Echoes of words never said reverberate
through the desolate rotundra of my mind
encapsulating stabbing nothingness
featuring the limits of chaotic kismet
until the shade creeps into my eyes
like bubonic wraiths scouring the globe
searching for cravings, craving the search
discovering urchins and serpents alike
in the ocean that now fills my eyes
I watch a giant squid shoot ink
and articulate itself away
swimming to the bottom of my retina
where everything is flatter to withstand the pressure
bottom feeders suckle at the **** of the depths
pervading my flattened vision
swirling in a frenzy over pieces of my eyes floating downward
forming an inescapable black mass
trapping me in its rotating world
until a bioluminescent olm wanders through
trying to reach the surface
its light inspires me to follow
like I could grow to one day glow
in the sheltered cove of my eyes
the salamander rescued me to
where the shade still exists
with feeders beneath
but all those do anymore
is make my sanctuary feel like home.

I don't have any photos of when I was young
because they look like Chronos holding a gun
I just need slow-mo or time totally undone
or maybe I just need to hold onto someone
because I can't hold on to the before
after bombing all my bridges with C4
so now I walk on the sea floor
wishing I could see more

but all I see is myself as an aquatic gorilla
after spending too much time with Poseidon
precariously between Charybdis and Scylla
as pictures make me look more like Joe Biden
while I feel like I'm the one with the trident
but I'm just Janus' migrant
and that guy is a tyrant
because no matter which way he's facing
he can always find someone to replace me.

So I don't ever take pictures
because they give time a fixture
from which to taunt me like a trickster
showing me the different colors in the mixture
like a lowkey Loki
giving me the okie-dokie
luring me into moseying moping
leisurely leading to rope-a-doping
a mirror-morphed bizarro-me dope fiend
wanting to stay in a Kumbhakarna dope dream.

Time is a sausage link
clogging the gothic sink
of a drain we all would think
seems as fast as goblin's wink
so I try to focus on the myopic pink
but always end up finding reasons to drink
the ambrosia of a nova from Krakatoa
the ebbs and flows come and go with intensity
brought by the power of Jehovah
as well as two cameras with which I can see.

Prognosticating patriarchs
pundits and priests
pencil paladins
in penthouse palaces
riding what they're writing
writhing while they're rising
everyone's got a chance
chants the gaunt equalizer
its equal lie heard
plunges us into the absurd
assured of justice and fairness
we become curt and careless
saying if you work in a hairnet
or get your verve from clarinet
you deserve less than a baroness
because she has parents best
but when I ask of the parentless
those talking point to the talking points
so what's the point of talking
when talking leads to pointing
the finger in anger at strangers
who they just called equal
but that was merely a platitude
I'm starting to hate people
and their selfish myopic attitude.

I went down the rabbit hole
scrounging through darkness
squirming a maze of movements
just to reach a dead end
with only a rabbit waiting there
to inform me that I’m stuck in a hole.

Words are exchanged
words that are deranged

arrows are midrange
but words hit home
where our minds are made up
before we put on our make-up
to walk with our face up

into the public arena
pitting our words against others'
like we're not sisters and brothers
but words to discover

housing a stable of labels
protected by cultural shields
enforcing all the angles
of a rhetorical force field
we see the power words wield
and say "I go, you yield"

until we're talking to ourselves
and screaming into the void
checking into hell
where everyone is annoyed
yelling at text on computer screens

enacting prohibition
on others' volition
because we have different dreams
and other differences it seems
based on what we believe

which is expressed through words
to which we have different definitions
that at one point we learned
and now no longer want to listen.

When life started death seemed like a blip on the radar
and as death nears life seems more like a blip of time
it’s like wanting to travel but being stuck in the hangar
then going there and back in a record breaking flight.

Dear Mr. One-In-A-Billion
I'm one of the billion
trying to get some of your billions
but I'm just part of the sum of your billions.

I'm the one in your pocket
with only ones in my pocket
avoiding guns and rockets
that came from your pocket.

You keep a gun to my head
by putting guns in my head
with the guns you have led
bringing guns to a head.

I became your captive
you're a velocicaptor commercial raptor
with a manner didactic
to mandate moralistic methods of capture.

When I ask you to stop
I'm thwarted by cops
when I ask you to go
I'm thwarted by no's.

You tell us to fly when you know that we're hurt
you say it's the sky when we know that it's dirt
you give us a tie when all we have is a shirt
until the day we die and no longer have worth.

You providers provide
petite provisions
then dastardly deride
demographic divisions

parading pride
parroting patriotism
but the parrots died
during the schism.

You don't trust me because of my bank account
I don't trust you because of your body count
you don't care because your banks can't be counted
I care too much because every body counts.

Monopoly is a boar's game
the banker controls the board
the banker determines the gored
and property determines the score.

For equality we must equalize our equity
and make austerity analogous to antiquity
allowing annihilation of our antipathies
so we can delete deficit driving deficiencies.

We need charity baked into the system
so parity will be caked onto our vision
so we can stop worrying about cheddar
and give our cheese to the beggars

but you're the only baker around
with a shop full of dough
that you throw into the oven
to feed us sugarcoated lies.

Please stop feeding us tryptophan
through avenues like Instagram
or other similar brands
infecting culture with a businessman

until we're business ******
except for a select few
one of whom is you
and your billionaire brood.