Do you ever just wonder?
And sit there and ponder
What life would have been like
If we would have all been alike
Oh it would cause so much damage
Even though it seems like the perfect image
Everyone saying the same thing
Wearing all the same bling
Oh it would be bittersweet
Because everything would seem so complete
Yet it would cause so much confusion
Almost like an allusion
So one should step out of the box
And become unorthodox
Do you ever just wonder?
And sit there and ponder

Alcohol hanging on breath.
Going 90 in a 65,
High on speed, but not ****,
Finally feeling alive.

Sirens blare, heat following,
He called the cops, what a *****.
Yelling at her, hollering.
It'll take more than a snitch.

Takes a turn way too quickly --
You hate to see that happen.
Rolls over topsy-turvy,
Six flips, going on seven.

Vehicle gets located,
Bodies have yet to be found.
Seat belts inoperative.
Flung 'em bout 20 feet down.

Report: "One woman, one man,
Fatal car accident." Crushed.
"Female had bottle in hand,
Both suspects found dead in a bush."

Reviles gnaw on her somber thoughts
as she hangs between beige curtains
tightly thick around her neck
absorbing lachrymal crystals under her eyes
Her many faces retreat—implode under
pressure—like glass borne on a cliff
As for her, herself, come forth many
holding stones—boulders to her—
ready to strike this candle;
intimidated by fire, she melts
And as the flames are roused
watch her re-harden: an exquisite tragedy

Herewith

Definitive semblance
of allegorical allusion
That unto the masses
in abject delusion
Replete with the
studied sacred illusion
of cosmic worth
for every cosmetic remedy
of indolent intrusion

Yea Right.

Characteristically docile
Accused and convicted
of arrested development
Screeching Hell awaits
the plentious harvest
of the crop of fools
Arreared in impetuousity
and impulse for that
most deviant sake

Yea Right.

Drowning awash in misery
Choosing to swim on alone
Thinking they then
are the chosen one
They then the center
God society et al
ad infinitum?
That most aberrant
Human Secular
thought.

Yea...Right.

-R.

(11.10.17)
-LA

Gaia slammed the door and threw her phone across the room.
Her lover Humanity has done it again--
                  and again, and again.

That broken mess of a love with so much baggage,
it makes the raunchiest Olympians look like Astrea.

All night out, and Humanity ruins and disappoints,
                  once more.

Gaia screams into a pillow of earth in frustration.
Uranus thinks she's melodramatic,

But how can the Sky sympathize with the Earth?
And how in turn can the Earth fall so wholeheartedly,
                for a destroyer?

Who once more in turn, tries in vain, but will never
understand the complexity of it's own round habitat-lover.

So Gaia is left confused and hurt, though Humanity swears,
it never meant to hurt her; break her into pieces,
and turn from a collective of voices to Narcissus himself.  

               She sighs.

Perhaps next week will be different?
The texts between the two so hit or miss and fickle,
Only Fates could read what lies behind the tension.

An Aletia moth flits in and out the window,
and suddenly the butterfly poster on Gaia's wall feels pathetic.

An imitation of her own work.

Perhaps next week will be different?
Perhaps Zeus will vow celibacy,
perhaps the sky will fall into the sea,
and we'll all be mercifully crushed in between.

But what crushes is reality, and as Gaia falls asleep,
the phone lights up.

Humanity: "Drinks again next Thursday?"

The same empty connection repeated ceaselessly.
One generation on to the next until the last.

And of course Pandora's curse,
keeps Gaia suffering through them all.

Her supple and shapely silhouette rests submissively
as the luster upon the soft satin sheets arouses
sensual images of salaciousness beneath the sheen surface

My empty yet enduring eyes slowly engage the darkness
eager to embark upon the elusive lines energizing the elation
as a sojourning moon entices her to endear

Her excelling exuberance... exploited on exhalation
exposing her explicitly; exemplifying the excerpt
of an exonerated experience as the moonlight expires

Blow a dart through the eye of a needle
In a beetle's bull's eye's eye of the fetal
Position used to permission the perspiration of children
Flowing from the cycle wheels on their next revision-
Intermission-
The cat walks in the bathroom with the lights off,
Cat's cough, drops his neck soft loft, STOP
His paws from picking it and licking it off the top
Shelf of the urinary depository shelter shop-
Cat's pleasure walk-
The beetle's wife still cries to the beat
Beating butterfly kisses on the front left cheek
Tongue out, pierced through nose ring bling
Shine bright like the glossy wet stain, sting-
Half a toe dream-
"We call this recession", session dismissed for obsession
With questions about lessons learned by sections
In the left hand direction weeping willow pull our pension
From the pockets until the rocket red will start suspension!
Skin peeling regression!
Drizzle dribbling brizzles of bad mouth grizzle
Fat down throat smoke sizzle with frizzy hair frizzle!
Blood suckdown proud pretzel frazzle
Flowing mud slug suction cup dry slump saddle!
Have you watched your mind battle
The thoughts of many cattle
Pronged along like kids caught by tattle
Tale stories of dead bodies and hastles!
Watch them rattle-
Shattered glass got caught in the brains back
Spinal chord twisted in two ways tied around a racetrack
Task force grants permission for the Hazmat
Gas mask, tear burning sensation, blood, sweat and gun caps-
Gunshot whiplash-
Pulling out the hairy back hand wrist rip
Falling out grey death, black heart, sunk ship
Flipped over the backside walls to pavement
Too hard to bouncy ball back up to save it-
What a world we created-
Cracked skull thought shots, drink down the toxic
Hot spit, words flowing through split tongue box fit,
Cracked teeth lost kids, babies ******* down bottles lost in
Jungle jam, juicing through the ice box foxes sneak  in closets!
The world's spinning so fast, there's no way to stop it-
It's surprising how we don't see that we're all lost yet!

wedded that day, on their way
to El Paso, for two nights in a grand motel
with TV, and AC

they would splurge,
for profligacy was not a sin at such times
and a fat steer was sacrificed for it

the radio filled the cab
of the pickup with Tammy "Why-not"
singing D-I-V-O-R-C-E

they sang along, changing the letters
to M-A-R-R-I-E-D, creating one cheerful
cacophony in their shared space

when the next tune started, he hit:
a greasy buzzard, wingspan wide as a fence post was tall
black as an oil slick

the old windshield was no match
for the vulture, and it was a vengeful one
that crashed through Ronny's side

glass, bone, feather and flesh
tore into his sweet face like a chainsaw
his blood blinding him

Ronny turned so ******* that wheel
the truck rolled, twice, landing them on
the passenger side in an arroyo

where he lay on top of her,
gasping, his blood dripping generously on her
"Ronny, Ronny..."

her legs were numb, and she felt a warm
liquid crawling down her back, one she knew
was from her own head

which smacked the roof
so hard she was surprised her skull
hadn't popped

or maybe it had, for she saw double:
two steering wheels; two setting suns; two mangled birds
and two crimson faced Ronny's  

who then had stopped gasping, and only
slow breaths came from him, like a warm whisper
on her cheeks--but only until the song ended

and she knew, he was gone--and old verse
came to her, from Psalms, from Matthew, and she knew,
she was sure, someone would find them

and make her whole, and resurrect Ronny
for the good Lord would not do this to them, on this
hopeful highway, before they consummated

she harbored such a notion until
her own eyes closed, and other dark birds came
to find them, still, under her God's closed eye

(1968, north of Marfa, Texas)