You were blessed with a voice,
One of power and brilliance--
Yet you still choose to sit in the silence?

You were given words upon words
& stance upon stance--
Yet I see not one sign of resistance.

Oh my dear child,
What is holding you back?

Is it fear of shame? simple diffidence?

Your speech is ammunition--
Your lips capable of deliverance more
Powerful than the rifles of wars once long fought.
Yet you still choose to sit in the silence?

Oh my dear child,
If only you knew.

In a world plagued so greatly with censorship and shame,
You’ve been blessed to speak freely as you choose.
Under this flag of red, white, and blue,
The only regulator of your speech
(or lack thereof)
Is you.

Somewhere across the pond is another--
One just as bright and capable as you.
But alas their tender head is still deemed naive
& their gifts remain invariably at rest.
Even now will you sit in the silence?

Oh my dear child,
Now do you see?

Your ability to speak up is a privilege--
One of rarity and great worth.
So cherish this blessing &
Hold it close while you can.
Because who knows?
Just one policy and it could all be stripped free.

S/he who is coerced
To move with
A straitjacket
Above the dead
And below the living
Is whose fate.

A horse dragging
A cart
Unable
A genuine message
To impart
In fact
No better than
A doormat
Unloading words
With a servile pen
On a bread-winner journalist
Inflicts a harrowing pain.

Ban me!

Burn me!

I, literature, can speak to you.


Love me!

Hate me!

I, art, can scream it, too.


Buy me!

Don't play me!

I, music, hide my meaning in shadows.


I'm not a martyr!

Don't hurt me!


...He, the artist, is sent to the gallows.

There, I wrote it. Above.
I simply believe it needs to be in print... out there, so to speak,
And perhaps a few hundred may read, *******,
And, hysterically, or in solace,
Make use of it;
Openly, lingusly or fingeratively,
As we do *****, ******, and ******* (tsk-tsk).
Whether you agree or not, please yourself.

They profit on your silence, and foster insanity
To reef your identity, and fade you to normality

Control is an abortion of instinctual fundamentality
They blind us with a bleach of hypocrisy to fade us to their normality

Gather once in number, to support the dismantling
Fate of compassionate and empathetic rationality, is threatened by a lie of social justice in pronouns and prejudice

This is an infection of our political mentality,
to allow other views to be heard only if they align within sheepish bounds of radicality

Neo-**** Ideology. What insanity
Can’t let it fester, or our dignity will be the fatality

Disgusting to muzzle those who believe differently
As long as it’s not hate, preach what you practice

REDACTED

Breakneck words, racing around,
trouncing across the wooded tops
of long dead, roughened boughs.
Tongue deadened, heavyweight champion
without leagues to move around: breath famine;
the time of a hare loping down the barren barrow.
Sought out lungs, captivating oxygen in a symphony of
sanctioned Guantanamo iron poles.
Tense, rippling knuckles, wound round,
round the starlight of Betelgeuse
six hundred and forty two point  five light years
away.
“Away with you” patches the scabs and root bitten nails
of some lost keratin; peace—nought found.
Await the rush of overbearing insinuations
claiming now a dead solicitation.
Learning hath been done
and redone, a series of embittered eyes
collecting up images that retain singularity status.
One talk, one Breath,
It’s all bout
to change to—
something better than
the jacked up prices on petrol station boards and the lips will
no longer book it past the mind’s inconsistency, bereft of known speak.
A challenge for not the sake of self: saké drank: but for the
peace under the left breast.

A *** of earl grey             -- Clay container (3)
Is the *****, they say,       -- Inclined lea (5)
From unrighteous ***     -- Turf retainer (3)
To the hand of ***.          -- Deity (3)