platonic years insurrected by civil wars (again)

one girl hit by lightning (again)

x-rays of her broken limbs painted from memory

caught between flintlock and fossil

with a just-sleepy-enough, narcotic feeling

his ghost in the sock drawer

his odd fingerprints on her luggage

the wilt of flowered books

full of wide-eyed selfies

and running scared old love letters
(or were they death threats?)

all roadblocks to her star-shaped chemical world

until her coup d'état falls helplessly into the sea (again)

There was a guy
Who always felt like
He could just slide through
All of the days,

Riding a high, feeling
Like he could just
Shuffle the haze,
They thought him crazed;

They called him Teddy,
And this guy was ready
To help you let everything out!

A piece and a quarter,
It's all you let over,
And he would just rise up
And shout!

Said "I'm Teddy xans, so
Give me your hands,
And let me show you
What it's 'bout!"

I told him, pass me
A couple of bars,
Let me raise up
To the level you're on,

Pass me the liquor,
Let's crash us some cars,
End up with flex,
So what's coming next?

He was perplexed,
Said 'what does that
Make us?'

I said "relax, dude
We're just from Texas;"

He said "go on,  we've got
Time to spend,",  I said
"I'm halfway dead,
Old friend,"

He said "no worries,
We're not in a hurry,
Just rack em' and
Stack em' , and let em'
Be buried,

Your wants,  your needs,
Your life in the streets."

I asked him,  

"So what does that
Make me?"

How did we get to where we are,
America - the one undimming shining star,
A land of freedom, of unbounded pride
Where no one needed run and hide
For their religion or mere thought,
Democracy - the very heart of what was taught.

Now the Media drums a beat
That too many rush to heed,
Politicians seem at war
Spewing discord to their core,
Division their concocted art
Wrenching the rest of us apart.

Pressure groups with voices loud
Control the stage as if endowed,
We the masses listen stunned
Outmaneuvered and outgunned,
All too late we see the light
As our cities fall to blight.

Police leaving by the score,
Inner cities full of gore,
Death and Drugs partners in crime
The serial killers of our time,
Those we elect wringing their hands
Caving in to shrill demands.

Social media runs amok
Trampling discourse in it's muck,
Faceless voices spewing hate
Leaving victims to their fate,
Pervading every corner of our life
Their tool of choice inciting strife.

Is it too late may we well ask
To tear apart this vile death mask,
Restoring that for which our father's fought
A way of life worked for and not bought,
The very fruit of land well sown
The purest form of liberty our world has ever known.

Chasing any dragon
Propels us forward
Ever forward
Stop?
We couldn’t handle it
Stop?
We’re gonna **** ourselves
Stop?
You keep away from
Any dragon I admire
I will chase that beauty
Indignant that you would rob me
Of anything beautiful
Even far off promises
I mostly imagined
Tell me that I am loved
I am good
Beautiful in my own right
But oblige me this chase
When so many others
Confuse and frustrate me
Pushing me to favor manual
Chemical replacement
When days (weeks/months) spent
Righting the balance
Is suddenly wayward
If I’m choosing the chemicals
No one catches dragons in the manual

She ran a boarding house in Boston,
But they used her size to terrorize men
And lead them to the lock-holes.
Or was she a lady clad in black ruffles,
Presented to the Queen in 1844?
Perhaps she was a racehorse
Foaled in Harlem and won a prize.
She had peddled drugs and run a gang
In the chaos of Civil War,
Black Mariah escaped from the darkness
Of Edison’s studio to roam the world,
But in it found herself re-imagined.
They named police wagons after her
It’s said, but no one knows the truth.
Did she cross the battle lines again,
To tread on civil rights?
Or swing the batons in Chicago
And fire rifles at Kent State?
She seems to take time out to charm
Gruff-voiced men who sing her praise.
She prowled the streets of Brixton,
In 1983, with truncheons at her side.
Through gas clouds, dragging men to jail.
Black Mariah is with us still,
Helping to create tyrants and traitors,
To stop the mouths of those who defy
She’s an accessory to the killing.

Compressed in bed, feeling rigid,
Dreaming about animals dying.
The mornings kick so much harder-
Kick me right back into bed.

We just let the sun rise and set.
And let it be known-
I'm no more awake come noon,
No more awake at work,

No more awake in dreams:
Wading through syrupy water,
I feel that way come day.
I keep trying to speak up

But no one even sees the bubbles rise

Don’t lose yourself to the way that
You think that they want you
I keep being people that are unlike
The ones that were once me
And I’m not made that happy
By things, fun, or people
In a couple rotations
I’ve lost myself
And become something new
To become something new again

When they come back around
And you know they’ll come around
Will they see me standing there
Or will I be on the move
There’s a circle to run in
But I can’t just keep running
When the way gets familiar
And I stop looking cool
I have to change
That’s okay. That’s okay I guess
I’m reborn in new action
I’ll just do something else

You have to live with it
Whatever you do
Well that’s life for you
You have to handle it
You’re being destroyed
By the things you choose to
Make decisions for you
But it’s not who you are
No, you don’t have to be
What you’re doing today

I  just can’t stay still
And I can’t keep pace
Just to spiral
I have to change

here's to a package of
Marlboro Reds
in the hands of
someone other than
the Marlboro Man
standing in
for those slack-jawed outlaws
my heroes now lack jaws
tongues
lungs

I swear it's been too long
since I inhaled manhood
The Great Darrell Winfield
rolled
packed
and filtered
into the only thing I know
that makes a man a man
the essence of
cowboy boots and farmer's tan
in every drag

see, I inhale my heroes
all the dusty red-necked
cowboys
Darrell Winfield
and my dad
men whose lives
went up in smoke
to coat my throat
in my own self-righteousness
I'm frightened this
is all that I'll have left
of him
lung cancer
and the lingering stench
of cigarettes

he always smelled
of cigarettes

he'd pull me into these
firm embraces
he held so long
that he'd suffocate me
in tacky business
and cigarette smoke
masked only
faintly
by a poor man's
cologne
still I breathed him in
until I'd start to choke
it was too much man to handle

my grandpa told me
“smoking doesn't send you
straight to Hell,
but it sure does make you smell
like you've already been there”

he was
a grown man
cursing
crying
lying
dying by himself
trying to drown out the inferno
with a case of beer
but sobriety finds you sometime
and I'd rather suffocate in cigarettes
than lose him altogether

and even if he smells like Hell
at least that means he made it back

drip drops through my mind
freezing and thawing to
expand my perception

here, we make money
last. the same twenty dollars
buys a nine line high.