The uninitiated pandering to the lowest common denominator,
the clean cut ******* in sophomoric rhetoric,
"Sick" he says,
"Addicted" he says,
Like,
"I haven't seen the girl I have a crush on in almost 24 hours and I feel.......like......
Withdrawing.
Itchy,
Nauseous,
Angry,
Vomiti­ng,
Like I've got insects EVERYWHERE,
MY BODY IS THE ENEMY,
OPEN REVOLT OF THE AFFECTED CELLS,
(THEY'RE ALL AFFECTED BY NOW)
There is no escape there is no relief there is nothing to be done but wait it out,
One day clean,
Two days clean,
Three days clean,
Maybe, this will pass,
NO IT WILL NOT
Four days later, a glimpse, relapse, progress undone, back to 0, the sickness is inevitable, I'm going to die like this"
When was the last time you looked into the ravenous ****** eyes of the masses, and what did you learn from this?
Not enough
Grow up.

"How much farther?"
The weary traveler, strung out angel with cancer heart and extrabrilliant soul, dead of night, cutting lines off each passing interstate sign that reads off the progression we've been working towards in a feverpitch monotone -
The end of the line is coming sooner than you think,
I cut a pack of worn out tarot cards with my free hand and set to work deducing meaning between highway lines,
Anything to pass the time

Beat, *******, beat,
Down and out, curbstomped destiny, infinite wasted conviction, licking at the heels of straightjacket giants,
Dying by,
Dying by,
Dying by
inches
It all happens in the mind but good ******* luck trying to convince anyone else,
Have you tried, maybe you should, why don't you just, you don't really, it's not so bad, what about,
YES,
I know how it looks,
I just need you to trust me,
You aren't helping,
But what about,
all lives,
what about,
your privilege,
what about,
asking for it,
what about,
WHAT ABOUT US
This,
Is not,
About,
You

Hopeless the machine souls marching the streets,
the gutters full of yesterday's news,
the sidewalks cracked and the love of nature trying desperately to squeak through,
the streets alive waiting for Rapture that comes every night at 8 o'clock on a giant TV screen in the department store window,
I could never tell if I was watching reality unfold or if it was just television, but by now I know it's always been television
Recycle it - again
Fill the cities with refuse angels to wash clean the worker's shame,
Then tell the candidates about how much you miss the way things were
Save us, Mr. President, we're dying out here
God can wait till morning
There's ten cent words going for ten bucks a piece on the free market
and all that speaking in tongues came back around to mean nothing after all,
And here is where the ghosts of their meaning rest
THE ENEMY IS HERE!
These are the three pillars of the freedom you paid for:
1. Silence
2. Silence
3.


The outlaws died for this
The beatniks died for this
The punks died for this
The hippies died for this
The revolutionaries died for this
The youth stayed home sick, grew up, voted Republican
Know Thy Enemy, Know Thy Self

In music video daydreams,
In empathy withdrawals,
In light pollution nightmares eclipsed skylines burning,
Burning, burning!
Screaming the heart raw!
Scraping the bottom of the barrel!
****! Eat! Drink! Death! Rebirth! Repeat!
Repeat, repeat, repeat til the nose bleeds,
The love dies in the back of the throat,
The words that could've fixed this left,
ignored,
On the kitchen table with the unpaid bills and the residue from last nights drug binge

I the poet
We the poet
He/She/They the poet
Will never be worthy of the poem
But allow me this as confession:
The fire that cleanses and the filth that remains
Yes - I have heard the sphinx preach friction to the dumb and the wise alike hoping to spark some understanding, dialogue, meaning,
Anything to feel connected,
Complacency as a concept is destroyed the moment you think about it
and the great tragedy plays itself on repeat ad nausea to the audience who are only still listening to get their money's worth
Yes- I have left several pints of blood and the better part of my sanity in the streets of cities with no conscience to speak of and I have been unaware of the gravity of my situation till now
Two decades of suicide played out in impermanent scenes of a purgatory I could only dream about once and am now the crowned jewel of
The ****** come, the falling action begun,
And I thought I heard the cavalry coming tonight but it was not for me
Red and blue lights reflect off of welcome signs,
Hands raised yielding into the air so as to avoid presumed suspicion,
And I get the feeling that any moment
Fire will catch,
lightning will strike,
The gunshots on the block will pierce the walls of Heaven,
Neon reality will light up a sign that reads
"EXIT HERE"
And the faithful will follow as they have always done
Yes - I have read the writing that would render my delusions obsolete but I cannot communicate with the demons in my skin, the devils in my blood, the cancers in my lungs, the rope double knotted round my neck that I'm sure will be called a halo when I'm gone
We are far past that now
The fate was always empty and the choice predetermined
But at least we know the score
And we know who our enemies are
The machine, humming static life into callous evening as the heart yearns for one last fix, and I wonder how much longer we can keep up the joke
Existence confined to the space between parallel lines -
From the altar to the ashes,
From the drug deal to the wake,
From the unknown back into the unknown,
Reality is all you can see down the barrel of a gun and it is your civic duty to pull the trigger
Let the world go supernova and remind everyone they're alive!
Alive! The psych ward prophets spoke sense to me in electric dreams! The martyrs monetized their own demise! The drifters smoke a pack a day and refuse to call their families! The junkies pressed the plungers on their salvation and are rushing to greet the stars head on as we speak!
The revolutionaries lost their keys and had to *** a ride home from the enemy!
The artists couldn't make any ******* sense of any of it!
Alive! Judgement at last!
Judgement the victory!
Judgement the cataclysm!
They'll wear flowers in their hair with clenched daydreams between their teeth as they count the footprints in the sand wondering which ones belong to Jesus!
Magnificent ****** *******!
Unrepentant bleeding heart liberal!
And I hate to ask but I need to know,
Will the concrete steps where I've lain my burdens all this time, my gypsy blood and nicotine cursed lungs, carry me to Judgement?
Judgement - Safer Than Heaven
Judgement - Safer Than Heaven
Judgement the Beast come round at last!
Judgement the circle redrawn!
Judgement the cycle reached final act!
Now start over

XXI. The World
As it was, again

Holy Mother hear me now!
The High Priestess sits jaded on sapphire throne wreath'd in laurel purities,
Blessing the sinners one by one as they line up grovelling down the block,
Shivering for acceptance, the emaciated children of a future abandoned and thrown to the wolves,
In reverence, she watches the nations burn!
The prisons burn! The churches burn!
The balance bleeds the light of dawn into the sidewalk cracks and tinted apothecary windows,
While the other end of the spectrum weeps blackest night into the open casket funerals of the unjustifiable crimes committed in the name of PEACE
The Almighty PEACE
PEACE in the Highest
PEACE at all costs
The High Priestess rains down PEACE from her bomb shelter throne
You may not understand it now
But this is for your own good

The Magician, gifted deadbeat, listless designer of immortal destiny, tragic comedian of the purest order, locked and buried, chained to the weight of indecision,
Ordained by cancerous night, canonized in the manifestations of nightmare heart withdrawals, ascending the cigarette strewn steps to lost versions of heaven,
Eternal kindred lovers in mourning, trace the chemical pathways to a neural shutdown disaster, martyrs imprisoned by their own mission statements, murdered by the cosmic truths exposed in tape recorded suicide manifestos, played backwards for empty auditoriums in a requiem for their apathy
Endowed with brilliant catastrophe, with the wand double edged with creation balanced to destruction, with infinite purpose,
The Magician breaks as he parallels the Fall,
the all consuming detachment,
the disconnected realities viewed from shattered lenses,
From distilled terror, from magnificent prose, from the ashen pillars of kingdom rotted, gutted, broken
Holy and lost, wisdom wasted,
As a mother's rage moves 1000 eyes and 1000 hands to some unclear end that I doubt I will be around to see
The Magician smokes his way to an early grave
While flowers grow over the memorials of those unmoved
I'm not sure what any of this means or why it should matter
But listen
There is a story here, if you will have it