~for those who will read this and weep~

the quiet ones,
the silent Job ones,
who quote not from the
Book of Lamentations,
but author their own,
based on-the-job experience

localized versions of cryptic elegiacs
accepting the wooden crosses borne,
stepping up to the
unrequested unforeseen,
then buried under, burnt alive,
yet never relieved by dying,
nailed by words, stronger than iron,
promises sworn, promises kept
with no ending date relief,
promises by and to themselves,
but not for themselves!

the wearers of crystal glass shackles,
adorned with decorative locks for which
no key did the maker make,
nor any divine creator
dare conceive an early release,
never no escape contemplated,
for the lock human, unrepentant unbreakable,
a decorative useless metaphor gesture,
a blunt “life *****” advertisement

I compose amidst a
bus pond of mismatched city folk,
a tapestry of ages colors and differing views on god/no god,
none would believe that as the bus sways me,
it’s in rhythm to holy choral music,
hundreds year old,
divinity masses and motets worships,
where one human can hide temporarily
a safe house,
to calm his questioning relentless
from the horrors of no answers,
for when the mind has no solution
to the rough and tumbling lives,
lived in glass shackled confinement,
the poets desperation equals theirs

summon eagles to transport these imprisoned,
but the shackled refuse,
I come to them but they wave me off,
I go crazy for once I was enslaved,
thirty years war that left devastation,
from which so many poems created

so I speak with heightened regard
of one who planned futures for others where his
non-existence was a founding father (ha!)

but the day came and
I was released by my own inactions,
but means nothing until a way to
away found
to release the yet bound early

got a couch, airline miles, hundred dollars
in my pocket and an unrelenting need
to save them, a consumption disease,
the glass shackled, at ease,
won’t rest till all are freed
this my creed
no one left behind

these cyber words do not mock
for they are unbounded, set free,
when
the flesh connects and the needs of the flesh
are stronger for they are in heart conceived

school starts soon
smoking joints on the weekday afternoon

in a sidelined shady
freight car, property of
Norfolk Southern

debating if this car will be
northbound or southbound
and master-bating our fantasy
where we want to be taken

knowing full well maybe one of us -
(and they all looking at me)

will get out of this car and live to
see foreign places without having to
return in a body bag

we argue lazy who should go get the beer,
collect the quarters and sweaty dollar bills
and **** if I am not reappointed
leader of the beer fetching

besides it’s my
tan lab panting needing water so it’s my
responsibility and the nasty liquor store owner don’t hate me that much as the others so he’ll sell me beer without too much **** talk (some for sure)

asking where I’m laying low on a **** hot day like this one

tell him i’m getting on a train getting out of this two bit town which makes him reminisce and ask which direction

could be northbound could be southbound
hell could be west
but for sure won’t be
going eastbound

cause I seen the Atlantic and didn’t like it

too **** big and too **** cold,
too **** mean