in sand.
I must keep gunning-off addictions alluring stare.

I must taste life
    Smell and feel life
        Enjoy life outside of my troubled mind

against the backdrop of the latest holy war
and the imploding creations of our kind.

--Daniel Irwin Tucker

her patience was starting to wear thin, impatience growing as one of the pervs from the table across his eyes preying on her. she gave him the finger and her hardest glare.

where the hell are you  she typed out, texting him

be there in ten i kinda just got out of bed...sorry

she just sighed looking out the glass panes that gave a view of the busy street, letting her thoughts wander. sam was waiting for her bestfriend, noah to show up. she was going to help him find a flower shop that caters black roses. he was going to give it to jean, the girl of his dreams as he liked to call her (sam just knew how much of a cliche he was underneath; they barely had a conversation in which he didn't insert her-sam stuck up with it and listened to him, always assuring him that he's going to get her who wouldnt)

"sorry im late" he says, panting as he arrives, varsity jacket slung in his arms

"you owe me" sam says cooly, ignoring the drum pounding in her chest. he looked like he always did; and gave off the same effect to all the girls in town (he had quite a following though he didn't mind)

playfully he rolls his eyes at sam and the two walk their way into his beat up camaro (which was very good at overheating and taking too long to start)

"bet this thing would come up with its tricks again" sam started with their usual banter

"oh hell no it's got my back"

"your flat back"

"my bootiful ***"

sam scoffed "wanna bet?"

"game on" noah smugly retorts with the smug smirk on his face that showed off his angelic structures

"on three two....." sam had her fingers crossed please don't work please don't

noah tried gunning the engine a few more times, turning the key into the hole over and over again but the engine kept dying. he tried for one more time;it was a miracle that it did. he faced sam who's face turned down into a frown. "ha you owe me now"

"i owe you none" she says slumped in her seat though deep inside she was enjoying this. their friendship had alot of these immature playfulness which she usually started.

"just buy me an extra waffle cone and we're even"

"*******"

noah laughed and sam heard the lilt in his laugh that she grew fondly of. they drove off the road with only the radio to filter the silence for a while. sam started tracing patterns on the car window.

she felt something for noah and it wasn't something she expected, neither was it something she was looking for. the first time they ever interacted was in a class they both had. his eyes had that mischievous spark that day and  he wore a devilish grin-sam thought he was the perfect guy to turn into one of her casualties or better yet get his heart broken. but all they did after class that day was hangout and drive around town. sam was quite shocked with the numerous things they have in common. since then, they've meant alot to each other. although it was different for sam. sometime in their friendship she started feeling something for him, someting more than friends do .she hated it; the thought of it made her want to rev her guts out;

she was never the type to like guys or girls and fantasize about them being together or even feeling the same way. she was the type of girl who played with guys for a night (a week was her longest) whenever she felt like it. she toyed with their hearts and felt satisfied when she saw them with tears in their eyes. she felt no remorse for leaving them in the gutter. she was never vulnerable  she was a heartbreaker. she was that type of girl. but with noah it was all different, it was all new. it was like being on the other side of the spectrum

it frustrated her, all of it. most of all the fact that she couldn't do anything about it. she couldn't just steal him away from jean especially now that he stood a chance. plus, he was serious about her, sam could tell-even if she tried making moves on him, he'd leave because that wasn't how he knew her-they went so well together: her being on the cheerleading squad with her perfect friends and her perfect grades, perfect life ahead and him being the quarterback of the football team and the perfect college waiting for him, heir to his father's company someday-they were the power couple. they deserve each other sam thought bitterly. she could be one of the "perfect" girls in her school if she tried. but she didn't, didn't find the need to because why bother? she'd rather be on the outside and deal with her own company and just resurface whenever she felt like it. he had dreams;she didn't. she was just a heartbreaker, a mess.

yet she didn't want to lose noah; couldn't lose noah-it wasn't a risk she was willing to take. around him she let down the high walls she usually was encaged in and instead had vine trellises wrapping around her almost as if caressing her. it wasn't like in the movies but it was a **** cliche which she felt in gradual waves.she could hear wind chimes in the edges of her nicotine corrupted lungs whenever she was with him and none of the nails splintering against board in the emptiness of her house she felt in the dark while her sister slept soundly in the next room, none of the stale unfamiliarity of her mother working herself thin in her round the clock shifts, staggering home the next morning smelling like alcohol. she felt something other than the hollow in her stomach when she's out partying with strangers, the bass sounding too much like her heart breaking and her existence decomposing. she felt none of the filth she did when she slept with guys and let them make love with their exes through her body. she felt none of all the ugliness, heard none of the monsters' calls. noah made her feel pure. made her feel bliss. there was no irony, no catches, no waiting for the other shoe to drop in what they shared.

some days she's accepted that they'd always remain platonic, that it was better for them to stay this way. but today wasn't one of those days, for it was one where she wanted nothing but to plant her lips against his and make him tell her that he feels the same, for him to wrap her arms around her and bury her face in the crook of his neck, drown in all their memories, become the memories become an us. it wasn't love but he made her feel loved.

her daydreams were cut short when noah parked the car infront of the flower shop near the outskirts of town. she smoothed her hair as noah opened the car door for her. she felt her palms sweat, immediately telling her brain that he was really just sweet and it's jean that he likes stop spewing up hurricanes and thunders for every sweet thing he does.

"so first stop"

"i still don't get why you can't just buy her a bouquet of plain roses and spray paint it black. i'll help out yknow" she replies in her usual mocking way as they enter the shop, the floral fragrance enveloping them.

"because you gotta put all your effort and your heart to get her"

"yeah right, hey you gotta put effort in spray painting too yknow like shaking the can and making sure the roses are all covered. we can cover your heart in black paint as well if we still got any left" she replies sarcastically as they start perusing for black roses.

he rolls his eyes at his best friend, throwing one of the discarded dandelions at her direction. she picks one up and throws it at him quickly. it was only a matter of minutes til they were both on the floor laughing, sneezing in intervals, dandelions scattered around them. the florist scolded them when he saw the mess they caused and made them pay for a daisy and a petunia boquet that was haphazardly upturned in their rowdiness-no black rose in sight.

sam laughed as noah took out his wallet and paid the florist who's face was now red. she heard him mutter a sheepish apology and for a moment, she allowed or tried to let herself get lost in the fact that she and her bestfriend were spending the day together she tried to forget that she was spending the day with him to help him be with the girl that he likes.