In all mediums of art
There is a give and take
Between the artist and their audience
Both sides must give everything and take everything
They’re two halves of a whole
In a reciprocal relationship
Where they must give 100%
To meet each other 50/50

The artist must pour their heart and soul into their work
And the audience must reward the artist by doing the same
Consuming art with an enthusiastic, optimistic open mind
Yet many people don’t consume art this way
They enjoy the weight of their own opinions too much
So to try to give their opinions credibility
They become overly critical and jaded

The audience starts to adopt a “this better impress me” attitude
But their criteria is always different
I met an example in a film discussion with a cynic
Who only complained about the plot or CGI
Because they didn’t know what else to look for
And ended up hating plenty of movies
They didn’t know how to watch in the first place

Yet on the other side of that coin
These people convince themselves they like total **** to seem smart
I can never predict what shotgun blast on canvas they’ll call brilliant
But it usually relies on the power of suggestion
A famous person made it or other people like it
Usually explained as “raw emotion” or something along those lines
While thoughtful and interesting work is shot down

This mentality turns artists away
While attracting frauds
Who develop a pretense to impress those idiots
By acting like an artiste
They contribute to a culture devoid of depth
Where critical thinking is used to find ways of being different
As asserting individuality trumps emotional connection
For consumers trying to avoid appearing superficial
Yet they just end up unique and shallow

Oh God, here they come
thirty to fifty wild boars
I’m quite stunned
so I slam the door
and look for my gun
which isn’t there anymore
the liberals took it away
not because of bullets sprayed on concert days
but to make me gay
which is why I hid my AK.

Thirty to fifty wild boars are attacking
while my children are in the yard
I can already see their bodies stacking
without an assault rifle to guard
so I find the weapon I’ve hidden
and say to the swine good riddance
the assault rifle made the difference
it’s not just a recreational interest.

Wild boars have only killed four people in US history
because they’ve been plotting
so to me it’s no mystery
these wild boars I’m spotting
Are terrorists
that share a fist
with liberal wrists
so I must defend my country
with assault rifle hunting.

These razorbacks
find ways to smack
those who firepower lack
leaving destruction in their tracks
their leader is wearing black
he’s the harbinger of doom
wielding a scythe
like a broom
to show me eternal night
in my tomb.

My armor piercing rounds
defeat the rotund hounds
their bodies fall to the ground
my family is safe and sound
but that’s not enough
my survival was luck
I go to the government for change
to get weapons in a deadlier range
because my assault rifle can **** thirty to fifty wild boars
but what if I’m attacked by thirty to fifty more?

When it comes to creating art
And somebody starts explaining
“All you have to do is...”
I can always count on the reductive advice that follows
To be only worth discarding

Fall becomes Winter.
Time changes. Time rearranges.
Each season provides its own challenge.

A shaving becomes a beard.
The snow falls. The snow piles.
Snowballs gain momentum and grow.

A scratch becomes an ache.
I can't breathe. I can't swallow.
I won't last long but this will last forever.

The cold becomes pneumonia.
I have coughing fits. I have blockage.
Phlegm builds an island to be marooned upon.

Habitation becomes hibernation.
The animals escape. The animals sleep.
They wait for the light to shine on them once more.

Mitigation becomes migration.
The birds fly away. The birds fly South.
As they flee their wings push cold air down toward us.

Winter becomes Spring.
I have become someone else.
A man who has felt another Winter.

When I was younger
drugs were something I wanted to do
and as I grew older
drugs became something to do
and as I grew even older
drugs became something I had to do
and now
drugs are something I used to do.

Some things are just meant to be
but they’re also meant to have been.

Definitions aren’t meant to fully convey
the meanings of words
in all their complexities and nuances

definitions operate as hints
to help us with a starting point
and as we become more familiar with terms
new functions and usages become apparent
until those words are added to our lexicon

like our conversations with one another
each conversation adding definition
to our understanding of the other’s existence.

Vultures draw circles in the sky
tracing the paths we run
concentric predatory perimeters
paralyze prey with peril
ping pong eyes pogo up and down
trying to detect fine print consignment.

Squirrels keep their head on a swivel
tightrope walking on telephone lines
or traveling along the branches in canopies
avoiding the ground with suspicion
of sentinel snakes slithering in the soil.

A contract is written in a newborn calf
standing up and beginning to graze
innately aware of wolf rescissions
and tornado trials.

Cephalopod ink spills on the page
tyrosinase blinds the opponent
suffocating in a dark cloud
while the octopus escapes
to grow into a Kraken form.

So eyes dart back and forth
reading back the record
of a jungle mentality
wandering high
to avoid predators below
and an ocean turning black.

I work on a river bank in the rainforest of an Amazon warehouse
where the torrential downpour of consumerism never subsides
filling the conveyor belt tributaries flowing through the industrial jungle
so commodity pisces can swim to my village at the basin—pack line 2
where the village folk run a benevolent catch and release program
providing bags and boxes for physical deflection and germ prevention
parts, presents, and propaganda all prudently properly packaged
finally released to follow the river to their eighteen wheel hearse
transporting them to a behemoth with an insatiable appetite
it gets a primitive thrill out of being a picky eater
throwing away anything it doesn't want
letting the vultures circle the trash pile
knowing its waste will attract new feeders
salmon swimming upstream thinking they'll become leviathans.

I observe and record
The undeserved discord
Implored
By dim bores
While indoors
Sins are born
I was warned
But I formed
A sin scorn
Once forlorn
In the storm

The abhorrent
Sent a torrent
Of torment
To the dormant
Informant
That went through my mind
To become realigned
Into something that rhymed
To take up my time

The extension
Of the tension
Met the unmentioned
Intention
Of detention
By hedonism
To see the schism
That reads like a prison
And bleeds with the rhythm
Of a needle's incision

The exclusion
Of my collusion
With my delusion
From night's illusions
Ended their nuisance
By taking a new stance
Of a mute dance
Of loose chance

This war I wage
By turning the page
Has me burning with rage
Learning this cage
Is churning my craze
Yearning to age
To master this maze

This paper cut
Safer hut
Replaced my rut
Graced by trust
On pace for bust
I trace my fuss
To place a plus
On this race to dust

Surprising lane
Transcribing pain
Describing shame
Arriving like rain
Inside of my brain
Extinguishing the flames
With a grammar game
Of a semantic strain
Making my refrain
A poetic plane
That acts as a cane
Instead of a crutch
Removing the mundane
That's why I love it so much

I live conflicted
between the life I'm gifted
and fault lines that have shifted
under my feet
for a dream delete
under the concrete
mob elite.

The grass isn't green and ****
I stand here beetle bit
I can't seem to sift
through the needless rifts
brought by greedy grifts
and seedy spit
on our supply side cliff.

I stand out of the range
of the morally deranged
which is how they arrange
my inability to effect change
which puts me down in the count
and down on the scoreboard
so I can't purchase a mount
to start moving forward.

I'm the disease and the antidote
I'm the hunter and the antelope
water rushing through the dam I broke
flooding the land of hope
with my brand of nope
down a tantrum *****.

There's a cynical patter in town
saying it doesn't matter if I drown
or if I burn
either way I suffocate
then put into the ground in turn
they just listen to sounds that churn
as the unbound learn
there are hounds on Earth
that scour the turf.

I sit on the sidelines
begging them to stop
but then I find I'm
cheering the beating of cops
after seeing their glocks
protecting nothing but stocks
when an uptick in mops
is what we should want.

I am the owl sitting in the tree
I am the fowl dead among the leaves
I watch the world turn from my grave
where I burn as a slave
just to return to my cave
to repeat this the next day.

People on my paper
Taper
From my eraser
For I’m safer
Avoiding their paper cuts
In my lonely rut
As a homely nut
Who’s doors are shut

My notebook
Notes looks
To quote crooks
Who float hooks
To trick innocent fish
To do as they wish
Because I want bliss
I write down their list
Of how to make mist

Receipts
Of deceit
For defeat
At my feet
Are blank sheets
With no signature
Because I’m immature
And don’t admit I hurt

The world keeps turning
As textbooks are burning
So I’m incapable of learning
Why those who spurn me
Put me on gurneys

The stationery
Stated the scary
Apothecary
That makes us weary
Was the way to parry
The judges staring
At my pages tearing
From my burden bearing
Attempts at caring

But the judges became more imposing
My life they were hosing
Constantly nosing
Sympathy posing
Secretly hoping
A shotgun loading
Equaled my foreboding

Then through the papyrus
I saw your iris
Infecting virus
Distracting from the pain
Of the words on the page
Calming my rage
Like a sobering mage

But a paper ***
Playing God
Knowing odds
Said I’m flawed
Sending an origami
Tsunami
Upon me
With a piece of parchment
Showing where my heart went
How plainly evident
I wasn’t heaven sent

The text
Said ***
Was next
So I flexed
Which indexed
My intentions
As extensions
Of *** tension

My lousy excuse
Of a paper noose
That was obtuse
Cut you loose
After my poor example
Of a newspaper scandal
Making our fire burn ample
Incinerated our paper candle

I decide not to stay
Through this paper mache
Facsimile fray
Dominion grave
So a road I pave
With paper plates
For the wasteful fate
Of an empty slate

Through days I’m wading
Calendar fading
Ink degrading
The endless waiting
As my head is deflating
Because my construction paper
Always becomes obstruction vapor
So I become a substance faker
Loveless taker

Only when I finish my paper route
Will I see that my shameful doubt
Kept me out
Of record books
For I was shook
And my eraser took
The writing off the page
As I die of old age

Most Christians don’t like Slayer
They say it isn’t Christian music
They say it’s irredeemably flawed
Because it goes against God
But I believe all music can be seen as religious music
God created those artists and their environment
And their art is a way of expressing the result of that
By sharing what’s on their mind
For religious people to change those minds
They must understand those minds
And find appreciation for the secular culture
To ask one side to change significantly
And not change yourself at all
Doesn’t seem symbiotic
Yet the religious stay purposefully oblivious
In order to not have their faith challenged
Because they think without it they’d be hideous
Caught in predatory atheist talons
So they sing their own hymns
And follow their own whims
And wonder why people can’t relate to their culture
Because they seem like disconnected vultures
Preying on the weak
And those in defeat
For a money deplete
To those on the other side
It’s the evil elite
Sending the other for a ride
The two never meet
And just believe all the lies

Some people say every life is priceless
And that abortion is ******
Then they tell me I’m worthless
And ask me to **** myself
What the ****?

The internet is a powerful tool
Dictators channel it to rule
While children use it to fool
All in the same pool
Of nightmare fuel
Where we act cruel

The evolution of memes
And online games
Shows us our flame
Is a repetitive shame
When our simple brain
Can only handle the same

Lit cigarette
Met internet
Now cinder lets
Tinder get
Winter set
Until our breath
Smells of death

Light bulbs flickering
In electronic bickering
For tectonic snickering
Causing toxic differing
From an ox-like misery
Of a boxed light mystery
Of who's on the other side
Of our digital divide

CGI
Seedy eyes
Seeding lies
Feeding flies
Crafted cries
Acting wise
Impacting our lives
By distracting our ties
With diss tracking guys
And fists that fly
And potential brides
As long as we abide
And glide
In their ride

Bruising love
Cruising dove
Using the
Electrical electoral
College knowledge
To their advantage
Collecting the edge
They use to hedge
Pushing to the ledge
The values we pledge

Our free-for-all mentality
Receives digital vitality
As our cynical malady
Creates an extension cord
Leading to detention for
Unmentioned ******
Who're met then scorned
Then accept that ****
Is a way to conform
To the attention storm
That leaves us torn
And forlorn

Content formation
Condensation
Maturation
Indicates inflation
From TV stations
Expanding
What fans see
What's landing
Like money vultures
Diluting pop culture
With Ann Coulter
Hatred's soldiers
Are society's molders
So things get colder
Until our only common language
Is anguish

The website junction
Fight might function
As a buck-skinned
Must-win
Ghostly gust wind
Into a dust bin
Of adjustment
To a judgement
By the anonymous
Applauded fuss
Of the concussed
Blunderbuss
Before us
A chorus
Adorns us
With more cuts

The saturation
Medication
Destination
Hasn't met creation
For our sequestration
Has the weak sensation
Of our deep impatience
So we seek stimulations
By repeating simulations
Of reading invocations
Of defeating immolation

The power grid
Power did
Power id
As flowers hid
Towered in
A coward's win
Empowered grin
Of a sour sin
Dour din

We live in a pedantic
Tantric
Environment frantic
Yelling at one another over frivolous nonsense
Then once we speak of things that matter
We do it in our familiar reductive chatter
Making complications flatter
And differences fatter
We must climb a ladder
Above the mindless clatter

The internet is humanity's brain
Why must we fill it with pain?

They fingerpick on the guitar
while I toe pick on the ice;
my equipment doesn't fit as well
as each note in each composition they write.
After building brick walls in front of the net
their slapbass slapshots destroy my defenses
until their goals plague my crease.

While trying to set focus on my own game
loud cheering emits from various venues
for Mozart writing his first symphony at 6
Orson Welles directing Citizen Kane at 25
Johnny Depp originating that last line at 31
and Patrick Mahomes, whom I'm older than.

Competition is healthy, functional
until the unstable heat of boiling envy
releases the steam of resentment
building pressure in the machinery
until the screws pop out like marbles
knocking each other out of bounds.

Daftly defining ego as the self
and success as superiority
and achievement as relative,
I race against relatives;
each pace they gain
is a slap in the face in the rain
stinging while slipping while
blaming the elements
precipitating my demise.

Gripping graphite too tightly
vulcanized rubber goes wide
shattering through plexiglass
and into the rib cage
of an innocent bystander
dropping his concessions
to climb the stairs to the sky box
while I wait for repairs to be made.

I enter this world
With fists curled
And eyebrows furled

During this life
I dodge the knife
Like a noble knight
Of a modern plight

The task from above
Orders ask for love
But push and shove
Cause awkward hugs

My wish is bliss
But fists are dished
And my only kiss
Is the one I missed

Time keeps dwindling
Like burning kindling
That’s life riddling

My bullet train
Skull of shame
Full of pain
Bullish brain
Bulls through lanes
With road rage
Until old age
Is my cold cage

A piercing dog whistle
Shoots like a thought missile
Through the bog thistle
Signaling my dismissal

Through the trees
I see the forest freeze
And the lifeless bees
Pile into a sea

I’m sincerely done
With their imperium
Tired of hearing them
Through my delirium

I crash and burn
Like an ashen bird
With no rebirth

I slip away
Into a grave
Where I’ll stay
Can’t press replay
On a lifetime delayed

I wake up in the morning
To thunderclouds forming
Afraid of future storming
I live my life forlornly

My life is like whiskey in the jar
It doesn’t have to go very far
To be turned into ****
After the mark I miss
It’s the dark I kiss

I’m Mister Useless
With a blistered bruised wrist
Getting slapped with a ruler by the ruler
Which is an anger fueler
So I don’t want another
Which is why I can’t find a lover

I’m trash
I’m garbage
I’m collapsed
And tarnished

Today was a day
But I threw it all away
Like a bullet in the fray
I feel the fullest when I stray
So I cram my gullet with dismay

It’s undeniable
That I’m unreliable
My company isn’t viable
So I lay in a silent hole
While I’m sleeping
The reaper is reaping
And the keeper is keeping
Happiness from those weeping

I didn’t learn anything new
After I learned to lose
And blame the Jews
As my bigotry grew
I accepted easy answers
About those I don’t like
I say they’re sinful cancer
And I’m always right

I become extremely hateful
Yet expect people to like me
When I’m constantly distasteful
They just want to fight me
Which I say is beneath me
Because victory is unlikely
I’d probably catch a beating
From God trying to smite me

All I want is sympathy
Not to see things differently
Because no one interests me
Because I’m never listening
I live my life in a crate
So they must carry my weight
So I can carry my hate
While I constantly deflate
And underrate
Anything great

I feel so lonely
Won’t someone hold me
While I treat them coldly?

A kerosene
Pharaoh leans
On barreled dreams
With feral teams
Using gasoline
To mask the screams
Of the last to breathe
On the path he weaves

His petrol
Gets sold
To fretful
Death droves
Chaos enfolds
Compounding tenfold
In this hell we’re stenciled

They’re fighting over a commodity
Using false dichotomies
Haughtily
Making others duel
Over fossil fuel
To say who rules
Which seems cruel
So they fill textbooks with lies
And put a gun in my hand
If I give a vexed look I’ll die
So I give in to their demands

I’m too blind to see
The refinery
Assigned to me
Is designed to be
The life I lead
For lies of greed
Making the sky bleed

We shoot chemicals into the sky
And deep into the ground
Never stopping to ask why
We hear a rumbling sound
And all the animals around
Have turned upside down

Getting oil
Is deadly toil
But not for the royal
Who’ve never touched soil
They’re too busy trying to foil
Anyone trying to save the planet
Anyone trying to use compassion
The prison door they slam it
Saying we don’t have enough rations

I become a head nodder
Eating lead fodder
As a pet otter
Clapping for treats
In shameless defeat
For the ruling elite
On a shrinking iceberg
Showing what my life earned

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 live in my filth
Making flowers wilt
With the stench I built
Until my life tilts

I meet someone
And have some fun
But once I’m done
Their scent can stun

Our game of anything goes
Gets lodged in my nose
Until I’ve completely froze
Thinking of the path I chose

Long after ***
I can smell their mess
From a cologne flex
Becoming my hex

The sepulcher scent
Of their sulfur vent
Is where I sadly went
For a companion to rent

The foul smell
Of this towered well
Traps me in hell
With its noxious spell

I’m reminded of my decision
By the stench’s incision
Which seems like derision
Preferable to loneliness envisioned

I yearn to be number
After my returning lover
Smells like burning rubber
So I just turn to another

When they’re unfit
I can smell their ****
In an aromatic blitz
Nullifying my wit

Through kisses and licks
Their scent sticks
Quite thick
As the clock ticks

Through the calendar
I smell no lavender
Just the scavengers
Who are crag senders

They try to banish me
But instead of vanishing
I block my nose handily
And continue my caroling

My mouth sings
As a new day brings
A triumphant spring
Meant for kings

Once I’m in a different state
Their scent dissipates
After I let go of hate
And accept their traits

A king withdraws into his castle
his eyes drawn out while sitting on the throne
now I'm not a king I'm just an *******
but I do know what it's like to sit at home
not knowing what's going on
a court jester growing con
shows I don't belong
to the awaiting bombs
so I move along.

I need time
and space
I'll wait in line
there's no race
just a loss of grace
that needs to be replaced
this isn't ideal
but I need to heal
from the hamster wheel
of ample feels
like despair over what went wrong
shame which is my only law
pain is there and is raw
so I withdraw
like a sick fawn
without its skinned mom.

The doors to my eyes are shut
as long as I'm stuck
in this lousy rut
building walls of muck
as blinders for a buck
who isn't racing
only running
from those chasing
and gunning
but there's no way to dispel
Satan himself
a turtle withdraws into its shell
laying precariously on the freeway
it knows what awaits is hell
but it can't peel away
because it sees a way
it can be in play.

Seasons slink
I need to think
while on the brink
of an overcast downfall
I put up a sound wall
to ignore the ground's call
asking me to withdraw
into its halls
where I'd switch all
the things I've acquired in life
for eternal night
an infernal fight
to do what's right
and keep the damage inner
temptation says come hither
that wily wyvern
always gives burns
but I never will learn
that my plans of stillbirth
cause a fiery chill hurt.

I'm in a delicate state
and need to deflate
no need to debate
please for my sake
give me a break
I need to escape
the chaos
in which I'm way lost
like the sky that is grey glossed
and the ground made of clay frost
we all have the same boss
whose favorite move is a flame toss.

The withdraw gets worse
turning into a curse
I'm living in a hearse
willing to see the dirt
I feel it flirt
beckoning me to my reckoning
everyone else is seconding
that motion
so I withdraw into an ocean
made entirely of land
the soil I scan
only to find desert sand
passing through my hands
to show I'm ******.

Time goes by
as withdrawn I
had delusions I could fly
they were just withdrawn lies
to make me try
despite belonging on the ground
completely covered by the color brown
with a scent that could gag a hound
so when I finally look around
no one is there
they've withdrawn into pairs
making me stop and stare
yearning for tender care
so I shoot a flare
into the air
but it withdraws back into my gun
like the blacked out sun
telling me I'm done
and the withdraw won.

There exists an area between hurt and healed called scarred
it's a place that isn't found—but revealed
tectonic plates protecting the core
my vibrating feet split the earth
forming my fault of separation
passive plains give way to cliffs and valleys
your seismograph detected  tremors
so you escaped to safer ground
outside my sightline from inside the trench emerging
memories are all I need to dig deeper
so remembrance goes through a grainy filter
glorifying the other side of my grave of grime
engendering assumptions of purity lying
beyond the fresh dirt door
where the undead hold their light sticks and disco *****
creating light without illumination
I stumble into them like a moth at night
bumping into the last vestiges of light
they say multiplying two negatives equals a positive
but this whole keeps going deeper
we just acclimate to the depths
making a competition of going furthest down
excavating our descent by expanding the division in the land
until magma erupts
lighting the voluminous pit
revealing the hell we've dug
trickster shadows dance along the sides
hypnotizing the feral demons staring
slack-jawed at the empty canvas of the cave walls
attributing the beauty of what they've missed to ghosts
telling ourselves our horns make us unique
until the lava starts burning us
as a reminder of humanity
continuation ensures incineration
yet this cavern has become my home
after convincing myself I belong here
so everybody hysterically huddles together
to protect themselves from the consequences
oozing from the pressurized center
I squeeze to fit into the middle of the crowd
putting bodies between myself and the nothingness that awaits
watching fellow spelunkers burn
while hoping the inevitable doesn't reach me
the liquid flame consumes my carcass
there's so many directions to fling the fire in
but I benignly accept my fate
knowing this is all my fault.

The piano towers before me like a black monolith
its keys are the bones I'm learning to swing
teaching technology tediously
until I can explore space
between man and self.

I put myself in stasis
while I battle my machine.
The piano assumes autonomy over my command center
cutting off my air supply
until I'm completely disconnected
floating in space.

The piano requires my focus and dedication
so I go to boot camp
to pay my dues.
I see everyone marching in the same direction
I want to put soap in a sock
and make them stop.
But they willingly wash out one by one
the commitment too demanding
they **** themselves in the process
but I'm able to survive
because I view myself as a joker
allowing me to accept abuse.

Applying the skills we've learned
becomes war
everybody's trying to shoot me down
and firebomb me.
How am I supposed to compete
when they'll **** the audience's **** for five dollars
or snipe at me from inside their homes?
I'm safe behind the cover of my piano
but they've got me pinned down
and I can't move.

I need a nightingale to nuzzle up to my ear
and chirp the secret chord or lyric
that will allow me to enter the gates of Beverly Hills
with one simple word. Fidelio.

I want to be so successful
I'm able to get into Illuminati ******
and walk around looking like a witch doctor
saying, "Yo, they're really ******* on the coffee table, nice."
until I'm ordered to get back to playing piano
and start wondering
if at my highest aspirations
I'm just a rich man's *****.

I committed a crime against the state
I effected the money oligarchs make
So they send me away to deflate
Inside a prison estate

The punishment of prison isn’t enough
They want my life to be extremely tough
So they take an unknown parasitic bug
And inject it into my blood

They don’t care what it does or where it goes
Because the main goal
Is that it’s painful
To satiate the disdainful

So I’m stuck in this prison
Because of our decisions
I have a parasitic incision
That starts blurring my vision

In prison I see things bleakly
And my eyes start leaking
On the verge of weeping
Until the bug starts speaking
Telling me not to show weakness
Because I’ll just sleep less
If I display any meekness
I’ll surely reach death

The parasite replaces my eyes
With its own advice
Of not acting nice
And being cold as ice
As it crawls through my skin
Teaching ways to win
That are quite grim
And mortal sins

The parasite tells me the only way to survive
Is to create an environment where evil thrives
So I start sharpening shanks
Like the military manufacturing tanks
Stockpiling my weapons
While I live in deception
Hiding my deviousness from the guards
Whose giant targe
Gives vibrant scars
Behind prison bars

They put me in solitary confinement
For my humble consignment
But my bumbling mind went
Following my blind pet
Telling me to keep fighting
In this tiny room without lighting
It’s the only way to feel lively
When I know I’m slowly dying

The bug says I’m weak
The bug says I’m lonely
So I desperately seek
A way for people to know me
So I spread my **** on the wall
Looking for an officer to brawl
Once the extraction team is called
I don’t feel so small

In a prison of concrete and resentment
I’m drowning in indefinite detention
Which was the intention
Of this sadistic invention
But they forgot to mention
That innocent people end up here
I barbarically **** to inmate cheers
Feeling only hate and fear
The parasite enters their ear

Two men square up
in an octagon
they circle each other
they try angles
to find the wrecked angle
to reach the top of the pyramid
for a diamond reward
to make life on this sphere bearable
because deep down in our dome we know
we preach the Holy Triangle
but ignore the lessons of the cross
hope takes the shape of its negative container
which is half empty so we’re always divided by two
the octagon mentality is reflected in the Pentagon
people fill rectangular plots in the ground
while others profit from manufacturing projectile cylinders
hiding behind stars and stripes
while we fight one another with dollar signs
in the eyes ovals stream from
we see the trapezoid we’ve built for ourselves
where our circular lives take the shape of a fist.

My hairline is receding
my care line is receding
I'm a feline proceeding
up the wall to hit the ceiling
of what I've been feeling
which should have me reeling
but my blood is quickly congealing
thanks to this art I've been stealing
from the vault in my mind
that's guarded at all times
except when words on lines
crack the code's design
and redefine
what it means to be alive.

Nighttime is perilous
pestilential predators lurk
evisceration entropy envelopes everything
wounds are collected like keys to doors leading underground
and I can hear a jingling in my pocket
so I denounce the nighttime
unlocking the door to a home
where one can sleep at night.

But once I go outside in tomorrow’s morning
the sunlight shines into my soul, cooking my sutured skin
along with the keys I’ve collected
burning through my clothes
and into my body
flies can smell subcutaneous sizzling a mile away
they yearn to feast, buzzing all around me
crawling through my insides
multiplying
while vultures fly laps around me from above.

So I throw a nocturnal drape over the tumultuous foothills
and begin imparting my basement keys onto others
an imposing locksmith
a charitable safecracker
Johnny Applekeys
prowling with pouncing predators
masking my petulant bitterness with false wisdom
my edgy perception of maturity tells me to be jaded
hey, that’s just the way it is
I call myself an honest realist
a self ordained keymaster
I wear my key ring proudly
and distribute keys to those around me.

Stuck between persistent motion and paralysis
my key chains start swinging like pendulums
dancing like an opposing militia
like my eyes once I start getting nervous
waiting for the receipts to my exchanges
reflecting how I’m living in the red
and the debt I owe others
I can only pay in keys leading nowhere.

I try to convince them that the doors I unlock lead to riches
but we all know they’re paths to the hell from whence I came
my words are for myself
like the hell I man the ferry for
selling keys to scary doors
used as lifeboats in my shipwreck life
surviving off of other people’s strife.

The keys are overflowing from my makeshift pit
they poke into my veins like needles from the past
suffocating me like a rat in an hourglass, buried in sand
I imagine it’s the beach to the shore I can reach no more
unlike my swamp where I act as lifeguard
to a lagoon no man inhabits
I say “the water is fine, hop on in”
when I don’t even know how to swim
so even the trees think that I’m dim
when I hang my keys on their limbs.

Surviving night means eat or be eaten
yet my decisions effect daytime treatment
when scars put me behind bars
I inquire as to the depth of the dungeon
digging a subterranean home then diving deeper
finding company at the bottom with grim reapers
where the ostrich that flies is ostracized until it’s fossilized
so I sit in my estranged egg
not wanting to ever hatch
but no matter how much I beg
my keys unlock the latch.

From addiction
To eviction
Dereliction
Feral diction
Barrels fiction
Heralds friction
Searching for money
The days aren't sunny
Reflecting light
Deflecting sight
Detecting might
Inventing rights
Respecting fright
Yet dissecting plight
Won't cause a fight
For the needle holed
Beetles show
Fetal glow
Being low
Seeing no
As their blow
To the flow
Of the snow
Turning hearts to stone

Dutiful
To beautiful
Pharmaceuticals
A visceral
Medicinal
Scissor fold
Bitter hole
Withers souls
Of imbeciles
In the scold
Of the old
Who whine
Speed signs
Feed lines
Seen by
Unwise
As lies
They don't abide
So they divide
Into demise
Until the flies
Eat them like fries
After days they despise
Give them a fatalist prize

Here comes Auntie Taunting
frivolously flaunting
her jeering jaunting
acting like Don King
saying all the wrong things
behind the protection
of my own discretion
after toxic injections
dressed up as lessons
fly in my direction
I ask her to give it a rest
to be told it's only in jest
and she's just being honest
but those jokes aren't best
once it's her being prodded
because to deride and cajole
was always her prideful goal
how to stop her I don't know
because she hides behind my kindness
and possible social consequences
all I know is I don't like this
person of obsolescence
embodying annoyance
my only answer is to practice avoidance.

You were asked if you wanted to get together and
you said probably. Now that answer’s haunting me
after seeing how quickly  probably turns into not
with me. You just promised me probably for a
proper flee from damaged property. Do you think
if you said maybe I’d assume you hate me? No
would’ve been the correct route to go instead of
engendering excessive expectations for my existence.

Pastors probably preach patience but paradigms
shift once penetrated by paramount peer pressure.
Answers are hard to find when only probably is
spoken by God to me. I’m probably an oddity that
doesn’t know what probably means, but I guessed
it meant yes unless something unforeseen happened
to be. But probably just means you’re not for me
less awkwardly.

I don’t know where to begin, probably when you told
me my live for you was a sin. I don’t know when it
ends, probably when I have no more time to spend. I
don’t know who I am, probably the guy that fell for
love’s scam. I don’t know what I desire, probably to
extinguish love’s fire.

Driving down the road at night
an oblivious skunk walks out in front of me
forcing a brake stomp
chaos car slides like the items inside
stopping inches before the skunk
who nonchalantly scurries off
frustration fills my car
whose contents have been turned upside down
but I can’t begrudge the skunk
because creatures follow a different set of rules
especially skunks
so the road continues to be traveled
but I wish I had never had to deal with that skunk
because the stench of its spray sticks to my Focus.

I’m roadkill with a glint still in my eye
on the blacktop I lie
before the arrival of flies
who finalize a demise
that seems more like a prize.

We met in middle school
And you helped this riddled fool
Through my little duels
Becoming an indispensable tool
As a burden carrying mule
But you recently found someone more important
And I feel I can’t afford it
So I want you to abort it
Or them to be deported

You attempt to shield
The way I feel
With a third wheel appeal
But I need the whole deal
To stay on an even keel

We have so much history
So it’s a total mystery
Why they claim victory
When they seem sick to me
But you’re not picking me
Even though we connected as kids
You now want to get rid
Of all that we did
On another’s bid
I see my stock slid
Down your priority grid

I explain it’s up to us
To stop the succubus
But you say I must
Quit my fuss
Before I bust
Your friendly trust

It hurts my sense of pride
When I feel I’m defied
So I make you decide
And you choose the less aggressive side
Creating a divide
As I run and hide
From a newcomer’s stride

Treat me like I’m royal
Or be branded disloyal
Your relations I’ll foil
With malicious toil
Becoming angry and bitter
Of new additions to our litter
Exclaiming they slither
While I rapidly wither

Why does this bother me so much?
When did you become my crutch?
How did I fall
Into a pit so banal?
Do you want me around?
Because to you I’m bound
Hearing your glorious sounds
Makes my heart pound
So I feel like I’ve drowned
When you’re not in town
And I travel an empty path
After doing the toxic math
Of your subtraction wrath

I wanted you selfishly for myself
Which wasn’t good for your health
So you set me on the shelf
Because I never knelt
Or weathered welts
Of humility
Now jealousy is filling me
And I let it willingly
So you’re the one billing me
By slowly killing me
With correction
Through rejection
Going a new direction
Beyond my detection
Away from the detention
Of my arrogant prevention
Of your social ascension
Which was my intention
To hold all your attention

So now I’m all alone
I probably deserve it
Our friendship had grown
I should’ve preserved it
But somehow reversed it
Because I’m so worthless
And value you so highly
Yet I refused co-signing
Treaties you were writing
I wrote off as whining
And now I am finding
Loneliness binding

I had a boyfriend with a mental illness
his name was Mental Illness.

Smile of shiny white enamel
radiant down to the dentin

sprinkling ******* on skinny brown blunts
drowned in Kentucky bourbon

fluorescent tubes encased in the ceiling
are fixated above candlelit chandeliers

during the storm the thunder seems like ripples
from lightning bolts that have already struck

trees are split in two (never equally)
a fire lies in the part that is one

the forest floor is filled with fallen trees and dead leaves
ashes fertilize survivors for growth.

Mangled by a gang of doppelgangers
the gangly are ganked by the gander

making advancements in cloning from advancements in clothing
and discoveries made through jean manipulation

facsimiles of progress betray judgement
a hamster wheel is made from a barrel of Kentucky bourbon

two hamsters run in opposite directions, butting heads
until they're teeth are chipped—down to the dentin.

A strand of your hair borders
my ocean of tears.
Grains of sand mold together
forming mud.
You stand nonchalantly on the berm
staring over the vast nothingness
of the waterway nether.
Ocean floor follicles utilize
microscopic cilia.
Tiny motile tendrils propel me
along rock bottom.
Octopi submerged in sand banks
wait, coiled callously.
Ambush tentacles envelope me while
pulling me into the bell.
My depths always seem
darker than yours.
Claustrophobic.
Suffocating.
Narrow.
Caverns and coves collapse, caving
in before I ever find them.
I'm tied to tumultuous tentacles tangling,
blocking my butterfly stroke to the beach
where your hair washes upon the shore
like seastruck flotsam building barricades.

In this stuffy church
I’m roughly hurt
by bugging jerks
judging worth
until I’m dirt.
They drag this out
until I’m filled with doubt
I scream and shout
on a team of drought
I seethe and pout.

I’m the small child
running through the aisle
through their perception I’m wild
I traverse a sea of begrudging smiles
hating my unique style.
They say I’m defiled
and put me through trials
like staring with vile
or spewing their bile
until I’m exiled.

They say I don’t know God
but I see him every day
in art that is beautiful
so no matter what they say
I know I am dutiful.
If they could view my soul
they’d ignore what the losers told
and not abuse my home.

I don’t want to call them heathens
but it seems their grievance
isn’t rooted in my allegiance
or anything I believe in
yet they keep yelling treason
for ulterior reasons.

So I leave their cathedral
of sinister evil
I’m finished with people
and their oppressive steeples.
I project my situation
onto one of the most varied ideologies on the planet
I say they’re all the same
they all play games
of lies and shame
or are boring and lame.

I feel the venom
of resentment
so I won’t reach heaven
or contentment
just what dissent sent
through judgment relentless
I see Satan as a temptress
telling me to end this.

There’s a difference between dignity and pride
you can lose dignity without even trying
but shedding pride is a constant battle.

I have a leech on me
and I can't get outside of it

I work hard for the blood I've given
to sustain my captor

I leech all I can from it
as it leeches all it can from me

reciprocated bloodsucking
a competitive transfusion

blood goes in me
and out the other side

cascading off the hospital gurney
belonging to my polyamorous annelid

who brays in good fortune
as the blood leaves my body

spilling on the floor
to be pushed down the drain

where it becomes nourishing water
rejuvenating sulfur-scented cannibals.

I’ve been given a life of bliss
Into the church I slip
To worship this
First on the list
Is where to sit
In the holy pit
Of soul and spit

In the church there’s a battle
Between a serpent’s rattle
And the deafened cattle
There’s heaven and hell
In the seven sins I smell
Tainting the holy well
In which I dwell

I see pews
Of bad news
And my muse
But shy blues
Make lies loom
And I’ll die soon
In this spite tomb
Where I hide doom

The flamethrower
Game goer’s
Blame lowers
Shame knowers
To lanes slower
And a constrictive halo
Doesn’t let brains grow
So if the pastor say so
They’ll live in a daze glow

Their entropy
And my atrophy
Start centering
Around catastrophe
When what has to be
Is shooting flak at me
Dastardly

Two sides collide
And I must abide
To survive
The hive
Where demons and angels
Are leaving me mangled
Constantly tangled
In their angles

Some are good
Some are evil
Jesus saves
But do his people?

Birds chirping                wind blowing
doors swing open                   floodgates of chaos
noise                  people                          beeh­ive buzzing
unease               uncertainty                                           unable
customers noisy as dishes clanging                                       in the back
focus                  obscured                             ­                  insecurity
offensive presence                                 apologetic demeanor
forgive me brother                  for I have sinned
optical trajectory                     floor
please                          thank you
hands                 pockets
forgive me.

Why don't you answer?
I just want to talk
it's like a silent cancer
making me want to stalk
or outline with chalk
our friendship
and why I must end this.

I want to quietly leave
like the way you stay
pay me no heed
I'll be in my grave
instead of be in the way
I'll bleed just to say
anything for attention paid.

Your evasion's abrasions
stole my elation
and substituted placation
to complete my disintegration
within your disinterest nation
where the citizens never vote or protest
they just see who floats the lowest
learning how to go the slowest.

It isn't clingy as ****
to say I don't see you enough
to leave out this rut
I need your disrupt
but all I hear is a lack of sound
so I back on down
to the blackened ground
where I'm the last around
in a silence loud.

I don’t want you to die
I want you to live
I wish I was blind
to what this world can give
I wish that my mind
could handle it
I wished for all time
to see your candle lit
I wish death was a lie
written in Sanskrit
because I cannot buy
that God planned it
don’t tell me that I
don’t understand it
I know everything dies on this planet
my question is why
do I have to live with the damage.

Science advances humanity
It has lit up the night
And shown us cosmic sights
Science has lengthened our life span
As well as providing insight into the mind of man
So when we’re faced with a world in turmoil
People try turning to science to solve our problems
Which is a noble worthwhile task indeed
But I fear our solution may not lie in an equation
I imagine if that were the case
The equation would be understood at birth
And the solution would be love

I feel so lonely
I want someone to know me
And caress me slowly
Instead I’m imploding

I search to no avail
As loneliness prevails
My life goes stale
Telling tall tales
Of how I was impaled

I’m the single Pringle at the bottom of the can
That can’t be reached by their hand
Because it holds a brand
I can’t withstand
They always demand more
Like I’m their ****** *****
Who won’t stand for
The grand tour

So I just keep breathing
As love keeps leaving
Sitting here seething
Like I’m teething
While they beat me
Discretely

I know what I want
And won’t settle for less
But the settlers taunt
Saying they’re blessed
The riches they flaunt
Of having a guest
Leaves me impressed
But once I’m undressed
I see it’s all in jest
So it’s time to rest

I want to be part of society
Without anyone tied to me
Because they just lie to me
Playing hide and seek
Making life bleak
I travel through the cosmos
Where only God knows
How much time slows
Where the blind go

So I fold
And throw in the towel
Once I’m cold
And disemboweled
I reluctantly resign
While I’m singularly defined
Our lives will never intertwine
So I live inside my winter mind

I say life as a bachelor
Is spectacular
To mask the hurt
Of being attached to dirt
Inside this frozen canyon
Where I can’t join a tandem
While others avoid my fandom
I become a haunting phantom

This misery gets increasingly annoying
So I convince others to join me
In relationship avoiding
And defense mechanism employing
To act like I’m enjoying
The life I’m destroying

When you said your love couldn't be purchased
I didn't think you meant it was worthless
but after examining all of what I thought vs. what I got
you made funeral parlors out of churches
I misunderstood when you said you'd give me big top
I didn't think you meant the circus.

America has an obsession with guns
and will glorify anybody that carries one.

America has an obsession with race
and will glorify anybody that shares their face.

Imagine every statue and memorial in America vanished
and America placed you, Mr. Reader, in charge
of deciding what every monument in the country would be
—events commemorated, dates remembered, people honored—
how long would it take for you to start naming confederate soldiers?

There’s a daily ritual
of pain habitual
a desperate visual
when I fall in love
and you don’t return it
so I find a drug
and decide to burn it
as I try out discernment.

You only became hotter
after my ritualistic slaughter.
You cut me open and read my innards
informing you that you were the winner
as you ate them for dinner.

After your painful x-ray
I skipped the next phase
of averting my gaze
so I’m diverting to craze
through my ritual of shame
where I feel despondent
from the response sent
in our correspondence.

All my peers
act like seers
showing me their crystal ball
where I stand tall.
But the Ouija board
had me seething toward
a demon *****
who seemed like more
to eat my core.

The other animals in this zoo
are trying to be you
but I can see through
when they say “me too”.
They can’t impede blues
the way you easily diffuse
so I just drain the goats’ blood
at the shrine of no love
where I cry and eye rub
as they die in the dust.

I kneel before the altar of sorrow
that is my lonely bed
I lose all vision of tomorrow,
it’s replaced by red
and images of the dead
who never really lived
all they did was bled,
that’s all this ritual gives
a million shivs
poking torturously into my sides
I try to use one to cut off a piece of the pie
but end up gouging out my eyes
repeating a ritualistic chant of why.

Candles and pentagrams
are where the deadened land
fed up with the rules of man
I bring Satan my demands,
him and regret hand in hand
offering advice to the damaged ******.

I gave a blood sacrifice
to the needle
I stopped acting nice
to be evil
to deal with people
and their oppressive steeples.

I became cold
danced around an Asherah pole
then begged for mercy for my soul,
the one my rationalizations couldn’t hold
after breaking the hypnotic mold
of having my humanity sold.

These rituals I’ve performed
have summoned a storm
and left me forlorn.
My harvest of corn
came in barren
so now I watch ****
or go to a harem.

I have to find home
to get back to the grindstone
but the lined clones
are where my mind goes
until wasted time shows
that I'm dying slow
in the blinding snow
of finding glows
whose fleeting blinks
give me clouds of pink
that start to sink
and then disappear
leaving me here
wondering what I did wrong
smoking a ****
and singing songs
to get along
with myself for my health
otherwise I give myself the belt
when there's gold I can smelt
sitting in a laptop or a notebook
I need to hit the blacktop and go cook
instead of waiting by the phone hook
I just hate the way being alone looks
but every time I try I get my dome shook
grinding my soft heart into stone
so I need to get back to where that heart is
before I'm grinded down to bone
on grindstone marches.

Relationships need trust and honesty
I need to trust you're honest with yourself
but you got me grappling and groveling
every time I loosen my belt
your face starts to melt
pulling shame off the shelf
your blame takes my health.

Too many accusations
too much blame
I experience saturation
in your flame
of toxic guilt
with which I'm filled
from the oil you spill
on a torn canvas
like a praying mantis
straining my bandwidth
until I can't sit and demand this
**** sandwich no longer be brandished.

You blame me for everything
even when you're wrong
you look at every sting
as a planted bomb
**** I'm gone
the lamb I'm on
from your grand ole song
I'm a handled hog
freed from a damaged log.

You're always right
like the hand I ******* with
without you in sight
I'm bound to my coffin.

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.