Inventing a game
Old as stone
Following a rabbit down a hole
By exchanging a word, a world
Unheard passing of a planet
Quiet passing of a plane
Unseen passing of a bird, a soul
Heading to his nest, to rest
Untroubled breaking of the wave
followed by her sister, her brother
Continuous art
Connected
through breath and stars
Calling a silent name
Celebrating silent fame

"I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor.
That's my dream. It's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering,
along the edge of a straight razor … and surviving."
–  Col. Kurtz, Apocalypse Now
~

Remember
the golden age, Wally ***?
And the songs
my mother taught me?

We sang about what was.
Or might never be.

Like permanency.
Distinction comes
out of stiff and frozen silences.
Take it with
a spoonful of disdain.
Take it in the eye.
Actors are like breakfast cereals.
They're obvious
and according to taste.
I stopped needing them
long ago.

Beautiful
Tallulah.
Beautiful,
"less to this than
meets the eye"
Tallulah,
dismiss me,
that I may be free
to find Tennessee.

Open windows
and closing doors.
Always a breeze,
but never a way out.
Right on cue
the cards shuffle.

Butter and cotton *****,
tricks of the trade.
I mumble to be heard.
I am legend
to disciples
of the Method.

I wear my friends to bed,
burn them like newspaper.
They call me "Bud"
—cigarettes at dawn
after devouring the night.
And now my song ebbs,
as the stylus hits the leadout groove.

Tomorrow, I'll be better.
Today, I'm just me.

In your heart,
can you sit with the grieving,
see what they are feeling,
and grow some compassion?

Tears from a stranger,
a mother’s exhaustion,
wearing the body language
of those who’ve been broken.

No hugs allowed,
no warm faces to comfort,
no one to hold,
no matter how much we want it.

In your mind can you comprehend
what all this pain is doing to them.

Instead of being activated
by what you hated
you got isolated,
so you wouldn't be triggered.

There were photos of
human agony on foreign streets,
bombed out buildings,
bleeding children,
and parents weeping.

Instead of getting outraged
by what you saw,
you went to your safe space,
so you wouldn't have to face
any troubling thoughts at all.

People softened the discourse,
slightly dulling the edge of the sword
they use to cut the safety cord
we call human rights.

The bad things kept happening
while you were napping comfortably.

You should have been
an exposed wire
sparking an arc of heart fires.
Instead of highlighting
that which was frightening
you went into hiding.

While those who were fighting
didn't get the option
to ignore the horror.

Busted up and ******,
tear gassed buddies bruised
while you used that excuse
of not wanting to deal with bad news
cause you might get triggered.

The world is on fire so,
melt that snowflake heart sister
and brother
we've got no time to waste
in helping each other;

Look and see these tragedies
and get motivated;
Rise up in outrage,
get ******* triggered,
and get to work son.

Cause anger gets **** done!!

I stand at
the last divided capital in the world and it confuses me how the land I am from is still being owned by greed and discrimination
we sit at the cusp of the border and an elderly man sells us ice cream
I sit in your lap on the metal chairs,
admiring the history that lived before me
this man was watching knowing his life was in an echo of a torn country

complacency

he moved boxes around, cluttered in old ornaments and memory
the other side of us there were  children in a violin lesson
so unaware
of the wall
their parents wait for them in small conversations
an officer in blue parols with eyes that are hungry and glowing like a fox in the strangeness of night, preying,  feral, searching.

I get to know him,

simply by watching his ways –


of hiding himself.