1.
He lights another mortar
and the dog runs after it
barking and trying to bite it
he grabs it's back leg as the sky lights up
since he had barely thought to look over
and the words around here don't reach his mind
his ears defective as they are.
He says something with his hands
something foreign to me
but six people watching laugh
and so do I.


2.
His wife sits with her sons
her stomach wide with their third
another boy
she's gotten so used to talking with her hands
that her voice is rusty
and her vocabulary limited
but she's here as much as the rest
sitting and laughing and having a good time.


3.
The owner of the house sits off the side in the nicest lawn chair here
a cup in her hand
we've quit counting how many drinks she's had
but she only drinks a couple days a year
and nobody is giving her any problems
and she seems to be able to be her normal self.
She had been questioning me earlier today
seeing if I was really a good guy
testing whether she'd have to sit at the table with a shotgun
every time I spent any time with her niece.


4.
Her husband is launching his own collection of mortars off
with his brother
while her brother-in-law hands the teens the novelties
I launch off a dozen flowers
and a few spinny things.
She occasionally breaks her fingers away from mine
to launch off a flower, smokebomb or firecracker
and occasionally runs over to poke-chop her uncle
who keeps talking to the fireworks.
She always comes back and we'll wander by her mom and stepdad
(the latter always throws in some sort of comment
so we act careful around him)
and over to her cousins
or toward her aunt and roommate.
Occasionally we'll have to get something from the house
and we sneak three kisses
but we mostly just stay in each others arms
keeping each other warm in the almost warm 4th of July night
our hands both entwined
one of our heads always on the others shoulder
and in all the craziness
all the family drama
everything is perfect and she's smiling so hard her cheeks keep hurting
and she keeps telling me how little sleep she's gonna get
and I tell her I ain't gonna be able to sleep at all

Liturgy in Time of War

I will go to the altar of God
To God who gives joy to my youth

ENTRANCE ANTIPHON

The dawn (evening) is coming, another hot, filthy, wet dawn (evening).  Let us arise, soaked in sweat, exhausted, to speak with sour, saliva-caked mouths, to meet the deaths of this day (night).

GREETING

In the name of Peace in Our Time,
For the Hearts and Minds of The People,
For the Land of the Big PX
For round eye and white (black) (brown) thigh,
I greet you, brothers.

PENITENTIAL RITE

All:

I confess to almighty God
And to you my brothers
That I have sinned through my fault
In my thoughts and in my words
In what I have done
And in what I have failed to do,
And I ask Blessed Mary…

But how can I ask Her anything now?

My brothers,
Pray for me to…

But how?
Priest: (But there is no priest)

KYRIE

Lord, have mercy
Christ, have mercy
Lord, Lord, have mercy on us now

Have mercy, Lord, on a generation
That sits smugly in college lecture halls
And protests endlessly in coffee shops
The war they hear, see, on T.V., for free
Justice and peace by the semester hour
Like, y’know, peace, love, Amerika sux
Play the guitar, ****, apply to law school

Have mercy on us
Who crouch behind sand bags
And clean our weapons
And protest nothing
And **** in the heat
And die in the hear
And throw ham and lima beans away

GLORIA

Glory to God in the highest
how many bodies yesterday?
And peace to His people on earth
Vietnamese? Or us?
Lord God, heavenly King, almighty God and Father
ham and lima beans?
We worship you, we give you thanks, we praise you for your glory
Doc, I can’t go home to my wife with this clap
Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of the Father
cigarette, canteen cup of instant coffee
Lord God, Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world
******* magazine
Have mercy on us
relief behind the sand bags
You are seated at the right hand of the Father
i rot
Receive our prayer
i want to be clean and dry
For You alone are the Holy One
clean and dry.  just once.
You alone are the Lord
why do they chew that?
You alone are the most high
you mean the betel nut?
Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God the Father
incoming!
Amen


PRAYER

A

Father, you make this day holy.
Let us be thankful for
The many little joys of
This day, for life, for
The chance to worship
You.  In the end, bring
Us to you, so that we
May be cleansed of mud
And sweat and filth and
Guilt, and live with you
In peace forever.

B

Father, just get me through
Another day of this mess.

LITURGY OF THE WORD –

FIRST READING

From the Intensive Care Unit, NSA DaNang

A twilight world
Of neither peace nor battle
And of both

A man world
Embracing life and the grim death
Both

Peering into infected wounds
Night building shiver
Down from the black sky flares float

Broken bodies from the war somewhere
Eyes of a shattered nineteen-year-old Marine
Staring at the door to Yokosuka

PSALM

A Song of Descents

I cast down my eyes
Into the mud
Into the blood
It seems cleaner than death and drugs and casual ***
Drink Coca-Cola

I turned my eyes away from you, O Lord
And made this
Build this
Came to this
Samantha and Darren on Bewitched

Have mercy on…but how can we ask?  How dare we ask?

SECOND READING

Old Man, Viet Nam

Old man, a dog is barking at your heels
Old man, with the tired, weathered face
Are you afraid to turn around and deal
This dog a kick, to put him in his place?

Or is it, old man, that you’re just too tired?
Just too tired to turn and show anger
Just too tired to have your temper fired
Beaten by years of contempt and danger

Where are you going, trudging so slowly?
What are you thinking, behind those tired eyes?

Probably not about ham and lima beans

GOSPEL

In the Cold White Mist

After an all-night run on the river
Our boats arrive in the village at dawn
Dawn is never cold along that rive
Along that steaming, green, hell-hot river
But the mist is cold, the grey-green dawn mist
And after the engines are cut – stillness
Foul brown water laps at the mudding bank
Sloshing softly with fertile, smelly death

In the cold white mist

The boats are secured, and watches posted
We step off the boats and onto wet land
And follow the track into the deep mist
It becomes the street of a little town
A dairy lane along which cows slopped home
And where dogs and chickens and children
      played
Bounded by carefully swept little yards
And little wooden houses with tin roofs

In the cold white mist

But some of the houses are burnt.  The smoke
Still hangs heavily in the whitening mist
The lane is littered with debris.  A lump
Resolves itself into a torn, dead child
Across a smaller lump, a smaller child
Their pup has been flung against the fence, its
Guts early morning breakfast for the morning
      flies
We smoke cigarettes against the death-smells

In the cold white mist

Beneath a farm tractor rots a dead man.
When they – they – had come at sunset
He had hidden there.  And they shot him there
A man with bare feet and work-calloused
      hands
His hair is black; his teeth need cleaning
They shot him beneath the village tractor
His blackening blood clots into the mud
And our lungs choke in the white mist of death

In the cold white mist

White mist.  The path disappears into it
Smoky skeletons of little houses
In which there will be no tea this morning
No breakfasts of hot tea and steaming rice
No old widows to smile in betel-nut
No children to mock-march alongside us
Pointing at our ******* boots, and laughing
At us, for wearing shoes in the summer

In the cold white mist

They are dead and rotting in the white mist
On the edge of the jungle on the edge
Of the world, here along the Vam Co Tay
And the people pour out of their houses
To greet us on the fine summer morning
A corpse across a doorway, another
******-doubled across a window sill
Still another strewn down the garden path

In the cold white mist

The other patrol doubles back to us
And they tell us that the Ruff-Puff outpost
Must have been overrun the night before
He had heard their radioed pleas, and had
Run the river at night to get to them
And the ARVNs had fled through the village
And the VC had stormed in behind them
And it was knife-and-gun-club night in town

In the cold white mist

A little girl is the lone survivor
She looks may six.  Cute, except for the
Bubbling, *******, bayoneted chest wound
We patch her, and tube her, and use suction
Sort of like fixing a bicycle tire
And in the wet, gasping heat take her back
With us downriver, where a charity
Hospital leaves her on the steps to die

In the cold white mist

It will be our turn again tomorrow
Not a one of us died today.  Today.
But a village is gone, burnt and rotting,
Soon to disappear into the jungle
Along the green Cambodian border
Up some obscure river.  Up there.  Somewhere.
A few hundred people.  Their ancestors’ graves
Will fade with them untended, forgotten

In the cold white mist

Radio Hanoi might blame it on us.
But maybe not.  We made our report and
Nobody really noticed; no one cared
The talk is of the VC battalion
And where it has gone, and where it might go –
Maybe into death under an air strike
“And you guys better get in some sack time,”
Says the C.O. as he turns to his maps.

In the cold white mist

HOMILY

I’m scared, and I want to go home.  I don’t care any more about justice or fighting Communism or winning the hearts and minds of the people.  I can’t think about all that right now, because I’m scared, and I want to go home.
I don’t care about truth or loyalty or bravery or honor.  If Miss March were here she wouldn’t get cold, but she sure would get sunburnt.  And in a few days her skin would start rotting.  Then nobody would want to see her in the **** anymore.  
I’m scared, and I want to go home.
Up the Vam Co Tay, everyone is scared, everyone is tired, everyone is sick, everyone could die: sailor, soldier, officer, priest, farmer, fisherman.  Everyone rots in the wet heat.  The skin bubbles and flakes and peels, and is pink again, to bubble and flake and peel again.  
I’m scared, and I want to go home.
I’m Doc.  I’m a scared, stupid kid with an aid bag and a few months’ training.  But I’m Doc.  I’ve got to fake it.  I’ve got to be cool and calm because this other kid with his guts hanging out will probably make it if I don’t ***** up and if the dust-off from Saigon can get out here now.
I have an old dog at home, and my folks write and tell me she sleeps outside my window at night, waiting for me to come home.  Someday we’re going to run and play in the woods and fields again.  She’ll bark and run wide circles, and dare me to catch her.  I will laugh under the autumn leaves.  But now my nights are glaring darkness, fits of sweat-soaked half-sleep, then sirens and falling glares and falling mortars, and then the Godawful racket of all our engines of destruction.  There isn’t any use in all this.
I’m scared, and I want to go home.

And I don’t want any ham and lima beans.

CREED

We believe in the Land of the Big PX
In presidents in suits, and generals,
In makers of economic strategies
We believe in flak jackets and .45s and peace

We believe in swing ships and dust-offs, yes
In the dark, green omnipresent Huey
Eternally begotten of technology
Blades to rotor, windscreen to machine guns
Made, not begotten, one in being with us
Through it all things are transported to us
For us men and our hunger and our hope
It comes down from the skies
By the high power of technology
It was born of the long assembly line

For whose sake are we crucified today?
Who suffers, and who dies and is baggied?
And on the third will arrive back home
To be neatly packaged in stainless steel

But not in ham and lima beans

LITURGY OF THE EUCHARIST

Preparation of the Gifts

Celebrant:

Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation.
Through your goodness we have this cheap Algerian wine to offer,
Fruit of the vine and work of human hands.
It will become anaesthesia for our souls.

People:

Blessed be…we just don’t know

Celebrant:

Pray, brothers, that our sacrifice may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father, to somebody.  Maybe.

People:

May the Lord, or the baggies, accept the sacrifice we offer with
our own burnt hands
For the praise and glory of…of what?
For our good, and the good of all His Church.

PRAYER OVER THE GITS

Little green cans, and I don’t care
Little green cans, and I don’t care
Little green cans, and I don’t care
Air cover’s gone away.

EUCHARISTIC PRAYER

Preface for the Monsoon Season:

Father, all-powerful
And ever-living God,
We do well always and everywhere
To give You thanks
Through Jesus God our Lord
Even with diarrhea
thanks
When the mail doesn’t come
thanks
When we rot
thanks
When the heat ***** at our brains
thanks
When the mud ***** at our boots
thanks
When the horror ***** at our souls
thanks
We’re alive
thanks

SANCTUS

Holy, holy, holy, Lord, God of power and might
The bunkers are full of blood and death.
Hosanna in the mud.  Blessed is he who comes with the mail.  Hosanna in the mud.

EUCHARISTIC PRAYER

The Kien Tuong Province Canon:

A sailor is silhouetted against the dawn
Along a steamy river
Mostly helmet and flak jacket
Above dark plastic gunwales

The sailor has lost his New Testament
But there’s a ******* around somewhere
Naked, willing women –
Miss March wants to be an actress

He also carries an old plastic Rosary
To touch occasionally
While whispering a hurried Hail Mary
He hopes She understands

Those who in bell-bottoms and head-bands
Fight Fascism
In Sociology 201
Will never forgive him

A sailor is silhouetted against the dawn
This day he is to be elevated
His body broken and his blood shed
For you and for all men

OUR FATHER

Our Father, who art in Heaven
this ain’t it
Hallowed be thy name
Thy kingdom come
this ain’t it
On earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day…
not ham and lima beans
And forgive us our trespasses
as we shoot them that trespass against us
And lead us not into ambush
But deliver us from evil

SIGN OF PEACE

Peace on you.

AGNUS DEI

Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world: have mercy on us.

Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world: have mercy….

Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world: grant us peace.

Priest:

(But there is no priest)

People:  

Lord, I am not worthy to receive you,
But only say the word and I shall be killed.

COMMUNION ANTIPHON

They ate, and were not satisfied
They killed, and were not without fear.

PRAYER AFTER COMMUNION

Lord,
If we do not get out of this
Make some sense of it to those who remain
May we go home.  Home.  Or if not,
Take us unto you, in mercy.
Home.  Where you reign, for you are Lord
Forever and ever.  Amen

BLESSING

May you walk on grass that does not explode
May you sleep without rot
Without fear
May you never see or smell ham and lima beans again.
May you live
May you play with puppies
May you find forgetfulness
May you find peace
In the Name of Him who took your death for you

DISMISSAL

This is to certify that____is Honorably Discharged from the____on theday of____.  This certificate is awarded as a testimonial of Honest and Faithful Service.

CLOSING HYMN

Old men, smoking in the sunshine
Exiled outside the doors of life
Old uniforms, old pajamas
The chrome of wheelchairs, shiny, bright

Inside, polished wooden handrails
Line the hot, polished passages
Something to cling to on the way
To the lab, to x-ray, to death

And more old men, shuffling along
In a querulous route-step march
From Normandy, from The Cho-sen,
From the Vam Co Tay, from the deserts,
Past the A.I.D.S. ward and the union signs
On waxed floors to eternity

Portions previous published:

“Closing Hymn” is from “Outpatient Surgery – Veterans’ Hospital,” Juried Award, Houston Poetry Fest 1993

“In the Cold White Mist” is a Juried Award, Houston Poetry Fest 1991

“Old Man, Viet-Nam,” was published in Pulse, Lamar University, 1982

iHonor the history of my ancestors
And their ***** love songs: Nyabinghi
Crossing the Atlantic  with their creative minds
Rooted into their backbones was creative; Black men and women of today
A generation of;  
Bobo Shanti!
Baganda
Niger Congo
Sierra Leone
Bushmen
Kings and Queens of Africa

iHonor my history
But, my history is in Him
The King of Kings

Dreams hanging on a tree!
Kings and Queens hanging form a  rope nailed to a tree!
They were auctioned off a d sold in corner stores like Bodegas!
Please don’t forget about your ancestors when you speak about History!
He was rejected in the time of earthly kings and Queens
He was rejected in the time of Exodus
He was rejected in the time of redemption songs/ Babylon!

He was rejected at birth
He was rejected for calling Himself
"I am thee I am"
His purpose killed Him
He was rejected, but his purpose lives.

iHonor the King of Kings for being the sacrificial lamb of all Mortars
iHonor Him

Some kings rule their kingdoms surrounded by luxury
this king held a Bible in his hand
stood tall before Nations
with a single dream!
No luxuries!

This king was rejected!
He was shot!
Here comes the dream killers
A voice of a black Panther cried
“what their; guns, bats & smoke bums”
Have mothers clenching their young's
Running down to avenues unknown
To street that are paved with hopeless dreams and  goals

Because of  Dr. Martin Luther King and His Dream
Mothers were crying, digging graves with their finger nails.
Bering their dreams and aspiration into graves!
grave yards became over populated
With creative minds and dreams!

iHonor  Dr Martin Luther King Jr, for dreaming & believing
That whites & blacks will  become  one Nation under the King of Kings
iHonor Him

To my generation and to generation to come,
Where is creativity today!
Creativity was lost, unable to find!
So different things start to shape the mind
Creativity is something we watch on TV
Creativity has become an illusion
what a poor substitution

The mind is a beautiful thing to waste!
Creativity is in the wave pool of our minds
Mothers read to your young  from the womb
Bring creativity and dreams back to life

Doctor Seuss was creating a world of creativity in the minds of our  generation!
I think I can, I think I can was another book that brought creativity to life!

If a Cat can wear a hat
A fox can wear  socks
A boy by the name of Sam I Am, love green eggs and ham!
He can eat it in a box, with a fox!
In a house with a mouse!
With a goat on a boat!
So, who are you to tell me I'm not a "who"
Doctor Seuss created the Who's and the Who Ville!
Therefore I am a Who!
Who are you!

iHonor black mothers and fathers for being
present and never absent/ for being super heroes of monsters in closets.

iHonor my black people for uniting together from the 1960's to 2013
iHonor Mrs. King
iHonor Dr. Martin Luther King
iHonor the King of kings
iHonor all those individuals that made it possible for us to vote today
iHonor you all!
iHonor!

I hate the beach
I'm eighty six and I hate the beach
Hate the sand, not a fan of the surf
Face it, I hate the beach
Last time I went there
I had just turned 18 years old
June sixth, Nineteen Hundred Forty Four
God, I hate the beach
I was in the 5th Regiment
Régiment de Maisonneuve
and I've never been to a beach since
I'm from Verdun, Quebec, Canada
Not many beaches around there
Thank the lord for that I say
We'd been training for six months
Operation Overlord it was called
We were coming in on troop carriers
It was to be a beach head landing
I'd never seen a beach before
At least not for real
Never want to see another
We arrived early June 6, 1944
I think I said that already
You must forgive me,
I'm 86 years old and I hate the beach
fourteen thousand Canadian Troops
Bursting out of armoured troop ships
Like, the young, virile, brahma bulls we were
Coming in, all I could hear was the waves
I was in front, well...close to the front
I remember, there were no birds
who ever heard of that?
A beach with no birds
At least not at this beach
I could smell the salt in the air
And I knew I could hear the surf
And my heart, I could **** well hear that
But, no birds, I couldn't hear the birds
Gunfire, nope...cannons and mortars
But birds and guns, not a sound
Weird huh?
I remember running forward
Always forward, past blocks
Wood barricades and barbed wire
And bodies, lots of bodies
I knew that I knew some of them
I just didn't have time to stop
And say goodbye,
I just ran
Emptied my weapon at least once
I only know this, because it was empty
when I hit the beach
God, I hate the beach
You know in the movies
or in those flowery books
where they talk about someone being shot
and how "there was a bloom or
they're chest flowered red where they were hit"
I never saw that, never looked back
Just ran forward, saw the "bloom" in their backs
Don't like red, or flowers or the beach
I don't remember much after that
Could still hear my heart
That's a good thing, I guess
I got tore up good with the wire
but I never got shot
Never, "bloomed" for anyone
A few of my buddies were lost
I toast them every year
Never at the beach though
I hate the beach
Wife and kids used to go
I never did, never will
I remember the 50th anniversary though
Wife and kids went back
Not me,
Went into Montreal to see a ball game
Montreal Expos 10, Houston Astros 5
I remember Will Cordero hitting a homer
It was the sixth inning, I toasted the hit
I thought about that day 50 years before
And went back to watching the game
I hate the beach
My name is Gilles Roquefort
I'm eight six years old
And I can still feel the sand and taste the salt
On a bad day.

for all the names on that granite wall and many others...

I  Prelude

Vietnam broke my mind.
Now it runs like a cheap watch
always leaping about in time.
It pulls me backward into
strange visions of a world gone mad.
My life is time borrowed from corpses.
It is hard to lead your life
while you are stuck in another.
Time, the great healer,
only seems to make this worse.
Self-medication, legal meditation,
nothing seems strong enough
to stop the pounding of the rotors,
the screams of the men and the monkeys.
I have never been able to **** the demons
hidden in the tree lines of my mind.
Forty-three years later I'm still hiding
nauseous and naked in the napalmed jungle.
But my high mileage body clings to life:
the quest for immortality knows no shame.
Now I am a poet drunk on words,
stumbling over the illusion of art.
The more I know of language,
the less I understand life and loss.
And still the mortars rain down
in an eternal, inescapable monsoon.


II Place

Imagine a land that smells entirely of ****.
Only 70 miles wide in some places.
I flew above the abandoned bases of a war
that had been abandoned as well.
Places given up to the jungle
where 60,000 Americans died for nothing.
An implacable enemy that had fought
the Japanese and French before us
and had no doubt they would prevail.
A very beautiful place seen from the air
if no one was trying to eradicate you.
Skinny children, old women, many ******.
A place where real tigers might well
leap from ambush and eat you alive
and snakes so deadly that once bitten
you only got two steps before death.
Breathtaking sunsets and sunrises.
And the possibility of doom everywhere.
Rice paddies, mountains, triple canopy jungle.
Gorgeous beaches and an ocean laden
with sharks and sea snakes for company.
A place where death picked his teeth and smiled.


III Action

Stark terror is the mother of combat;
the rage of Peleus son Achilles
drives the soldier into the filed teeth
of impossibly horrible situations.
Not for America or the Stars and Stripes
but for the man next to you
whom you probably didn't even know.
Never ask why one man dies
and the one beside him lives on.
I shot an NVA regular from 20 feet
with a Colt Model 1911 45 automatic.
Got him exactly in the chest.
He looked very surprised to be dead.
I was surprised I didn't miss.
At An Loc a Huey 20 yards from mine
loaded with 18 hopeful human beings
took a rocket up the *** and
disintegrated into a debris cloud
of metal fragments and pink mist.
No bodies to be bothered with,
no pieces large enough to identify.
A CIA officer executing the wounded.
A tame **** torturing his countryman.
The exquisitely horrific moment when
you know you are falling, not flying.
The partner cut in half by a machine gun
five feet from where I stood.
Do not try to make any sense of this.
Fall back on the mantra: *don't mean nothing.
Cling to that and you may stay sane.
Apparently, God was busy for ten years
and never bothered to visit Vietnam.

IV Comrades

Forget that band of brothers *******,
we were more like a desperate rabble
with no one to count on but each other.
Sometimes a brother shares the blood
in your veins; sometimes you know him
by the blood that flows from his.
You scream, you curse, you try so hard
and he dies like a huge baby in your arms.
Vietnam was a club you could only join
by being there deep in the ****.
Now we are old men but our memberships
will never expire until we do.
And who will remember us then.

V Aftermath

Treated like lepers, we slunk home,
each to do the best he could.
Many died in the denouement of
drugs, alcohol, homelessness, suicide.
When I got home I wanted to be alone,
to be with people, lots of *****,
but only with no emotion attached,
an ocean of Jack Daniels, lines of coke,
mountains of ***, electro-shock therapy,
calm sleep without nightmares
and sometimes the comfort of a quick death.
Not much different than most I think.
Saigon fell. Don't mean ******* nothing.
Only some of us remember and want you to know
so you won't be fooled again.

Unzip,
new skin quick
neutralised Freudian slips
A spy game
so slick
well placed mortars sinking battleships

new suit
cover skin ill-suited to do business with life

find a life that suits your business
before you cover your life with a business suit.

King America,
my King,
King America,
whom i live under,
King America,
who freed me of tryanny,
replaced only with illusions of security,
King America,
you tell me I'm free,
but all that can be seen,
you and me,
suffering with no means,
King America,
to no avail,
King America,
you abolished slaves,
but with your dictionaries,
created a word,
King America,
this is the wage im suppose to make?
come on my back hurts and I'm feeling the pain,
King America,
I'll feed and support you,
sew the clothes on your back,
make the beds you sleep in,
and even scratch your ***,
but as soon as the sun sets,
your nowhere to be found,
King America,
your a royal pain in the behind,
King America,
I'll give you this,
your good with your lies,
you talk with your mouth,
making me believe your eyes,
your face might even think its telling the truth,
but all along i can see your hands,
slidding the pawns,
your think your sneaky,
King America,
you use your religions and fears,
mark the masses,
I hope they easily scare,
King America,
you think your god,
King America,
if anythings the truth,
we shouldn't question,
we wouldn't search,
we couldn't know the answer,
it's all buried beneath the earth,
King America,
I'm sick of your ****,
you **** me off,
and you know what *******,
King America,
your looking to fight,
pawns,
batallions,
war heroes and crimes,
black hawks night vision goggles,
might as well throw in a b2,
tanks,
mortars,
and soldiers,
a few million,
why not?
King America,
as you stand there behind your game,
King America,
im just one man,
holding tight my hands,
King America,
look down your sights,
King America,
he's just one man,
who cares about his views?
King America,
I won't tell you "not" to shoot,
thats up to you,
King America,
I'd be your friend but your a bit of a ******,
King America,
you say your so great,
but look at the people who have no food,
King America,
the thirty plus percent,
that have no shoes,
King America,
look at the poor and tell me,
your happy with your thrown,
playboys  and penthouses,
yachts and jets,
5 irons and 3 woods,
business deals and synergy,
banks and loans,
monopoly and mafia,
but besides that mrs. lincoln how was the show?
King America,
you make me laugh,
or at least the fact,
that so many would rather see black,
King America,
you've colored your flag,
white for purity and innocence,
red for the valor of war,
blue for the chief,
had to get fancier and had a star,
a symbol of the heavens,
the divine goal to which man,
hath aspired from time immemorial,
dont forget the stripe,
symbolic of the rays of light,
King America,
too bad thats a lie.

You partied hard when you could
Gold mini skirt and heels
But underneath the glamour
Were guts and nerves of steel

Home was fun and jolly japes
A lively social whirl
But work was war zones, scary scrapes
For our brave reporter girl

You found yourself in Libya
Met the mad dog's stare
He liked you, it was a feather in your cap
You made your name out there

Sri Lanka's where you lost an eye
To shrapnel flying in the dark
They thought you were a Tamil Tiger
Hiding in the grass

Back home someone told you off for smoking
Quick came your reply
Don't concern yourself, I promise you
That's not how I'll die

In Chechnya you made it out
Escaping with your life
As mortars fell you legged it
Eight days over mountain snow and ice

East Timor was your finest hour
Fifteen hundred people protected by too few
You refused to leave, they were saved
That was down to you

Luck ran out in Syria
You feared another massacre, tried to warn the world
So the shells once more homed in on you
And killed our brave reporter girl

uh strippin' ya titles n fame
Ya got no game shame I had to show up in flame
burn every last one of y'all til a single grain
snorts of ******* to rush into my brain
gives me crazy pump
like kriss kross I'll make ya jump
got ya body arched like camel humps smokin' punks like a smoke blunts pull stunts more than steevo straight evil
ya can peep me on underground radios
**** mainstream and pipe dreams
make this ***** jalel sings
more than crows gathered around for the wicked sound
body molded to th ground for tryna step to Htown fools drown
with no water slaughter
Like shots from a thousand mortars
got bids on the Satan's daughter's
ya need to get smarter y'all fallen like denzel welcome to yosef cell no bail no fairytales as I silence ya yell
from my lyrical gat that goes through ya medulla oblungata
got more ranks than shabba mister lover lover undercover like brother as I smother
ya baby mama and ya mother like no other duck her with no rubbers
cut into ya head piece like cookie cutters
see ya in sta sta sta studder
yosef be hoppin' like hoes like mudd rudders
straight from the gutters
I got rhymes for days that's was displayed before even my rhymes was said
plus **** what ya said
I'll  leave ya dome open like a Sun roof
catch. spoof off my tactics
my lyrics be more controversial than the gulf tonka make ya wonder magnificent blunders sound the thunders
once yosef grabs the Mic enticing brawls under heat lights
sweatin' cuz I'm a threat ending ya fate and might uh

Just like i told ya ya can't stop the reign
as i bring the pain more than major playa hatas
move over theres a new sheriff in town puff by the pound
its goin' down in htown time to ****** crowns
off unknown clowns whos rounds
ain't hittin' nothin' but air as i heir
the rhymes from my hip hop ancestry
like i said who spit it better than me
****** is what i write
check the obituary even burn ya cemetery
while enemies stay worried i stay buried
with rhymes that pull like tech 9s through ya mind
as ya touch the flat line
give em pump up so he get the adrenaline up
only to get knocked the ****** up
by the mister evil sinister preach lyrics as a minister
this ain't the last inning
we goin' all out til we fall out got guns that clear the skies out
nuclear blast spin around emceez like taz hit ya with jazz razzamatazz
that's the sounds of gats bustin' that ***
left ya body soakin' breath chokin' hopin'
to make it but can't shake it as i mold it then break it
like my last drip a *** i shake it
til its nothing left cook up these lyrics like a chef
even make ears open of the deaf
cuz my lyrics be so powerful irresistible hard for ya know to go
and bob ya head to my **** i hit like rockets outta space
loose ya paper chase for tryna step into yosefs face
with that disgrace that ******* you call hip hop?
i got heat tha'tll make ya lip lock hip go hippy to the hop
naw talkin' sugar hill deliver more dead than clothes to Goodwill
we ***** as the Goodfellas knockin' tailfeathers money come like atm tellers
no pin toxic rhymes poisonous as donna,bella

A pack of hyenas, we howl in a frenzy.
Set off by naught,
A twitter or flick and all is lost
To laughter in the night,
Engulfing us all.
Sides aching, my body keeps quaking
Free as a warbler, Screeching and Heaving
As the fire dies, I open my eyes
In a tent, we lay sprawled
Worship almighty Party Mix
Now ravenous lions, or kindergarten children
We claw and shove and dig into the loot
Faces full, stomachs pounding, eyes heavy,
Fingers sticky with snacky crumbs,
A sugary tantalizing coating.
Hounds we are, gluttonous fiends
Living for twenty dollars of sweetly goods
Bought from an otter.
All is forgotten as we sit down to feast
"Spare the jerky, we'll need it later!"
"You devil, its all gone!"
Oh well, no worries of food now
Sufficiently satiated we snuggle into sleeping sacks
Shadows play on the walls
Dancing as jubilantly as shadows may to the music we play
****** stories, crude jokes now met with sheepish sniggers
A fifth giggle is heard from our party of four
Unseen, yet someone is there
A screaming spirit, a lost loner,
A wily wizard, a carnivorous ******,
A balefully babbling banshee,
A sambaing Spanish sandman,
A dopaminergic, diamond-eyed dragon?!
Dare we ask what he be
As his wisdom calmed our carousing
We journeyed through eternity
Visions of it all so overwhelming
Our minds explode
Great kaleidoscopal mortars on a warm eve in july
Visions of dank alleyways, bums and drums
Pastoral sights with floral delights
Emaciated emigrants, there faces so slum
Whimsical unicorns cavort through clouds
Young boys in green turned pincushions by hot flashing iron
Jovial faces devour whole hams by candlelight
Hopeless faces cry and starve by moonlight
Weary we are as the rooster caw-caws for dawn
Wet with dew and naked we slip out
Crazed and dazed we walk in a haze
To witness diurnal beginnings
Pink tinges and orange singes
Streaming above the horize
Time now to sleep
In the crystalline shimmering meadow
Short morning naps
To ease madness since midnight
Dreams foggily drift in and out
Sun's rays fry the flesh
As we awaken to sickening reality
Had it all been psychedlic delusions
Surely it'd just been us four