i've bitten my tongue so much
that it bleeds because it stops me from talking,
helps to keep the peace.
it stains my lips red as a reminder
that your words can start wars,
hurting those around you and
leaving destruction in their wake.
for what is the worth of the blood of one
when it has saved the lives of many?

Aye pride myself
     being sui generis
     verb hose subject for a zoologist,
cuz webbed phalanges

     branch handsomely
     from mine feet and wrist,
where perforce great expectations,
     asper the next greatest (I SCREAM)

     scoop of the month intimated,
     conducted under top secret
     controlled laboratory conditions
     with yours truly (as the de facto

     par excellence)
     rodent named "Oliver twist"
Lady Dedlock key ping
     watchful eye within bleak house,

while Thomas Gradgrind
     feigns tubby bad company
     during these hard times
     temporarily all quietest

lull on the western front
     since Donald Trump
     detente foretold by a palmist,
whereby said President

     of the United States
     feeling as an optimist
met with Kim Jong-un,
     (cautiously side stepping morass,
     viz hit blind side dare devil hoodwinking,
     via awe shucks faux bully)

     suspending noninterventionist
impact unexpectedly witnessed leader
     of North Korea as multilateralist
     on historic June 12, 2018,

     summit minus linguist,
where fist pumping in Singapore
     for unilateral negotiations
     offloading nationalism

     weighing down
     figurative chest i.e. kist
by resplendent sun, where ma lounze
     sotto voce, somber solemnly
     sober ensemble re: joist

uniting this stately isolationist,
whose approximate
      ten stone heft easy to hoist
merely sustains purposelessness

     this poem without a gist
hence if Yukon spare one
     (or more cruxes) lemme be fist
in line, though first, aye
     would need to convince thee
     this scribe doth exist!

“Silly Poet,
What do you write?
What are you thinking
On this deep dark night?”

I’m writing a song
For my sweet love
who broke my heart
and left it burnt.

I’m thinking about
A sky grey
With ashes falling
Instead of rain.

“Oh, Silly Poet,
Let it be.
You can’t fix yourself
With a rhyme or three.”

The silly Poet laughs
And continues living all the lives
That were created
Through the silly poet’s rhymes.

Do you hear them?
No.
Because you can't.
They died;
so long ago,
and yet,
so recently.
Their voices forever silenced.
By the
gun that went;
BANG.
So many lives lost with no reason as to why.
They left us;
their friends,
their family,
their classmates,
their fellow citizens.
Wondering why.
Why did they leave us so soon,
those affected by gun violence?
They are all around us,
students,
families of victims,
that kid you shot in the street,
those who committed suicide,
all of them;
human.
All of them gone.
Never to be heard from again.