She wrote about other people, yes,
but she never wrote for anyone else but her.
She felt alone, I must admit,
but I refuse to take responsibility.

She's on her own.

i'd like to say oh hello like mulaney
grab a pen and craft stories like ashirogi
sing from the heart like chicks from dixie
and be the top percentage like young joey

but when i look at them
i just want to be
all that i am

and drop the hat
the wisecrack
grab a chair,
listen.

Does an artist have a responsibility
to steer their audience in a positive direction
or is honesty and self expression all that is required?

Shrewd enough to pick a purse
To feed a mouth sheltered under a rain of curse.

Empty bottles and opponent as partners
The fruit of a faint love
Now mine to pick.

Sleep and wake to the sour taste of poverty
Cure in the heart of men that walk the street

Too good to smile at the tartered shirt
Too quick to point our direction

Too heavy a baggage to carry
Too light the burden I offload

Ran back to my sheltered nest
Broken bottles and a red eyed woman
From whence I came
To this world of pain

Opponents as partners
The tattered shelter nature spared us

A smile on the little ones
My motivation to attract a pointing finger

My tatttered shelter - Opponents as partners.

"Metaphors are Dangerous"
is something my mother said
To me recently while hovering breathless above
her calendar; waiting carefully between the spaces of functions, appointments, and birthdays. Blank.

I asked her why she had me.
What became of my first calendar,
my genesis, the foretelling of my arrival?

What was "god's plan" for that lifeless heap of events she threw away in an afternoon, after everything within it either happened or didnt? Was it whisked away to trash island, with the other spent husks that had the audacity of limited use?

Does it still exist?
Stained and useless, wretched paper
sprawled out in the sun. Has it been completely reformed? Sent out as several paper cups, a newspaper,  a birthday cap, a kite?

What would god think of "used" calendars? Would he? When he reached our day of being in the cosmos, did he look at us and say "you will be used or you will be nothing" and pin us to the wall? A useful but temporary tool?

Why do we begin something at all? Why must we blow the balloon up just to let it go? Is it still a "balloon" when it's lying limp in a stranger's field a mile away?

In my mother's silence I knew she had no answer for me, except that "metaphors are dangerous" as her hands full of paper-cuts flattened the page.

An irreverent force
armed in localised wars
Flames of rage displayed in waves
Some strings attached
to bring about more force
Shattered glass and burnt bricks
won't fix what a voice is worth
But irrelevance when oppressed
blinded with contempt seeks to vent
So many mistakes are blamed to
create what is made of the states
Powers that be have a responsibility
to assist those in need without them bending the knee

my back aches
like my moms always did
from carrying the weight
of choice

i do not have ******* that pull at my muscles like she did
but I have empathy
and responsibility

and my back

it’s where I carry
the weight

Those who lack a common purpose,
A strong sense of fraternity,
Rarely shall be victorious
Against a common enemy.

Those who choose to work together,
  Who share responsibility,
Who unite in their endeavours,
Have much more hope of victory.