the stars won’t shine here
and it’s more than some can bear
a whole world mutinied and started living in Clouds
monotony scaled trees until it screened the firmament


yet there’s one left behind with the rot
pondering the theft of good health
the kind that improves the lot
shallow as a bath

Leonard Cohen, gone the night before we recited Flanders Field,
And our memory was still fresh with poetic inspiration,
The artistic suppression of dread.

Famous Blue Raincoat,
The feelings of despair and isolation abound.
I felt the cold New York traffic that I was separate from all the bustle
And all the life.

Chelsea Hotel with its twists in compassion,
It's all too human and vulnerable to admit your schisms,
The plight of life when it slips away from us,
Into the city and falls off the roof.

Hallelujah resonates most,
The sound of pure emotion
The feeling of triumph with your chest bare to the Earth.
Let the raw expression engulf you, spread the ashes.

I write this from a library under the watchful gaze of Voltaire,
Having read that the future of Earth's water is being debated in Morocco.

Isn't there a Utilitarian part of us all that strives to save our home,
And rejects the notion that we must **** where we eat to make progress?

Gambling becomes dangerous when you begin to stake declining resources.

There is no turning back, and there is little optimism from Millennials who shall inherit the rotting infrastructure.

Nothing is dramatic or blown out of proportion when the President can't acknowledge that there's something seriously wrong with a giant hole in the ozone.

Herr Trump, where is the ice going?
Would you sell the penguins for profit?

Tell the Polish Brigade that legal workers will restore this country's ideal greatness.

Tell them sincerely.

Reagan spouted that it was Morning in America, and I imagine the Trumpites feel the same.

What is morning, anyway, when you can't see the sun for the smog?

You have your demagogic president-elect,
Dreaming in shades of Mussolini
And will sit in his downtown skyscraper and laugh that all the populists
Were not in on the joke,
And thus could not be in on the punchline.

The progressives hotboxed the shower the night we handed the country to Trump.
Pennsylvania, the center of the cataclysm.

The vortex has opened and engulfed all the steel,
All of the illegal immigrants have been scooped up and swallowed,
Reproductive rights will be voided in a stacked Supreme Court validating the opinions of white male legislators.

Tensions twisting to contort and ignore the onset realization
That all progress is halted to return the country to the era of segregation,

Deportation Gestapo formed with the lone intent to displace the children of those who dared to dream of a brighter life.

America, look what you've done and face yourself with your objections.
Look dead in your eyes and see all the minorities, tears in the diaries of closeted teenagers,
And the judicial dread of the gentleman who only wants to live comfortably with his husband.

You've made stepping stones of the counterculture, all crying in dorm rooms or next to their gardens,
All together in sorrow.

Underground America has been sold out,
We're a social experiment for what can happen when sulfuric acid is poured upon the voiceless.
The silent majority has shut us up.
We've been yelling to change history and now are tracking back.

Bigotry is back in style and I'm terrified.

small crevices filtering water from the rain,
all heedless, silence, when alleys utter shouts of pain,
all in motion, void devotion
hidden schemes, but caution
sleep,
even commercials, hide skill, despite it's toxin....

a vertical garden of concrete bliss,
lessons, points of times past, did we succeed or miss?
sleep well, each day another chance,
despite looks, money, truth appears, when self in stance

sleep, the city needs sleep,
not action, not movement, just self to keep,
sleep, sleep you'll have steps, leaps,
whether just or foul, an ad, or even truth in cowl,
sleep, city sleep, the city... the world, needs us
our minds are too busy, let the city, our minds sleep for once

Young girl, songs lamenting the American condition,

You are the catalyst of sexuality.
You are the tar on my fingers that keeps me writing.

Clear in your heart, paradox is the word and I am the scar,

You're too afraid to come outside,
Bombs won't break through your kitchen tables and plexiglass.

Far too much shelter, this is a movement I can get behind. Starting to crack. Starting to scream.

The motivation now: breaking out of mediocrity.
///
At least I'm better than those guys, I must continue to assure myself.

I might be the loner,

Underwhelming boy who will never serve his country,

Yet I don't go around breaking things that aren't mine—

Urania may have pulled my strings like a puppet,

But I snapped her sanity.

My mind is wasted
well, out of sync
I can't keep up with the thoughts
that would be brought over seas
of consciousness, like weeds of mind
rooted in so deep , they bury themselves
in to the back of my eyes
and I'm always concerned about
running out of time
one thing after another
like some premature adolescent
I scream "why, **** why?"
I'm confident but I'm tired all the time
if you feel the same then don't be shy
I can't give you the answers
I can't sell you the time
but I can suggest a solution;
don't give up, don't die

My hand has been raised for God knows how long.
I've begun to rest it on the table,
clasp my other hand around it's elbow,
I've wiggled my fingers and waved my arm like a pendulum,
like a live garden hose let loose,
I've widened my eyes and grit my teeth,
I've bleated "Ooh, Ooh!"
I've stamped my feet,
I've thumped by books,
I've wiggled in my chair--
My arm really hurts.

I've watched.

I've watched the world carry on,
I've watched the innocent die,
and the killers acquitted,
I've watched a thousand men and women get shot because of their skin,
I've watched women get ***** behind dumpsters,
I've watched politicians rouse ancient hatreds as a glorification of the past,
I've watched ancient flags wave in the face of the oppressed,
I've watched rivers dry,
and climates change,
I've watched ice caps melt,
I've watched species go extinct,
I've watched people go hungry,
I've watched the homeless sleep behind dumpsters in church parking lots,
I've watched fingers grow cold and fevers run high,
I've watch nuclear missiles get primed,
I've watched television render eyes vacuous,
I've watched schools hinder truths,
I've watched generations pitted against each other,
I've watched terror form a face from someone's mold,
I've watched razorblades grace the wrists of children,
I've watched peers commit suicide.
I've watched my friends die in car crashes,
I've watched women get abortions without consolation,
I've watched churches close their doors on the oppressed,
I've watched police ****** in cold blood,
I've watched logical fallacies become common rhetoric,
I've watched hatred consume a nation,
I've watched people refused marriage,
I've watched ****** orientations become scandalized,
I've watched drugs consume,
I've watched drugs consume greed,
I've watched the miracle cure get tucked away,
I've watched fear grip a nation,
I've watched grocers disappear from checkout lines,
I've watched Kate Gosselin ask to speak to the manager,
I've watched diabetes weaken my father,
I've watched fear grip my mother,
I've watched anxiety grip my sister,
I've watched uncertainty grip my brother,
I've watched depression place a million guns in my mouth
and pressed to my temple,
a million guns,
I've watched a million guns,
some brandished from the beds of pickup trucks
and front porches,
some whose muzzle flashes within churches, schools, movie theaters, night clubs (to be continued),
some gleaming in the tint of sunlight
pouring through the window
as I close my eyes and press the cold barrel to my pulsating temple.
I've watched a million guns,
I've watched a million guns,
I've watched a million reasons to scream and cry,
to lose hope and to pray to die,
I've watched the evangelicals and zealots abandon the Earth and its citizens for the unseen,
leaving us in a premature rapture
to rot in the system they created,

I've watched it all with a single hand raised,
growing more and more numb,
to it all,
but still with a single question on my lips.