When I first passed the gates
into the metallic garden
stamping out seeds
                      for the junkyard
with its infinite cardiac output

I gazed upon the eyes of the creatures
that inhabited this oily soil
                            of steel and chemicals
all I saw was a cry for help
to escape
          to be away
                just one day
they cry, just one day

I got caught in the claws
and it scratched
                       and scratched
the wounds heal but the scars stay

I have become a trapped animal
                                     with eyes of dismay

There's little chance of escape
I can dream
           I can pray
one day, I echo
               one day

Now I am just taxidermy
for this godforsaken industry
and they call this
quality.

After wide-set earthen towers mask
the highway runoff, campers come off lofty
horses, signal boorishness to breeze. Sat alone
where rolling orange will tease
the peace from perfect dark - the hint of dread
forgoing litness to expose a martial bode -

the low-slung limbs of stern bring
trained to-wrist like faithful,
catching glimpses of what common good
afforded us naff hazes like the present
sickle answer, whale-bone grief and prescient
danger. Fix a poultice,
love’s soft landing seldom not
for treasures come.
Revive the brazen lungs

in boasts of rushes, random-lit,
forestalling sodden semblances of wit
from Sunday’s arsenal -
right-matched to cleaner absences
than your limited souls could ever pare.

She’s felt - a fabric after our own hearts,
a loan from common waltzes,
taciturn in downshifts of this archen land -
of course - of hand, a slight
anomaly for watchers to observe.
Each roadblock touches nerve.

Oh, great horsemother in the sky,
Here is a question from a bard such as I,
Are you shooting a racing vet today?
Another horse was destroyed for gain,
This is, of course,
A personal hobby horse,
If a horse gallops anyway,
Why are you whipping them this way?
This is the sport of kings, you see,
Death for a horse, if not its jockey,
Sounds to me like animal cruelty,
Racegoers turn the other way,
Drink some more best champagne,
This is question, better yet,
Does horsemother ever shoot the vet?

Revolution institution
Gather up the calvary
Empty glasses for the masses
Raised in unity

From the fires, cue the choirs
Sing a hymn of suffering
Generation desperation
As the angels sing

Don't you know?
You can't let go
Cause it's so hard to say goodbye
To what we dim the lights for
Killing truth with lies we die for

Programming emotion
Manufacturing our lives
We are the products of
An over-processed love
That is chemically defined

Cheaper, faster
Blood and plaster
Heart-pumping machinery
Gears and veins
Rewired brains with
Television dreams

Burning engines
Fueled by tensions
Apprehension industry
Mutilation of salvation
As the angels scream

Don't you know?
You can't let go
Cause it's so hard to say goodbye
To what we dim the lights for
Killing truth with lies we die for

Programming emotion
Manufacturing our lives
We are the products of
An over-processed love
That is chemically defined

Nothing changes the fact
That you are an animal
Even if you pour gold
In an old poor man's cup

When you tried to carve
This land from hundreds
You didn't notice, you must
For your sake at least

The strength they bore
Can scatter all your dreams
Over their dead bodies
Whether you serve the country

this one has a beautiful coat
says the cat *******
bleeding beneath her jeans

In this place
chopping so much your hand cramps,
so you have to hold it by the wok
for five minutes before it unclenches,
is something to by proud of.

In this place
college students scoop and cook
to pay for school,
or pay off school,
instead of applying what they learned,
which cost them more than money.

In this place
the line never sleeps,
you are Pavlov's dogs
trained to a bell.
And if you are unlucky enough
to be put in the kitchen,
you'll find it worse than Hell.

-on seeing Yves Marchand's pictures of an
abandoned miners island near Nagasaki

What will remain of us,
industrious ants,
when all that we work for
comes to an end?

A dusty cupboard
in a murky corner.
Two empty bottles,
one for wine, one for apple juice.

No trace of our names.
Gone are the honours.
All that we strive for...
just thin air on an empty shelf.

It's peace again,
peace at last.
It's what we deserve,
our just reward.