Doves flown off a high-rise,
Expectantly eager
To show how much they know
And how great they are;
People today have such a need to prove themselves.
For whom, and to what?
Such fruitless times,
When new growth
Rots on the vine.

Music is a momentary salvation
Through the ailings we suffer.
A thin buffer,
Between the painful past and
Future troubles.

What peace is spoken of?
What normalcy?
More war? Further widening the gap
Between the rich & the poor?
Another mean-nothing speech,
Full of thoughts and prayers
Never to be carried to term?
Bills brought to the floor
Only to be stalled by their authors?
Flirting with failure
From manufactured crisis, and with
Pointless battles over culture.
Never have the oppressive been more direct
In their inability to lead
Views, values, beliefs;
Scavenging their remains
Akin to common vultures.

Concern of income as status
And popularity as a moral metric
Among peers just as vain.
What is it that fools compete for?
Simpler lives, duller & plain?
Over complicated, gaudy & cliché?
Playing with themselves like
Dogs with their ***** splayed.

Nihilism, because I
Have no option but
To feel. What
Comes from
Broken relations & perspectives
But seeing clear? When
Glass cracks
Do you grab a mirror?
Or do you only forsake
Warm love turned cold?
Do you line with gold
And rebuild what breaks,
Or only grieve the remains?

I have never met a more complacent lot,
Than those of my compatriots;
Never have citizens been more obedient,
Than those of my immediates.
Forget spilled tea, today it's
Watered down coffee.
Biscuits cut with sawdust
Out from smaller & smaller molds,
Eating whatever fed us.
Cause we all know hunger

Believing any narrative pushed so long as it's prevailing;
The populace obsessed with popularity.

It's a headache & a headrush in the states,
Cool if you make the breaks
But that's like hitting the ******* lottery.
You gotta ask, what gives?
What does it take
To get a fair chance to stake a claim
In a country full of people who don't give a ****?
What sense does it even make
To try,
When no one in charge does?

For my own lot, & life -
Whether tis here or afar

time doesn't slow down for a talk,
like the resting heartbeat
of a ticking bomb.
every pause could last days,
could last weeks,
could last years.
it could end with a shot,
it could break with a kiss.
like a memory, split in a billion pieces,
like a mountain, with all its valleys and creases,
like an enemy missile,
about to be dropped,
time doesn't slow down for a talk.

Old man stroked his chin,
Rubbed his forehead
And ran his hands through his hair.
He cleared his throat,
Tightening the slack in his line,
He was a regular killick in his time -
Youth was short, but was it fair.
These days it's just a simple trolling boat,
And he casts his rod overboard
But he's not been bringing up a lot.
Waitin' on that change in the wind.

Never was water more refreshing,
Than when I thought I would die of thirst.
Fire never felt so warm as
The moments before I was burned,
And never looked as beautiful
As before it was consumed.
Light split like memories,
When I look up into the night sky;
Things gone, things refracted,
All that's there that eclipses the eye.
I never knew what it was to be *****,
Acting like I was always clean.
Never knew how wrong I was
Thinking I was always right, ignorantly
Hurting those around me
As they've hurt me.
Stagnant puddle reflecting,
Wading against the stream;
Swimming but drowning

The banality of only craving to capture,
Never to create.
Aperture into life behind the lens
The misery of the photographer
Is always being on the out
And only being a device when let in.
To be an archiver of the moment,
Truly embodying it in a single shot,
Is the greatest achievement;
For cameras can hope