I used to like you when you were dumb.
Then you smartened up and it pains me some.
You question almost everything I say.
You use these big words almost every day.
You really are making my brain cells hum.

You used to be **** when you talked.
You had this trampy twist in the way you walked.
You did everything I told you to do.
Now you want to try things that are new.
And at that, baby, I just have to balk.

I really do prefer the way you used to be.
You made sure to do things that pleased me.
Dinner was always right on time,
And serving leftovers was a crime.
Now meals are not the way they should be.

I used to be breadwinner around here.
That was one thing that was totally clear.
I gave you a weekly allowance to spend.
None of this going out for drinks with friends,
Now you have a job and sometimes you’re not here.

I think the cause of this is all this reading.
You think you’re getting smart is misleading.
You are getting a different attitude
And I think a lot of them are rude.
There are some basic truths you aren’t heeding.

So you should put the Bible on your list.
As a matter of fact, I really do insist.
It tells you I am the important one
And you are just a planet to my sun.
So it isn’t God’s will that you resist.

Brent Kincaid
4/24/2015

A is for Austerity
To pay back the Bank
For the Collateral
On your defaulted Debt

That exploded Exponentially
Like the financial Fiasco
Of the Grecian Governments
Indebted to ******'s Homeland

Return to Investors
The rent on your Job
Capital is their Kingdom
The laborers are Landless
Misers enslaved to Misery

The N

Civil disobedience is not a moral obligation. Moral obligation is an act of belief and self values. So if you feel the need to break a little law to fight for what you believe in , then yes, go for it, but obeying the laws may also be part of your morals. After all the police brutality that we have heard about on the news, some people decided to stand up and protest. Even I wanted to protest downtown because I found it absolutely ridiculous that people were being killed without extreme cause by police and they only got a slap on the wrist. There are always two sides to a story. So am I obligated to rally because of inequality displayed on the media? No, not really but due to my values I would love to. "But through the other method of combating injustice, we alone suffer the consequences of our mistakes" which was said by Ghandi. It can be applied to the protests, to me it means we can scream our opinions and we can make an impact, but some will be damaged and some will be arrested in the process. Sadly, the thing we were fighting for in the first place will be served and protected. So what is justice? What is civil obedience when our enforcement can't even comply? I guess we aren't obligated to anything.

Would he still feel comfortable
in brooks brothers felt trousers or those loafers
with golden ornamentation or with pale white
business cards being traded between moisturized

fingers. With hands clutching a cold metal
pole on the subway and swaying to coltrane
from his headphones would he still trade glances
with the woman in good humor whites with two

black babies and a clear tub of windex and fresheners
and rubber yellow gloves. Or just stand tall and straight
and rigid and lifeless and keep his eyes
on the black floors and the loafers
and the illuminated emails shining from his palm.

With a newer suit and pay raise and the snarling of his new office and the desk with his middle aged secretary, would he still treat her kindly and keep her father's cancer in mind or instead, (next month), ask for a younger blonder girl from a better school (and bigger ****),
after the man finally makes his seven figures.

As horrid as it seems,
society cannot exist without inequality.

©  Matthew Harlovic

two sides of the same coin, two parts of the same struggle, a heavier burden to juggle,
Ive seen trouble in the eyes of the children on the news,
visions of the glazed and un-phased, shuffling in ruin
as foreign investors appraise the worth of the people theyre *******
the one moral man looking in the mirror asks what are we doing?

Coffee and cocoa-beans,
oil and toil,
diamonds on the queens ears ripped from the soil,
these are the things for which we ****,
and people wonder why they can never get their fill,
why they feel morally ill?
perhaps paying taxes dosen't wipe the dirt from your fingers,

halfway around the world construction workers hurry the child to drop his dead mothers hand,
so they can bulldoze her home because the land is high in demand
for agricultural redevelopment, swine being brought in for re-settlement
people for pigs, the market is your master,
the dollar is your god, and your life is a disaster

the reason your life is a facade, is you cant turn false idols through ego worship into god
from a fake wife with fake *******
to fake kids with fake mental problems,  A.D.D.  generation and corrupt therapists to absolve them
to fake pastors, with fake ideals
this is what happens when one man profits from what another man steals,
and corporations re-define how love feels

and the rich try and justify why the poor have no food
why their own poor have no food, but why its more important to allocate funds to the protection of crude,
this is the slavery to which you have been raised
the hypocrisy of democracy can go on for days,

America, land of the thieves, where ideology is cheaper than bark on the trees
America, the land of the lie, where the children of the poor happily die
and yet America, the land where ideals meet reality, where the hopeful optimism of the middle class rightfully challenges the decadent edifices of the status quo
and where evil in the hearts and the minds of all of us has a chance to be laid to rest through the spirit of altruism,
America the ultimate battleground for truth to triumph over lies,
but where you stand, in the end, is the ultimate surprise.