Our chariot soared through the tunnel
And from out of the dark, light.
The sight of the city erupting
With fires' glare burning bright,
Venom like a snake's bite.
Vast buildings careening down,
As we maneuvered around them
The air was thick with smoke
And the smell of lead & sulfur,
The ground shook in violence.
We landed in a clearing,
The end was close at hand
The limits to see it, subjective;
For many laid dead in our stead,
Many enemies & siblings come to head,
And long did we have to tread before rest.
I unfurled the flag
And hoisted it up overhead,
Flying high on the mast.
I said my prayers
And made my peace,
Before the rain began.
All around me was storming,
Shutters battered marble
Amid crys for no quarter-
Blood was to be our recompense

Get disconnected,
And find you are detached from life.
Your fight becomes for the trivial,
And what is obvious to others
Eludes your sight.
You are choked up and smothered,
The fire you started, snuffing out all oxygen-
No longer beneficial.
And then you die

Believe, obey, fight-
Tow the party line!
It's a quick battle,
One waged against your own interest;
It's a sad case,
To watch men spit in their own face.
It's family, God, & country
And no room for the self.
Don't you care about your race?
How will you protect it?
What about your religion?
Enshrine it, defend it, spread it?
Of your state-
Bolster, boast, expansion?
Your God?
Your country?
Your family?

Pixilated war,
And out in the real fields
Insurgents rally against
Tin men and robotic dogs.
Death from above,
Artillery & first-person drones.
I sip an energy drink
In 60° AC Fahrenheit weather,
I don't stop to think
As to if orders deserve questions
And whether I would be satisfied with answers.
They don't have drafts,
We have programs & apps
To pilot steel fellas.
Suppress, eliminate, rescue,
Some of them even punch up the graphics.
Last week, I traipsed through
The inhospitable Arabian Desert,
Many decades ago rendered entirely uninhabitable,
To help diplomats involved in a helicopter crash.
The day after that,
I was in the snowy north
Fighting red droids.
And soon after,
On an island in the Pacific
Defending from adversarial users.
I must have died 10,000 times.
And from what I hear on the news
We make advances only to be set back,
And vice versa,
But it's been seventeen good years
Going back & forth.
I don't know if I can recall what we're fighting over.

Speak of love,
So many hopeless hearts,
With none to give.
Something to dream they'll find,
When they aren't even sure what to look for.
Find it on your own first.
Otherwise, you'll just end up hurting others
Or hurting worse.

Charcoal hands
To hold my ignited love,
The only reciprocity
Is to be maimed & scarred
With flames beyond the fire's control.
Gasoline loves a match-
Bright & hot, destructive, fast.
Burns out to within, and then
It's all exhausted;
Embers smolder to ash.

You are superior to 𝘸𝘩𝘰?
I am no one's inferior,
And if someone has differing conjecture;
Congratulations, I believe you!
Clearly, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 are less than 𝘮𝘦.

I take good advice
Even if I don't like the source,
Because I trust in knowledge
And in the pursuit of more.
I think for myself,
Because I cannot allow others to;
Evidently, not many do.
I place my respect, like I place my trust-
As to how I pay-
When it has been earned.

Just like all the nepotism today,
Narcissism is wildly popular-
In fact, it's good.
You should only care for yourself,
Forget about any platonic love for others
What use can you derive from them?

I stalk through the dark hallways
Drifting through remnants of a sun.
Spirals into vortexes, cascading shafts of light on
Brief transits inward, where time falters.
Forces push & pull and all around
The tide of the cosmos envelopes me,
Wading through the static sea
Waves come in crashing-
Laughter, screams
And yet, no sound escapes the vacuum

The stork flew today,
High on over the valley;
A beautiful dream

Salting the earth

Take it from the first books-
Though you may feel you are gentle,
The judgements against you are harsh.
They span far beyond your life,
Gleaning the collective journey
Of sweat & of blood.
If your mind is clouded,
Drain the marsh.
For there are no waters
Too deep or too shallow
That will supersede a verdict.

Burnt olive trees, to provide nutrients
For soil's hunger;
For the insatiable appetite
Of the wandering, lost souls.

Out in the desert, praying for a bloom of
Blue lotus;
The river thumps on,
The streams flow

No more dates, no more plums-
Just sick puns;
This is how you worship omnipotence?
Through war & the ****** of innocents?

Second class citizenship, not even recognized at all;
Prison states and dehumanization.
Extremism fostered on either side,
Each side refusing responsibility

All in the name of Allah
All in the name of G-d

Perform playact, strut your stuff -
Always a fun time,
If you know how to bluff.
Make love all night, night turns to day -
Love under the sun,
Love in the shade.
Give it free or restricted,
If it's only kept to yourself
What's the difference?

Spaghetti condors and
Mango vultures,
Gobstop gumbo;
Velociraptors in the Bayou, and
Doves made of mildew.
Tell me, is it all
Getting old?

Without exception,
Nary a day passes
Where you don't dwell
In thoughts, on my mind;
Nothing so sets on this mental landscape,
The days only combine.
Two planets in the sky,
There's the star & the moon
And all the buffer in between-
Like the ache I have for you
And all that prevents me
From wanting any remedy.
Another repeat in the alphabet,
***

These poems are generally spat out within a matter of minutes.
The rhyme schemes, unfortunately,
Symptomatic of how my thoughts flow.
Some kind of horrible harmony
That stalls and slows the more focus I show.

Duhhh, brown desert people bad
Durrrrrr, God is wrong

Duhhh, white devils are back
Durrrrrr, people should worship Allah

Don't tell me you people still believe this ****,
I couldn't even imagine being so superstitious.

I wish we could all agree this was myth,
Just something to instill some morals and values to our kids

Duhhh, you sneeze?
Gahhhhhh, bless you

Infanticide,
More honorable these days than patricide;
And no one sees the irony.
Convince me why
I should care for your life?
And do it without words

If you would rather **** off the sick
Because the premise of their care
Is too costly or burdensome,
You're far beneath me.
Hell, to me you're no one.
Just someone needing to be dealt with,
With the same level of care you show

I am the why, I am
Because I am me.
More my knowledge and experience than measly genes.
Anyone who tells you different
You should just write off as a ****,
And more importantly
Without morals or values they'll stick to.

You've gotta learn to love the vinegar,
Even if the taste is bitter,
Because times always get tough.
It's about drinking it in, taking it in;
Finding the strength to get back up.
To slog off the rough
And chisel something out

I shutter desire,
I quiet fear,
And drag a rusty blade across my skin.
It's about what I let out,
Not what I've taken in.
These sweat and tears,
This blood that drops,
I hope you all soak it up.
Each of you, like ***** mops;
Never getting anything clean,
Just spreading all the muck around
And calling everyone *****.

I lost myself
On an isle of nymphs
And found myself
Only when I rejected,
Every libation offered.
Blinded by decadence,
Focused on filling coffers;
I broke for the ship
Calling to my officers.
Men, your senses are being dulled-
Drunk and high, doing as you're told.
Lucidity take hold! Freedom is close,
We need only embark
Loose the sails & start
The journey out among the stars

In a bowl of vinegar,
I found only one bug:
The gadfly-
Happily drunk.
I treated him to honey
But the taste to him was funny,
And he grew bored
Trying to swim in something so thick.
Slowly, he drank it all in
And was left free to fly again.

Roaming the rolling sapphire,
Thoughts of home & the bereaved.
Under tide they sink.
Spit back into that grand basin,
Give a good greeting to Poseidon,
Lift up your cup & drink;
To the fathoms we eclipsed,
The journey facing.
** & heave,
Waves crash against the hull
Letting on water;
I've never much cared for
Admitting defeat in the presence
Of overwhelming odds,
I'd rather die on my feet
Bravely meeting the Gods

Are the British braver than us?
That they police their streets with no firearms?
Or simply more humane & competent
That they feel no need to threaten to ****** their fellow citizens?
Failure to comply
With law and order
With our militarized police
Means you risk your life.
Even if you are collecting trash,
Even if you are sleeping,
Even if you are exercising inalienable rights.

Here I had thought
Generally, each of our governments
Loved to issue & execute warrants-
Or is that merely applicable
To the poor, those with no status
Who carry no political weight
Besides their life of work?

Verdicts down on from
Supposedly the highest body
In the arbitration for justice

It's seeds of gunpowder,
To produce a foul fruit
Which kills the vine.
Bunch of psychos,
And the thoughts are dark
Because it's an empty mind.

If it's not something others will do,
If their governments will not hold their leaders accountable,
Then we need the Paddys, the Svens, the Pablos to;
You cannot wait for a criminal
To turn themselves in,
For they never shall.
At their level,
They will avoid prosecution
Till they swim in the lakes of hell.
And meanwhile, how many
Will they facilitate in the deaths of?
How many innocents murdered?
How many must be "martyred?"

What difference does a **** make to me?
None.
Fools running a country
In the desert, into the ground.
Another on-stage for the EU.
What difference does it make
What name you take?
It's the same **** you spew
From a *****'s mouth
Sold to the most secretive
Or those just as ignorant,
Whether in the same or different ways.

Breathless, when I met her-
Pains me she never recovered

Weaponize your loneliness,
As your rose takes on thorns
Till it hurts in that hand
Crushing the stem in your own

The best way to goad a lie?
Believe it yourself.
But it's even easier
To convince others of the truth
Being false itself

The contrast between truth and falsehood
Lie in the whether
The inquiring party
Believe, or not;

Sufficiently convinced enough?

I rush to speak
When I should be quicker
To pause and think,
Parsing each phrase.
How my words will and could
Be interpreted or construed
And of that, whatever resulting.
Of the checks & balances
We put ourselves through,
What is the material from which
The weights of judgement
Have been constructed?
Pig iron, sterling silver, stainless steel?
And of our choice of counterweights,
What is revealed?

Not a kiss to tell of,
Just hot lust;
Aching to feel her
Lips, around-the-clock

From cosmopolitan, to nationalism;
For the world, for country.
For what is the world today
But a conglomerate of nations,
For what is a nation but apart of a world?
On a mish-mash, adrift through a vast nothing;
What a ride, what a whirl-
A mess of tribes infighting.

I'm sure the phenomenon is
Far wider-spread than
At any other time throughout history.
The want to have been born,
Decades or years before,
And I think it's easily attributable.
Inundated with knowledge
It is hard to come to some consensus
Among peers,
Likewise it is difficult
To be in a situation you'd rather not
Able not only to conceive
But receive, every scenario you could think of.
Many of which would be the least bit better than the reality currently ascribed

Sweat grips,
My teeth grit,
A symphony of groans.
Hot is the breath
That escaped my lungs.
Loud was the noise;
Rustles, creaks, moans.
Long did the hours draw,
Still coming to dawn.

When they offer you olives,
Rip the branch from their hands
And beat the fruit off.
The soil is ripe,
Right is might;
Who cares for leaves & petals to fall?

Anonymous, oblivious
To the person kneeling before me.
My head spinning,
Throbbing,
Weakness in the knees.
My heart racing,
Trembling,
Color flushing cheeks.
Darkness, heavy scents
Intoxicating.
Gripping the sheets

Hot ***** served up,
The rattlings and ramblings of lust.
Of poets helplessly in love,
Of writers ***** to ****.
What sad silences they can elapse to,
What pleasant rows they can get in
Feeling no need to record them
Free from needing any interpretation.
Quiet are the stanzas & verses
Of true lovers,
Their words now reserved for each other

Listening to the great leader
And he promises better wages,
A better economy,
Safer streets,
Domestic manufacturing for national autonomy.
Just wondering when it's supposed to begin,
So far as I can see
The politicians taking the stage
Are long bought before they address the Republic.
40 years of presidents like pages,
Each turning over to new additions to a chapter
This awful period befallen our nation.
Another ink blotch, intelligible stains,
On the history of America

Like a nereid,
Acutely aware of how to cause a flow.
But I was mistaken,
Sprawled across the ground as
Dianthus grows.
She thought herself a hunter.

I wish I were prey.

Do bullys ever tire?
How is it
Some are men, but still just boys?
Truly, their fathers failed them
And mothers weened each too long.
Vice versa?
In the motive of their choices
It oftentimes reflects the outcome;
Failure they do not understand,
Sometimes mistaken for a resolution
And not just the consequences of their actions.

If decency demanded
A pound of your flesh
Would you grab a blade
And hock it off?
Laid on the scales in perpetuity,
The insignificant life does not even register a blip on radar
Yet we still cherish and protect it.
If your life came at a cost,
How many would need die before you were indebted?

Should I be rendered deaf and blind again,
For it would be too late.
I came, I saw, I conquered;
Of the grapes of wrath,
I fermented victory.

Turn your nose up,
How trite it is to be pretentious
Doing nothing but showing
Your arrogance and likely
Ignorance, often
Resulting in loneliness.
Riding a high horse in despair

Bygone halcyon,
In the waters of rain, wash away.
Dams burst and levees break,
Succumbing to the weight
That stands tall today, contemporarily.
Currents swell with all old & well,
Newly made is the way
The path now flowering.
Personified in ideal & representation;
Tradition is upheld, yet progress is not stalled
For the options are plenty
Beyond elders simply floundering