thread hangs dewy bright
oxidized aluminium contrasts
grey glassy grey

crumpled in doorway a song
through whiskers licked
yellow and smoke flecked
black ash.

notes
float
coats the space
between a boy
silver bits
(remnants of magic cards move
moving Mother)
from pocket to pocket

"silver linings, eh "

scaffolding reached a little higher
and somehow mucus trails
had a musical movement

Chased by the deafening echoes
Of the silent screams in my soul
The cold steel walls of my heart are rusty
Aged and oxidized from the briny ocean of tears

I thought                                         you'd left us, long ago
desolate on a swing
                       rocking stale, dry grass and still air
                      
                      crossing
never quite                  the hurdle

                                                               ­                                                    lost

unaware
sweating youth in this humidity

I thought we'd never make it past the
rusty red and brown of weathered fences

                            like
              felt                        moun
   They                                  
                                                     tains

                                                               ­   Made of dirt
                                                                ­                       (guilt)
and an endless turmoiling scent, still fresh



I thought you'd forlorned us                  
h     e     a     v    y       r  a  i  n   and warm bodies
standing next to oxidized hoops
                                                          one adjacent to the other
The haze of the heat hard, but not impossible
to withstand                swaying like the gust of wind, swaying  
                                            the blazing sun and my open palms swaying




Why was it here                                         that it felt like you left us
                                                              ­                                              stumped,  
unaware,­
consuming  with no  
                                              idea of the Greater



2.


                                                W­ H A T was it about inner cities
And skin that would tan
Or resist the sun
   that made you  mutter murky words  


judgement
                   that made me hike a

                                  K
                       A
            E
P
that for so long made feel like a (lost) traveler
unable to come find my way   D O W N.

Still on a mountain top
Never quite crossing the hurdle.
That’s how you wanted me
A
     B
          A
                N
                     D  O N E D.

3.

But my tongue made sounds
copper pots and plastic measuring cups
became the pious  accompaniment
of a song sung inwardly
until it manifested
Words on lips
                            Lips willing to kiss the purple clouds made out of strange fruit and a high border walls over my hand and back

4. A Swimsuit and a pool that could cool
me
small children see the cicatrixes
      But I walk towards the water; I have long abandoned shame.

You weren't there all that much when I was growing up,
and my feelings for you I have kept shut up.

But I miss you, I miss you, I miss you like mad.
Oh I so wish I could tell you all these feelings I have.

I've had therapy and help for all the years of pain.
I just hope that one day we can gain.

Something better than what's gone before.
But I can't talk to you, as I feel I'm a bore.

Your world is so busy, and you have a new life,
new kids and a new wife.

I want to be a part of it, but try as I might.
I just don't fit in, it doesn't feel right.

It's such a shame though, and I know I'll regret.
The time that we've lost and the memories all spent.

I've moved on now and changed.
Though I still love you, it'll never be the same.

The past is the past, it's history now.
I still wish that I could change it somehow.

I'm as bad as you for not keeping in touch.
It still doesn't mean I don't love you this much.

To the moon and back and then some more.
All around the universe on a magical tour.

I get sad sometimes when of these things I think.
Maybe that's what's driven me to drink...

For now I'll continue to just write away.
It's the only way I know to get my thoughts stop to play.

I feel bad, for I know, I'm going to regret what I've lost.
What we've missed out on, what it may cost.

One day I know you'll be gone from this earth.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dirt.

Maybe tomorrow I'll pick up the phone.
Give you a ring, see how you're getting along.

I should do this, I know I must.
Our relationship has gone to rust.

Oxidized over the years.
This has always brought me to tears.

Oh well, what more can I say?
I love you, you love me, at the end of the day.

We just find it hard to express our feelings I guess.
At least to one another at best.

Here it is now, down in black and white.
Whether or not you see it, it's said and goodnight.

A radio perches on a mahogany end-table,
singing like a mechanical bird:
bellowing fuzzy jazz, reaching my ear.

Its sides are rounded
like the curves of a classic car.
The antenna is *****
like the arm of an eager child
I've had swinging in-between
phantom-bytes and sonic slush:
my mind: inexcusable and mush.

A deck of cards shrugs it's shoulders
before it climbs on top of the radio;
it's rigid joints straightening and angling.
It tucks the tab back into it's head,
concluding before singing along to
'Somewhere beyond the sea.'

The voice of the deck rattled and squeaked,
like a caged mouse doing a capella.
Shot spit of it's mouth,
like a translucent spaghetti noodle. Bloop.

- I stormed outside, inaudible to all,
unmoved by few, chosen by none -

Today I sat across from a girl --
across the room, not across a table
or across the universe --
Her hair dangled like a carrot's wig,
a carrot's impersonation of a blonde girl.

Of course, her skin was closer to orange than pale --
but I like that stuff. I want it rubbed off on me,
physically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally.
Old-oxidized-green-coins invaded her eyes
and settled in the center of eggshell-white buffer.

Pants were as denim as a brush of shale
or the picture-pose of a flannel-clad beard,
holding a pick-ax and a dusty journal.
A journal of my thoughts, timeless
in their irrelevancy, until discovered
and claimed by someone else,
someone with a beard, a daughter, a smile;
See: Things I will never have.

What could I mean to this person?
How could I be desirable to her?
What am I but an alien,
coasting a galactic sea,
unable to relate to what I see?

- And what was your prize,
in this life? To be loved?
Or to be conquered? -

The deck of cards disappeared.
And I, I without consequence,
rummage through dust blanketed boxes,
hoping to cut my hand on something
I have mistaken as dull.

I have been told that my mother inhabits this box,
somewhere, sometime, somewhere, sometime.
A framed image, a polka dot cloth, a forever
unprecedented by a sunny-day funeral,
where I am the tail of the dying snake
that is my family: last to perish, last to wait:
a corrosive ingestion of unadulterated isolation.

My beige fingers wrap meat and bone,
but also a cheap-golden frame of my mother and us.
Our glasses are all too big, but we were all too poor.
My mother is wearing her wedding ring,
but I don't know why.

So young and vulnerable,
held by a freckled, strawberry blonde.
I don't even know her, any more.

The deck of cards reappears.

- But I've been alone for too long.
Even the winds have stopped whispering.
I have become a witness to my own death. -

your words like high speed winds
making noise on my skin
I put on a psychedelic lipstick
I take off the blue dress
(made in India)
- he tries new scores with
oxidized fingers
galvanizes the silence, the thirst, the dreams of the air-
I want to confess iloveyous louder
than the coffee machines. Louder
than the morning radio. Louder
than tram number 5.
life is what happens while
you stay, leave, come back and
redefine our melting point

I open the door,
you are there
with your carnival smile
and nothing prepares me
for this obscure truth:
imponderable I feel
when you say
my name my name my name

(She cries)
Sobs in hands while kneeling,
Painted face streaking though
She's familiar with feeling shattered
And as if she's floating,
In a subjective spatial sea
That surrounds her in this ,
Eyes-to-the-ground, individualistic city.
But she's willing to suffer if it means,
Eventual healing,
And not waking up every night screaming
With blind eyes wide, grey face, fist balled tight.
There's not a dawn to come for her
'Cause it's been dark her whole life.

(She wades)
In water
Ripples flutter with each dip and kick,
Her neck sparkles from splashes and sweat.
Her underlined eyes are tired and red from having wept
Instead of slept.
Guns on shelves
Asking if she needs help.
High balconies shout down to her
On the streets and inquire
Why she hasn't climbed them,
Looked down at the tiny specks winding,
Gears whirling, patterns and plans unfurling,
Observed she was of no use, and
Suffered a last shuddering breath
And leapt
To a mercifully abrupt death.

(She wonders)*
On this daily as
She comes to grips with failing,
At life and her goals.
Having squandered any hope that was shown,
Choosing instead a life of
Closed glass doors and burned out rooms,
Quietly never forgiving herself for who,
The world tells her she is
And who she is in her heart-
That hollow rock that stores
What remains of her wishes
Stacked in columns from floor to ceiling
Silent borders of her buried tomb of mass killing.
She roams among it like a library,
It almost feels like home, to
Browse steep piles of dreams dead
From a thousand and one styles
Of homicide, alphabetically stored and stacked.    

(She stares)
Into her oxidized mirror and
Studies the divisions of face along the cracks,    
Wondering when and where she went wrong,
How far lost she is and if she'll ever again see home.          
Most days,
   She doubts it.
Whispers what do i do?
   But wants to shout it.
The fissures on her face break wide,
Plunging her into vicious waters high
   Above her,
She shouts a final something,
But produces only finite bubbles.



*Critiques are very much appreciated.

Eyes glazed like poetry, the kiln of my
Heart turning what once was soft fragile
Painted in what was a shadow of what
Was once bright now oxidized on.

This vessel holds the ashes of what I used
To be, before you did that threw me in
The fires of sorrow and despair,
I was once a flower fresh and free.

Now I am but a glazed reminisce of what
Once was a kiln burnt heart ash where a
Heart was meant to always beat.

The smell of grandma's porch was wonderful
but not in the clothes on the line or fresh apple pie on the windowsill kind of way.

Grandma's porch smelled of old paint
of winter even in the summer and of
damp wicker, an ancient outdoor rug, oxidized aluminum siding
and dust from the cars on First Avenue speeding to,
or from,
the Post Office on Main Street at the bottom of her street

These were not necessarily "good" smells
We'd wash them off of our hands before we ate lunch in front of
the TV with grandpa, watching Jeopardy
but the old one not the one with the Canadian guy

But they were good smells to us because
they reminded us of a grandma who allowed her grandchildren to build massive forts
from blankets
and every chair and sofa cushion in the house
TV tables too
As long as they were dismantled before Noon when Jeopardy came on
and grandpa would want his lunch
and the vapor rising from his bowl of Campbell's chicken noodle soup
would wash away the smell of grandmas porch from our noses.

the old man sits
every Sunday
in a fold up chair
under the blue sky
on the corner of 40th street
by the gas station
he sells the sun
from the back of his van
of oxidized white
and teal pin stripes
and rust under the wheel hubs
while cars buzz around him
and addicts shuffle past
he sits alone
chair and ice chest
on concrete sidewalks
weeds stealing upward
between the cracks
I remember when
a man was murdered
down the street
in broad daylight
on electric avenue
two blocks from where the old man sits
he sells the sun
but nobody seems to stop by
except me
I drive up
every Sunday
he greets me with a smile
he knows my face
he cheerfully walks toward me
paper in hand
keep the change I always say
and he bows, grateful
earnest
he sells the sun
and I imagine I'm the only one
buying

the universe is one room, one pocket of energy
and it's expanded void
just like life is made of two cells,
star dust, and waves of orange and pink
and a sickening red
burning into sun like grapefruit
oxidized and covered in incense
skin only stays smoke
torn by time and time because it's torn
useless is the same
sometimes I feel real, but I usually see out of myself not through my eyes
it's almost
like my blood isn't in balance with gravity
sometimes it pushes up against my skin, expands too fast for force,
towards the stars
which is where we all start
and all start to end.

to bring your everything
into this charred coal vortex
whirring as we walk through

don't leave behind
one sliver of a shard oxidized
rusted wretches inclusive

bring it all
and toss it in

we'll corset fingers
as our debris mingles
cylindrically

we can't shake
these shambles

but we can
sling it into orbit
rearranging, alleviating
the weight

holding is so heavy

especially
the shame

Corroded reflections see through
the visage of my life I'm just a shadow
puppet of existence and this is
my gift to those I love.

"I'm a vacant lot of amore,
"Loving others is now a hollow chorus.

"I've loved each of you like death greets
a dying man, I feel nothing anymore.

"Looking beneath me, I'm a collection of
oxidized memories, each if drowning within me.

"Children where my anchor, but that ship sank
beneath the waves of my own hurricane of despair.


My censorship will now collect on others, satisfied that
I have worded this, as it dries my breath fades out.
I was a chorus of lullabies, now I wonder off to the quiet
place where my troubles delicately fade out....

I put shrinking rage into a cage
at the bottom of the sea,
gave two bubbles as companions
which made it float like a bee.

Sixty years later after many tides' lap,
my child before me will ask,
"Who is that bird who against your cage taps?
Is it looking to get free?"

Wrinkly old me will twiddle his thumbs
rub his temples for a bit and say,
"From that question, another riddle,
now go run along and play."

Then in the slanted evening light
a jumping will spider hail,
Where I'll slouch down to look at her eyes
as she sits on an oxidized rail.

You kept me entombed in a coffin of thought
Never free cockroaches of doubt crawled
Around my chained thoughts.

The nails rough on my mind, jaggedly etching
oxidized stagnation of my embalmed understanding.
Why would you keep me in the dark.

I am solitary in this shallow wash of waning moments
Could I just crawl in to this sea of disbelief and
Drown slowly in my entombed darkened thoughts.

Missy, Missy Mortimer
How does your steel heart beat?
Your bloodline oxidized by hate
Satan can’t compete.

Missy, Missy Mortimer
Who do you think you are?
A pure facade of intellect
Matched by your ugly scars.

Missy, Missy Mortimer
Obstinate, careless, crude…
Hell awaits your filthy soul
As you practice being rude.

Missy, Missy Mortimer
Insult; demean; degrade
The power you pretend to hold
In your foolish mind is made

You cast away the moral code
Or perhaps it’s just amiss
You justify your horrid ways
Your arrogance now bliss.

Manipulation, you hold dear
As if all cannot see
With precision you decide your mark
You aim, and shoot; well pleased.

Missy, Missy Mortimer
No warning you deserve
To crush and stomp on human hearts
Compassion; no reserve

Oh Missy, you may think you’ve won
A pin for your collection
You controlled and shoved me out your door
Unjustified rejection.

As soon as I can gain the strength
Forgiveness I shall find
Your ugliness is pitiful
But the Lord’s a friend of mine.

He watched you’re actions closely
He sadly shook his head
Your Father, He wants more for you
But on thin ice, you tread.

Missy, Missy, Mortimer
I pray you hear His call
Until then, you stand on the edge
Your back against the wall.

Per Your Request

Who am I?
See the picture.

The bell, an old ship's-tool,
Now an oxidized lime,
Legs, rust decorated,
Was used when her boy was small,
To call, home to dinner,
From the beach, a child recall.

Someday soon, used this way again?

It never failed, for the
Ringtones of that time,
Atomic, sonic, and unafraid,
Not PC.

See the old chair in the photo.
I am in it now, post-bed, pre-eat,
In a state of grace, prayer,
Close by, the bay, beach, and the Poet's Nook,
Your place, your adirondack awaiting.

Sunny September morn,
The coffee stays sun warmed while
Practicing my three r's,
Reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic.

Reading your hard worked words
Writing appreciation thereof,
Counting my allures (few),
My failures, woo hoo.

I swear to God,
With a hand beneath my thigh,
Taking the Patriarchal Oath,
That I am what I am.
The words I scribe,
My truth, my dust.
There is no hidden story.

All you need is not hinted.
Asked and answered.

In the songs of my lips,
The scripts of my finger.
Need only read them,
From start to finish!

You know where I live.
You know my decades
Upon this Earth.

Every now then, I present my face,
With egg upon it.
Some of you, viewed, actually saw it,
And laughed, as intended,
For when gloomy, I stand before the mirror.
Start laughing.
But you knew that already.

You know of my children,
Theirs too, the kisses incessant I gift them.
My children, I hereby disclose,
One speaks to me not,
The other, somewhat.

This ****, this sadness,
is so rooted,
Like bamboo, it chokes,
And near impossible to uproot.

I have told you how
To dress for my funeral.
I have told you my lover's names,
The women with whom I have slept,
Sleep with yet today, yet again, tonight.

You know that unsightly bulge
In pocket rear, is a packet of
Tissues, past and present.

You know perhaps,
I am not religious,
Yet, not a prob,
Cause He and me,
Got an open line,
Chat regularly.

Saves a lot of time.

Of my woman,
You know too much,
For I have chronicled
Our adventures, mis- and otherwise,
Time and time again.

Told you, a poet in search of his style,
Though now I think simple verse, it be.

That I am a Summer Man.
That my mother died, but two months ago,
She gifted the pleasure of the word to her
Children, and the good hair gene.

My friends, named the few,
King Lear, Humpty Dumpty, Paul Simon
And a few of you, if you will take my hand?

Confessed that with each passing poem,
I am lessened within, expurgated,
In a sense part of me, expunged,
Part of me, passing too,
Every poems birth diminishes me.

That I still ride a funeral train
To hold your special words warm and close,
That I have followed you across vast plains,
That I love your names, real and imagined,
Could write poem-pen about each one of you,
For I read your lines, and taste the unseen,
The lines unwritten, the ones in between.

Already been arrested for
Excessive poem writing,
For half my life,
Put me in jail,
Where I had no paper, no love,
When released from a loveless marriage,
The verse explosion was recorded on the moon,

But I ramble, unnecessarily, for as indicated above,
In Para 5, Subsection Jive,
All this is just a summary, a summation,
Of what my body has already served you.

There  is on thing I never told anyone.
I have a Nat-ional Anthem,
Which I enclose in the notes.
Like the way Willie Nelson sings it,
At my funeral this will be my dirge.

Reread this scrambled ramble,
This frittata omelette,
Not only the eggs cracked,
Me too, cracking up at this silliness,
Cracking up, his cracks creaking wider,
Because he can't stop,
Writing poems and
Laughing at himself before
The mirror which cannot lie.

Even as ship was sinking
Having hit Titanic iceberg
Still silly ship captain me could laugh
At go down with it self-tragedy

Now resting (rusting)
On Atlantic ocean bottom
Can't laugh without air to breathe
No humour left in these old oxidized bones

Having missed the lighthouse
No sea shells to share
No crashing waves
Dead eyes stare out window

Laid bare barren wastes
Blair station
Near where used to live
Pretending we were still a family

he sings about a family photograph
in a language i understand no better
than a mathematical equation
and i grasp the strength and weakness in his voice
and the vibrations they send through my wooden table and all its contents
my eyelids flutter open and shut like a dying moth,
trying to be in sync with the music but unable to
i stretch and fold my legs as i hit the replay button,
crack some knuckles and glance around in double vision
as i'm being slowly oxidized to death
i have pictures of a smiling childhood idol
pasted on the wardrobes,
a  series of little pale yellow lights
taped apologetically to the textured, pastel blue wall.
i have writings on my wall in colours i cant find within myself,
and i suddenly pray this poem won't disappear
with the glitches of technology.
i pray to nobody, no god, no spirit.
being the atheist i am, i feel strange closing my eyes,
“please let it be okay” echoing in my head every time.
but these are not my thoughts.
these are not your thoughts.
they simply are.
he continues belting out notes
and i breathe without rhythm.
my lungs are tone deaf.
i get goosebumps on my hairless limbs for a second.
applause resounds, it's a live recording of the song.
short pause, next.
piano picks up pace
and the mellow voice of a different man
of the same tongue fills the room.
a little more lively.
i realize it's not the words you need
to understand what he means.

Mine is a generation of taboo.
We are tribal tattoos and cheap motel room honeymoons.
We are slander,
and slang,
and brittle teeth.
We are born-agains and suicides.
We are podium preachers and cracked-pavement prayers.
We are melted plastic and oxidized metal-
sometimes we gleam with the Liberty Green of corroded copper,
sometimes we crumble with rust and stain calloused hands.
We are the last stand of Art.
We are the manifestations of forbidden bloodlines
and insanity.
We are just as much our mothers
as we are our fathers,
and we are everything that they are not.

We are stigmata.
We are red paint on white canvas.
We are fast food coffee.

We were born to the sweet smell of formaldehyde
in rooms dressed in florescent white
that share plumbing with the morgues
beneath the linoleum floors.
We are the mix of ***** and innocence that lingers
in the kiss of a dimly lit basement.
We show and we tell but always only for the right price,
the wrong reasons,
or the promise of an exchange equaling to the feeling that
this is a mistake.
We are rosary beads counted between gnarled knuckles
and dragged across smooth palms that long
to sweep tear salt from flushed cheeks.

We are Heaven's lonely singles.

We are skin stretched out too thin over skeletons.
We are the complexities that machines can't calculate
much less imitate.
We are the futile cries that once tried to keep towers from falling
when the sky came crashing down.
We are the pardoned and the withered.
We are the hardened faces of those that have
worked too long
and been loved too little.
We have been told that the safest place for your soul
is in the hole of your chest,
but only if it's reinforced by
four inches of concrete and steel,
and strapped tight with a Kevlar vest,
because they said people,
at best,
are manslaughter.

But we have never been great listeners either;
when we were growing up
we pressed our hands to hot stoves
even though our mothers said not to,
because we couldn't just be told what it was to burn
we had to feel it for ourselves.
So every now and then we will crack open
our rib cages in the hopes that someone will come,
light a fire,
and decide to stay.

We hopelessly spray paint things like wings
On deserted brick buildings
So that, at the very lest, we can feed the
Hollow-eyed passerby the belief
That these streets still have guardians,
Even when we, ourselves,
Abandoned such ideologies in
backroad dumpsters
along with our deities’ infidelities.
  
We are the period at the end of the sentence.
(Or maybe we are the ellipses...)
We have redefined the American family
and proven that even Christianity knows how to hate.
We were raised by sixty-percent divorce rates,
yet we still believe that we are soul mates.
We are the jokers of the deck:
either smiling fools or wild cards.
We are cocked heads with smoke billowing from throats
coated with blisters and cough syrup.
We are back alley scavengers crawling on all fours.
We are the era of the Auto-Tuned voice,
proof that with a pretty enough face anyone can sing.
We are foggy mirrors with smiles drawn on them
by print-less fingertips.
We slip up the thighs of our lovers
and swirl down the drains of sinks with chipped paint.

We are the hearts in your hands-
Crush us into powder and brush us across your face like Indian war paint,
Give us up to the sky so that we can be revived by lightning,
Dance to the rhythm that we beat,
Squeeze us and watch as we seep through the cracks of your fist,
Conceal us in your pocket and only ever speak to us in a whisper,
Or,
with all your natural voice,
sing to us
songs about thunderstorms
to wet the dusty desert dirt around our rooted toes
in the hopes that we will blossom in the most vivid colors.

Just do something with us.

Don't sacrifice us to the tops of lost bookshelves
to collect dust
or rust in the rain with everything you once loved
but grew too old for.

rich with the depth
and intensity
of oxidized blood,
a plushness caresses my bare skin.

my fingers tracing against the grain of the fabric
slowly seducing
as the canvas
becomes duo chrome
the tip of my finger
a nymph
cunning and artful

the strokes
offering an insatiable
thirst
yet so in control

finally it succumbs
turning a tide of new color
permeating from where my touch once was
a culmination of sorts
leaving you enamored.

hope crumbles like
leaves in the fall
It seeps from emerald and orange-brown, the
show of coral in the Caribbean Sea.
Melancholy gathers in the veins of the fisherman
taking a ******* the seashore.
He, as many, put lead arms over the sea. Twin
suns intertwined, produce solar flares of
sea-blue and scarlet changing the air.
Too bright ----
Ruby and sapphire pour through pores
like oxidized blood flowing from an open wound.
Four black mountains,
molehills---
depends on who names them.
Blue-green the sea washes back unto itself
carrying away drift wood as
happiness carries sadness with heavy hands.

You have lingered long
At the community gate;
Rubbing yellow fingers
Stained by oxidized
Wrought iron.
Marble arms became
The new paradigm,
The temple curtains tore
And the tabernacle light
Flickered in the breeze.
I stood beside you
In the humidity
As memory divided,
And the dance of the veils
Covered you.
I offered my hair
As a replacement
For your old photos
Pressed between
The pages of
Genesis and Exodus.

Far yonder aether and spaces traversed in countless night years.

The tremendous travel on light waves till  oxidized on ozon layers.

The tedious wait for an elemental suit equipped with sensory marvels.

To sense the air fire water firmament chequered with energy levels.

The suit was made to order at a court woven by matching hearts.

The landing to a cosy slumber bag enacted by eye catching arts

The jovial journey accomplish with purpose meeting  the reach.

The cause of the entire travel tip off further detailed research.

China tongue, yes dynasty of tongue
The taste of spicy or none
Welcome you home with eyes open round
Reminder of an oxidized hole of an accient coin
Looks original but didn't live long

Such accent of southerners
Occupied many streets in so called western cities
Representing an old fashioned society not sure if ever existed
A place all Chinese visitors must go
Looking forward to a city but it is just
A seat in a city
Cult of a culture
Architech out of an architecture

Everyone appreciated the precooked food
The fish was alive a week ago
Knowing he had to live till today
They even served tea
Tears of their parents
Who got nothing to eat
After survived sixty days in a small boat
Poor memories served
When they built this
China tongue

And now
A mainlander like me
Trying to take it down prior to
New year eve of the Young

Feb 18, 2015

Ivory empires evaporate
Iron oxidized depression
Its cold blooded calculus
All for one, one for oppression
Anarchy by Gucci, fabulous

The decision is order
The collision is reason
The choice is yours
In the mindf&%$ season

What is law? He said upon the dais
We are raw, for who dares to try us?
These sympathies for psychos
Have gotten a little contagious
They took mental Illness
Went and made it famous

I'd rather break bread with Judas
Then compromise my clarity
Because this last supper is ruthless
Where good men are murdered for sincerity.

These streets knew feet in days gone by,
bustling sidewalks, crowded storefronts,
laughter, light and dancers leaking
out of smoke-filled bars.
Cars would wind through intersections,
blood cells between neighborhoods.
From The Corner came The Roar.

He remembers how the Autumn sounded
                       back in '84
when Alan Trammell brought The Series home,
the arcing shot off Gibson's bat,
the rolling wave of soaring voices.
                      Old English
                             "D"
              tattooed on the hearts
                        of a city
     who's been hurting since the 50's.

Bless You Boys.
Ya did it--
went and Sparked up Michigan
and lit a dimming town again
in Corktown's widening eyes.

In 20 years, though, losses pile up.
55 and starved for signs
of trends reversing, luck upending,
impending relief or just some kind of
                  something.

Sickening, cloying rapid decay
       as neighborhoods die.
These streets know crumbling cinderblock
walls and blistered paint coats don't
cover ribcages starting to show--
steel girder bones--and windows blown
out, like teeth lost from a well-spoken mouth,
allow the Lake Michigan wind to howl
                      out the tale--
            through oxidized bones--
       of just what it looks like
      when economic war hits home.

Heartbeats still find footing
in Motor City streets, beneath
         the Old English "D,"
but mind the scoreboard smart;
the Tigers lost a hundred games
                    in 2003.

My Father used to buy cars. A lot of cars. Broken down, busted up, P.O.S. cars. Usually VW's. Always on the door of the great rusting field in the sky. He'd park them on the side of the house in a long row. This area was technically off limits, but rest assured that many battles were fought against mythical beasts and imagined armies.

It was a fort, a hideout, a giant clubhouse, and where I saw the inside of my first ***** magazine.

But the landscape was always changing. Evolving. This time line of rust and oxidized paint.

The cars would move forward one by one into the future like plate tectonics and more cars would be added to the past. And each one would make it's way into the garage. The land of curse words and flying tools. It was in the gladiator arena that smelled less like sand and more like grease,  that I learned to be a man.

Busted knuckles and loud music. And these cars would raise up on stands, and my father, like a surgeon would open their insides and make them whole again. Slowly. With the time that he had. And the cars would heal and eventually purr to life. And then, one day, they'd be gone.

Some would stay longer than others. Some would be displayed like show ponies. But eventually, they all left. And all the while, I would watch from my graveyard of cars on the side of the house.

It wasn't until I was older that we talked about it. Those cars. I always thought that this was just my dads hobby. Fixing things. It made sense. Anytime I needed something fixed from a toy to an angry heart, I'd take it to my father. And, I suppose, in a way it was.

I asked him about those cars once. Why he did it? Did he miss it? Why didn't he keep them?

He told me that he never intended to keep them. That in his eyes, they were not cars. They were insurance policies. Rent. Food. Emergency house repairs. Peace of mind for my mother.

And it all became clear. My family struggled in my youth. A young couple. A hairdresser and an airforce airplane mechanic. With two kids. Trying to make ends meet.

It was this line of rusted cars that made those ends meet.

It was ****** knuckles, loud music, curse words, and air heavy with sweat and grease that made those ends meet.

And any time the ends would not... quite.. touch...

One of the cars would go.

My father doesn't work on cars anymore. He doesn't have to. He and my mom are successful. Comfortable. They worked hard to become so.

And I am proud of them.

He has traded in his wrenches for other hobbies. Traveling. Collecting military memorabilia on ebay. Watching movies.

But that row of cars will always live in my heart as the example of what it means to be a good man.

My father loves his wife. He loves his family. His knuckles have healed. And the cars have gone.

And he is still my hero.

My dad is a husband, a fighter, a survivor, a mountain man, a war hero, a father and grandfather to dozens who didn't have one of their own, a firefighter, a medic, a collector, a wicked good shot, a teacher, and a friend.

He is also a mechanic.

And he is a good man.

And another morning happens,
awoken by the oxidized groan and stretch
of the lumbering machines
that live in the dirt pile
in front of my apartment

there used to be a farm there,
and there used to be someone
in my bed and darker curtains in my room
but a lot changes in a year

there's still a tiny hole
in the corner of my bathtub
that greets the curve of my foot
every time I step into the shower

i can't tell if it's gotten any
bigger or not
or if the water i hear dripping
is from some other fixture
for me to look at another day

i know my kitchen sink still overflows
not with bubbles
not anymore
but with the dishes i've put off
for almost three days

i wish the men in hard hats
across the street would do the same,
tell themselves that they'll get to that
concrete patch, hole digging, pipe laying,
belt grinding, beam building, horn honking,
sound of trucks backing up
tomorrow
so i could sleep in for once

but they've got a job to do
and sandwiches someone wrapped for them
in aluminum foil
to eat at lunch

and i've got to do the dishes
so i can have a spoon
for my cereal

If you take a stethoscope to a patch of dirt in a trailer park hidden somewhere in South Carolina, you will hear the arguments of a young couple, and the muffled sobs of a young boy as he cries himself to sleep in his pillow

In Maine there is a second story apartment where a mother who struggles to pay the rent, still finds the extra dollars to cover the cracks on the walls with paintings and photography to teach her daughter how rugged beauty can be

They teach you in Oklahoma that if you cover yourself in dirt and calluses, the gunpowder under your fingernails will taste like determination

Texas is the sole beneficiary to the piece of a 19 year olds heart that he himself carved out of his chest to wrap in a green reflective belt and give to a woman he thought he'd never find. Only to think he may never see her again.

Couple airplane windows with loneliness and you will be taught that country sides become galaxies after sunset, each star screaming to implode with the energy of rebellious eyeliner and Invader Zim sweatshirts

In Las Vegas there is 22 year old who belongs to her own army, her thighs and wrists covered in permanent war paint to show the battles she has fought in

Somewhere in America there is a homeless man who travels from town to town asking for nickels to feed the demon in his liver, yet still finds the time to tell teenagers with sunken heads and knives in their hearts during thunderstorms that everything will be okay

In the abandoned underground rap scenes of Detroit, the chipped paint on the walls still hold the words of a drug using man with grace tattooed on his neck, who since has long recovered to turn around and inspire the youth to use their words as amplified band-aids

This is my America
She is broken and battered
She writes in the back a green oxidized copper book the words that she hopes no will ever see
No one takes the time to look for the emotional damage behind the crack in a bell that's supposed to stand for liberty, but screams to the mothers of teenagers that it needs to see a therapist

Doctors and Psychologists funded by cigar smoking politicians can take scalpels to each teenager who has committed suicide, only to find nothing because the feeling of being an outcast cannot be found in the left upper quadrant of the abdomen, it's hidden in the part of the brain that is permanently bruised by the kids whose parents never taught them that it's okay if someone else can't choose to like the opposite ***

Those politicians won't listen to the kid sobbing into his pillow
Their walls aren't cracked and their kids don't die in deserts
They don't define love by green reflection, but by green paper
The concept of war paint is dressed in negative ad campaigns
I have yet to meet a suit and tie who will try to put a man with a ***** beard and a winter Carrhartt in an ****** apartment
They do ******* because they can afford to get away with it, not to hide the pains that they want to forget

This is my America
She shakes her fist at foreign passerby cruise ships while eagles perch on her shoulders with screeches of liberty
She is broken
She is ignored
On her island alone during thunderstorms you can see her crying
There is no drunken optimistic homeless man to tell her that she too will be okay
The claps of thunder radiating from her island are those of her sobs
She has no pillow to muffle her loneliness
I will ask her to read me what’s in the back of her oxidized copper book because I’ll be dammed if I have to watch another woman cry as these passerby’s do nothing about it
I will find that it reads but one word
"Help"