Unconditioned to channeling the inner parody,

Actualizing the adaption of an animal apt for apathy, actively act in atrophy.

The vessel a fractured vapid faculty,

Of exactly the amount of human trapped in how not to be.

Lock and key, the property you deem your thoughts; a metropolis of atrocities.

Listen, don't listen, push and pull the pensive pistons,

Re-position, your decisions, until you got what you'd envisioned.

They stay vigil, ever waiting the new design of sigils.
Kinda simple, keep their fingers pressed to pimples,
The pus a pit of petered parts,
Perceived by the reckoning of depleted hearts.
I rushed the doors at the sound of a great escape,
The process a repeat coordination of hurry up and wait.
Ever balking at the atrocities of cost,
Average Joes chasing dreams at the velocity of sloths.
How to be content with immense disparity?
Hands out faking quivers, shaking for some charity.
Forsaken someones somewhere surviving on a sliver,
Watching all the getters, I see myself a giver.

It is
not precious

it is just plain ludicrous

and full of atrocities.

Lose it, lose it
before
you thought
you can


feel it.

when no mornings
follow nights
cities lie without their lights
little beasts root happily
children can live all their fears
   forests break
   mountains shake
then it’s time again

rockets roar with deadly freight
sharp explosions rock the night
   soldiers shoot
   graveyards bloom
it is war

when scrawny skeletons
creep through the streets
parents weep
dead bodies radiate
   new death
and crumpled shapes
   spread more disease
then it’s time again

the general orders strategic attacks
and watches how the metropolis cracks
   rivers stink
   battleships sink
it is war

when the bakers bake no more bread
when the butchers chop off their hands
when the doctors’ only prescription is death
   corpses float in the village pond
   and supermarkets stay closed
         24 hours a day
then it’s time again

maybe the ultimate time
for the warriors to storm from their heights
to the valleys to lance and destroy
   they also **** women
   all children are dead
   the moon is all red
   the stars are so wan

   we are counting the corpses
   as long as we can

it is war

the ville was just women,
old men, young children--mostly gaunt ghosts
before my platoon arrived with our own dead
men walking

I gave the order to burn the village,
rout its dazed denizens and grease any
who offered resistance

only one woman did, clawing
at my boys like a crazed cat, going after Freddie
from Fresno with a bamboo stalk

I don't know who shot her
but I remember standing over her
with Freddie and Mickey from Milwaukee
who stepped on a mine within the hour

Freddie bought it too, but not until
that night, when small arms fire from the jungle
woke us from our dread dreams

the apparitions that haunted our heads
whenever we spilled the blood of innocents
or even the red devils' kin--perhaps
an equivalent sin

the next day we ****** back
to base camp, a twelve click hike;
as hours passed, and the earth dried,
our shadows became sharper, darkening
reminders we could run
but never hide

Only God knows all our wrongs
But though arrows point at our souls
The whispers of the lamb dull his vengeance
A man has to die before he lives forever
While parades remind us of his courage
Some stand still thinking only of progress
Train tracks laid across holy ground
Desperate men laid to rest
They ask if evil killed each other
Or did we also sacrifice the saints?
They made peace with their destiny
A story they never thought to question
Right can never observe wrong blithely
And those whose spirits keep watch
Silently shed their hopes for the truth
Because history is still written by man

Yesterday is much clearer
As the future is drawing nearer.
The histories we have rehearsed
Over time have become reversed.
It should make us very sad;
What was good has become bad.

The bad guys were the Indians
And the good guys Caucasians
And they were always right
Because they were always white.
The Red Man was a villain
Because he was an Indian;
And that was never corrected.
The name an invader selected.

These were people born here
Defending land they held dear
Because they had hunted
And were never really wanted.
The invaders called them savage
Their women okay to ravage
Because they didn’t have Jehovah
To issue them a binding mitzvah.

There were so few invaders
So at first they were persuaders.
But after putting out some feelers
They chose to become stealers.
They declared the natives sinners
And thus became the winners.
The natives hadn’t learned to read
So the invaders ignored all their needs.

The invaders were prepared to fight
To deny the natives their rights
So, the invaders created paper laws
Thus natives couldn’t tell what they saw.
Suddenly the noble savage was a crook.
The invaders gloated over what they took;
Stole native’s possessions from their hands
And declared it all as the invader’s land.

This is the Danes and Angles back when
And the story happened all over again.
But once the battle victory is scored
The native’s birthright is not restored.
The invaders cover up the tragedies
With inaccurate tales and call them history.