"paychecks" poems
a man is born with a ***** testicles, and various other masculine equipment and tendencies.
a Man lives by a masculine code that revolves around the physical, the mental, and the spiritual. a Man is committed to himself above all else. this may sound selfish, but it isn't. a Man not only puts himself on high, but connects himself mind, body, and soul to the physical, mental, and the spiritual. everything that he connects to himself becomes himself. a Man does not distinguish between the his own flesh and the flesh of his children. a Man does not distinguish between his mind and the mind's of those in his inner circle. a Man does not distinguish between his will and the will of his god. a Man is power. he is the generator. those that he has allowed to plug into his world are empowered by him. they come into his presence and feel better for it. a Man changes lives. a Man understands the trinity of justice, mercy, and charity. a Man is not afraid to give to those as they deserve. he looks with fair eyes and does not slow his hand or slow its speed. a Man is not cold enough to be alien to compassion. he can see to the heart of matters and look past the easy answers. when others will marvel at his wisdom and praise his mercy. he will only think 'as it should be'. a Man is not without the ability to go beyond. he can look to the future. help those that need it, sometimes before they need it. anticipation and preparedness are the weapons of the Man. stoic strength is his shield. a Man is not without weakness. he understands his weaknesses, but is not victim to them. he may succumb to them, but as a master of justice, he steels himself for the price he must pay. weakness must be addressed and turned to strength. as a Man fears, he must stand up and face it. as a Man despairs, he must turn it aside. when a Man fails, all that have plugged into his power will fail. when a Man falls, families, nations, societies fall. when a Man falls, it is the duty of another Man to come to his aid. when Men stop aiding Men, they merely become men with penises and various other masculine equipment and tendencies.
The Man is a Man that all other Men fear and long to be. He is the one that Men plug into. Some Men see that as a sign of weakness and rebel, but The Man signs paychecks and feeds families. who will topple The Man?
Jun 19, 2010
Jun 19, 2010 at 6:21 PM UTC
Bricks and mortar, steel and boards,
Phone poles lined with power cords, on
Pothole streets, where engines roar,
'Neath smoggy skies, where jet planes soar,
Where penny merchants peddle wares,
And news reports pretend they care,
Where vagrants sleep, and children stare,
And people work for lives not theirs,
That's life in the jungle, adrift in the herd,
Where terrestrial beasts envy free flying birds
Where the pundits stand polished, and speak empty words,
And the artists paint portraits, while posted on curbs,
Where the men push carts, full of empty cans,
And the women spend paychecks, for spray-on tans,
Where the truckers drive loads, 'cross a thousand mile span,
To appease the great gods of supply and demand,
Asphalt and tarmac, girders and glass,
Terrarium trees in cemented sod grass,
Ripe with the stench of exhaust fumes and gas,
As the choir lines up for the 10 o'clock mass,
While the brokers all scream, at a packed stock exchange,
As the veterans in wheelchairs sit begging for change,
That's life in the jungle, it's just a big game,
But remember you're playing, lest you go insane.
Mar 24, 2015
Mar 24, 2015 at 11:01 PM UTC
I don’t really like to play the victim,
But I'm being failed by this system
7 hours, a hostage to cinder block rooms
With nothing to do but let myself be groomed
Into someone's labor source
If I don’t have money, I cannot live
But nobody seems to have a thought to give
To my Life being turned into a commodity
Something to be owned, taxed, a luxury
That sometimes I’m not able to afford.
So much stock is put into democracy
But we don’t matter to bureaucracy
Unless we use the paychecks earned
From the Liberties we burned
To fill their empty promises
They call us ungrateful and lazy
For recognizing that this life is crazy
And resenting all the thought and time
Spent in the Pursuit of a rich man’s dime
Instead of our own Happiness
Oct 14, 2018
Oct 14, 2018 at 6:53 PM UTC
Ive known you for approximately 6209.1225 days
Which is equivalent to 17 years
When people think of love,
they never consider the bond between a sister
and her
twin.
Its a God given best friend
a pal for life,
someone who will always have your back,
the yin to my yang,
my better half,
While you may be bullheaded and stubborn,
I can be quite openminded and forgiving
and between the two
we balance out,
we make an equilibrium.
It's me and you against the world
from Beanie babies to paychecks,
from ice cream trucks to a Corsica,
It was me and you
all along.
Even if our Mother made a million mistakes
I have to thank her for giving birth to the other half of my heart.
I know Ill never be alone because
you're always right there by my side.
Mar 15, 2013
Mar 15, 2013 at 11:37 AM UTC
some greedy little bitter man has put together a picture-perfect person and out of pure laziness and malignant attempts at control he pays off a psychopath to make it happen but we’re just a little body, flesh and bones come between them and their paychecks so why not make it easier? they made a factory out of our garden and nothing grows in factories it’s manufactured, easy as one two three four five six, we’re all sitting on an assembly line waiting for some alcoholic man to shout at some pimply-faced twenty-something “FASTER! FASTER!” so it begins! press of a button, we’re created, step one: your parents were given the baby books, kids! infants, they’re all the same anyways. they’re not individuals yet, they haven’t been encoded so relax, parents. want them turn out like you? sure, do what your parents did, worked out well, eh? been occupying this factory your whole life, then? well anyways, step two: they spend less time with you because you’ve been in this world for three years so it’s time you get out on your own…. step three: they gotta YELL and scream and children aren’t supposed to touch things or say things or scrape their knees because that’s more work for the adults, and they work all day, just like they were programmed for, good little machines 'cause they forgot what it’s like to be a baby or an animal or a plant or a God but also the resentment, a child wants to live but how ridiculous? there’s no life in industry… all about the money baby step four: you buy your education because it builds your character because money says power but when did meaningless power equal respect? I don't know but they force you into reading the same old instruction pamphlets left in the break room at the plant for the past century or so and five: your turn to work for fourty years in this polluted place because it’s hard to break free from twenty-three years of moulding into a cookie cutter you never did fit, that’s why it hurts so much when they try to push you through, your muffin-top is sliced right off and you’re contorted to fit the view of perfect sugary sweetness but just to make sure you're ready they coat you with vanilla icing to cover up your imperfections, perfect, now step six, and this one is the doozy, and because you’re **** broke: go back to mom and dad’s and grab those baby books and again and again and again the cycle repeats and repeats and repeats….
Dec 12, 2011
Dec 12, 2011 at 9:03 PM UTC
I know you hear me so listen close.
Its what you think that matters most.
We can boast about these post.
Without these dreams,
It seems,
we lose what matters most.
These schemes,
playing us against our hopes.
Got us
Up against the ropes,
thoughts up in smoke.
Just when I lost all hope,
my mirror image inspired hope.
Getting high off myself, like a rope a dope.
success getting me stressed,
my life's a mess, I must confess. The more I make, the less a progress. These haters love you with all this disrespect. Catching writers block in the winners circle, got me scares to death. The critics taking hits below the belt, and my paychecks pay the dept. The fans turn against me, kept my cool, by holding my breath. These bills piling up, spent my whole life savings, there's no saving my savings. Keep praying to god, but I'm still waiting. Life has its up and downs. I just wish it would make up its mind, this shaky ground makes for lite sleeping. I can't even sleep in on the weekend.
Nov 29, 2014
Nov 29, 2014 at 12:52 AM UTC
We waste our lives
chasing some false ideology
of what it means to be beautiful
dressing ourselves up
in the latest paper doll clichés
of magazine quotes
of how to look like a “10”
hoping to see something
other than our own reflection
in the mirror
hoping that a layer
of white washed lies
and vibrant coats painted
over fabricated truths
will somehow make us feel...
how do they say it
on the West Side?
“I feel pretty and witty and...”
isn’t it somewhere around here
that the truth gets lost
where we allow the definition of beauty
to get painfully distorted
that we hand over our paychecks
and self-esteem
for the latest cure and concealer
to that ugly feeling
we get when we are left by ourselves
to face the doubts of our truths
and what is that truth?
how was beauty defined
before we had a vocabulary of deception
before we danced to radio jingles
and sang along with our self doubts
what did beauty look like
when it was out there
alone in the dark
what was it that was beautiful
before we opened our eyes...
what was beautiful then
is still the same
as what is beautiful now...
and it is nothing we can define
with our words
or our books
or the noises we make when we speak
it is nothing we can see
with our eyes
it is as simple
as it is easy
it is there inside all of us
beneath our clothes
and inside our skin
and protected by our bones
and our marrow
living and blooming
every time we exhale
and every time we inhale
the truth of what it means
to be beautiful
is in just
being
and this truth is sung
with every beat of our hearts
Aug 19, 2018
Aug 19, 2018 at 9:26 PM UTC
"i don't wanna have to be the one to tell you this,
but you're no foodie; you're just a ******
who's too cowardly to take an honest look at yourself.
It's okay to be whatever you want,
just don't lie to yourself proclaiming to be a foodie
to justify late-night trips to Jack in the Box four days a week,
or eating a whole jar of Tostitos 'Salsa con Queso' every two days.
Are you trying to mummify yourself with all those preservatives?
Y'know,
just because you blow most of your paychecks
on gasoline, **** food and overpriced coffee
pulled to the most pretentious of standards
doesn't at all begin to mean that you've got any class, taste, or style,
let alone that you're a foodie.
At least recycle all the paper products your pseudofood comes in.
Moreover, your thighs aren't ******* gluten,
they're all that other junk you eat habitually
while watching your oh-so-edified selection of films
before sleeping it off until 3 in the afternoon.
No wonder you're so full of ****
you are what you eat, I suppose.
Pull your head on out your ***
All that fat and cholesterol isn't for the faint of heart."
Feb 13, 2015
Feb 13, 2015 at 1:38 PM UTC
Lazy sundays with the sad glow
there’s nothing to be sad about
except that it is all over
of course, my one day off vanished
outside blowing meager paychecks
emerald hillsides topped with leaves
abutting, climbing the city
plunged into histories soon gone
like the cold, gold sun gleaming off
the ribbon of the tarmacked road
we returned to from our escape
peering back through the car’s windshields
Oct 15, 2018
Oct 15, 2018 at 1:15 AM UTC
Changing buses at Flamingo and Decatur,
a Sister ogles my comped leather jacket,
while braceros mill about across the street,
awaiting any drive-by job offer.
This is the Vegas never seen from the Strip;
a town of cheap gifts and off-the-books labor,
where paychecks disappear in Dollar Loan Centers,
every cranny packing a local's casino.
A hundred taxis queue outside the Palms,
like pilot fish seeking ectoparasites upon a shark.
Inside the thousand dollar escorts hustle
overextended gamblers busting hard 16's at the tables.
I told the Sister I'd won the jacket. Impressing
her that anyone would ever be a winner,
watched her intentionally cross the street
to invite a bracero out to breakfast.
The 103 bus downtown ran late.
Leaving my losing parlay tickets on the bus,
I walk through the parking lot of despair,
the casino's glass doors awaiting me.
Feb 21, 2012
Feb 21, 2012 at 10:21 PM UTC
A yo Shawty,
You is lookin fine, fine, fine
Humph
Like a crisp hundred dollar bill on da sidewalk
Found between paychecks. Fine.
Lookin like that Queen off in my dreams
So I be real when I step to you
Wussup, whut yo name is, whus yo phone number?
A yo Shawty,
If I gotta, I’m a steal you from somebody.
I mean some ***** gon be ******
Cuz you gon be my special dish
Shawty ya look good
Got those legs that
Mad David Ruffin not too proud to beg.
I wann know whut’s behind those eyes that hypnotize.
Whut’s in yo head?
A yo Shawty,
Is you gotta mind to go wit yo
Fine, fine, fine, super fine ***
I see you got class. Physical beauty surpass
Named after a month cuz the thought of you last
For mo days than the rains of Noah
God couldn’t destroy this place ‘til he made yo face
I’m down fo the chase let’s run dis race.
A yo Shawty
Yeah you
Tongue ring and accessories
Make me wanna catch yo disease
I wanna inhale what you exhale
Taste whut you smell
My idea of Hell is you not by my side
A yo Shawty
I shall provide
That fire fo you to ride
I ain’t givin you no cheese
But together we can make Swiss cheese, American and cheddar
In memory of you no falsified lines
That month befo summer and at de end of spring
A yo Shawty
Let’s get togever and do da right thing.
Like a fat *** Spike Lee Joint
Roll up dat bubonic sticky green chronic
And let’s pull together
Get close like crystal when we toast
Every anniversary Cristol in the crystal
We boast that I’m yours and you is mine
A yo Shawty
You lookin
Fine, fine, fine.
Hmph.
Like a crisp hundred dollar bill on da sidewalk
Found between paychecks.
Fine.
Mar 13, 2015
Mar 13, 2015 at 9:46 AM UTC
they are polluted by my delusion
they were born to ruin
my tears are acidic and my burden is heavy
my fears are basic and I feel incomplete already
it's a lot to wrap my head around, especially when my feet are not on the ground
I'd rather ride the clouds or catch a wave
who determined that life had to be so grey, day in and day out
paychecks in and I already spent it, this hole I cannot get out
my teardrops are acid and my god I cannot hold them in any longer
my emotions are stronger the longer they harbor.
Mar 17, 2022
Mar 17, 2022 at 12:44 PM UTC
Had her legs insured for
movies, her career,
a million dollars
worth
calves and thighs
Kneecaps that just won't quit
and those tights
with the seams in the back
Oh.
My.
Gawd.
Betty Grable
Driving me insane sometimes
I lay awake at night
mentally budgeting future
paychecks
online shopping for those
lacy tights
I want to get my legs insured
Feb 11, 2013
Feb 11, 2013 at 4:36 PM UTC
Corporations **** the core
Cuts the soul to ribbons
Takes all the labor
And pays back in paltry paychecks
That barely covers our debts
Whilst doling out pain and exhaustion
But the people are good
Hardworking and smiling
Straining to maintain
That spark of heart
That remains
While paying their bills
And feeding their family
The shift starts
And tired bodies
Stumble in
Factory already
Rumbling
Like last night’s thunder
People laughing and chatting
Lebanese dude calls me Habibie
Grinning and patting me on the back
Brown brother give me a knuckle bust
As he passes by with a playful gleam in his eyes
One guy doesn’t high five but bumps elbows
The Congo girls speak another language
Beautiful flowing and musically rhythmical
The Janitor sings Motown
In this factory town these are good people
The generators hum
The machine sings
Doing their thing
Hoses circulate water
Like life’s blood
Taking in the heat
And sending it away
Bringing back more cool water
That does the same
Cooling the loud and hot equipment
While the employees are stressed and sweating
Wearing muscle fatigue and sleep deprivation
Like it’s their second skin
The machines drums ch, ch, crack
Ch, ch crack like a musical number
While the workers hustle
A smoke break and a popsicle
Then back to work
A lunch break and a conversation
Then back to work
Last smoke break and a phone call
Then back to work
Leaving the factory body hurting
But still coming off
The assembly line a good person
Dec 28, 2015
Dec 28, 2015 at 12:47 PM UTC
This is in dedication to Mr. John Grant a spokesman
for Veterans for Peace local 31. When during the late Bush years we protested the Bushy Zombies in West Chester
Pa. This took place every Saturday from early morning till
around 4 or 5 pm. He keep saying, "They're drinking the cool-aid."
P.S. Veterans for Peace is also national and is registered
under the U.N. with its own magazine. This was poem was written in 2010
Besides it has a rap beat to it
Lies ah decieven' our minds ah believen'
by ah drinkin' the cool-aid; eatin' funny-fudge
Drive-by ah flyin' innocent babes ah dyin',
while ah drinkin' the cool-aid; eatin' funny-fudge
Blacks against slavery racists say lazy,
Jim Crow ah knowin', black vote ah growin',
voter lines ah showen', black suppression ah growin',
while ah drinkin' the cool-aid; eatin' funny-fudge
Mr. sweater vest advisin' theocracy risin' ( Rick ********
gays cannot marry his heavy-load to carry,
all Muslims are targets by his government harlots,
body meedlers of women, no rights he has proven
by ah drinkin' his cool-aid and eatin' funny-fudge
Mexican Border right-wingers disorder,
Jail complexes growin', their profits showin',
public schools no maintain', corporate zombie schools gainin',
while ah drinkin' the cool-aid; eatin' funny fudge
Corporations are people super-vote-money inclusion,
Super Pacs' delusion, Democracy illusion,
while ah drinkin' the cool-aid; eatin' funny-fudge
Profits by Lockheed Martin perpetual wars embarkin',
wars appeasin' without good reason,
while ah drinkin' the cool-aid; eatin' funny fudge
No good reason callin' Wikkeleaks treason,
while ah drinkin' the cool-aid; eatin' funny fudge
Houses ah runnin' from ex-owners ah gruntin',
our lands will desert us whole nature unnerved us,
while ah drinkin' the cool-aid; eatin' funny fudge
Street people ah growin' with hardly non knowin',
parents ah cryin', hungry tots ah dyin', emergency rooms
ah packin', it's healthcare ah lackin'
While ah Wall Street ah hoppin' in triumph give-away-ah-hoppin',
while ah drinkin' the cool-aid; eatin' funny fridge
Slave hours grind us while paychecks are minus,
GOP congress never behind us,
while ah drinkin' the cool-aid; eatin' funny fudge,
Zombies surround us to only remind us,
QUIT DRINKIN' THE COOL-AID AND EATIN' FUNNY FUDGE!!!
Sep 19, 2014
Sep 19, 2014 at 4:19 AM UTC
we're all armed
with an appliance
of emancipation
we can nurture non-violent
defiance in a
non-compliant ethos of
antiauthoritarian self-reliance
we have the ability to eliminate the
vestiges of imperialism and
dominant dogmas that choke
and impede our creativity and shackle
our imagination to impotent ideologies
fragmented unrealities augmented
by fractures in our psyche
tendrils of theology that prey
upon our fear and exacerbate
conditioned responses that are
at once
unnatural and irrational
and lead
inexorably
to infantile expressions of
regression and fantasies of an
aggression rooted in the
suppression of dissent and
the oppression of dissidents
deities
as impotent
as our terror
of the unknown
by the promise of security and prosperity
a cabal of brutish thugs have erected an
imaginary hierarchy and demanded our
subservient obedience and reverence for
this malfeasant apparatus that leeches
our paychecks and robs all of our dignity
while somehow retaining the illusion of liberty
a delusion that festers like an open wound
a tumorous ulcer oozing foul fluid into our minds
blotting out our capacity for cultivating a
future divorced from misanthropy
so pour kerosene on this fluttering
flame of revolt before it sputters out
if we'd quit looking back and forth at
one another rotting in the gutters
checking to see if we have more to
our name than our sisters and our brothers
we might just muster the courage to overthrow
the vapid and misguided fictions that
divide and segregate us into pawns
trapped in this unending rat race
they've deemed the American Dream
harness the revolutionary tenacity
dormant in humanity's most important *****
infinite potential latent in every molecule
each neuron dancing across synaptic
gaps and fanning the embers of an engine
that gives motion to this evolutionary frame
the human brain is omnipotent
Feb 12, 2016
Feb 12, 2016 at 1:26 PM UTC
I’m a few hours
and minutes
and seconds
away from adding a year
to my relatively irrelevant age
and I contemplate the complexities
of such a small number.
Nineteen.
Legally an adult,
but not nearly ready
to enter the world
on my own.
I cannot even fathom
braving the hallways of
horrendous high school
or
supporting myself and
being on time for my insurance
all while balancing a career
I’m stuck in the middle
of this whirlwind
of emotions and numbers
and candles and time
and homework and paychecks
and everything else
that comes with the titles of
student and teenager
and adult and employee.
It’s minutes before
I can blow out the candles
on eighteen
but I also extinguish another bit
of dependence.
*August 10, 2014
9:13:43 PM*
Aug 11, 2014
Aug 11, 2014 at 12:17 AM UTC
Im so awkward
Like I catch people
catching people catch me
Staring at them people
And I pretend like I don't hear them
Saying ***
look at his tattoos
and all he ****** does is smoke cigs
And longboard
I see that in their yuppy *** faces
*** we got so rich and cool
And lost all your freedom
**** you and your shrimp platter
and your ****** puma im gonna burns calories on the tredmil
Of every day rich life
My tredmil is living paycheck to paycheck
******* the world
and kissing a girl
cuz really the paychecks pay for our ways to get laid
Mar 2, 2013
Mar 2, 2013 at 2:19 AM UTC
Carefree gum
Next to the schoolyard children
Who blaze in the mid-afternoon
Summer of dumb love
Sun
In the hour or, is it
The minute
That youth died so fast?
Our hair grays
Our eyes grow dim
Even the light
Cannot bond us closer
To our next of kin
What is in a word?
What is in between sentences
But pleas of insanity,
Pleas of desperate repentance?
Shallow are our
Graves
Dirt is heavier
Than air
The king and the queen
Never match
They will never be
A pair
Tearing through
The theatrics
Of college level actors
Money on the brain
Fame on the skin
Feeling tearing them
Limb from limb
Scene-rated the players
Wave their paychecks in the air,
Tear them to little pieces,
Making confetti out of their
Thought to be
Hard work
I turn the table
See the faces of the former parties
Hear the tirades
Of lost giants shot dead
On forgotten battlefields
And the only thing
That seems to be missing
Is that one and only
Upside right feeling
May 15, 2014
May 15, 2014 at 3:29 PM UTC
my friends, my friends
we are birds on power lines
huddled for warmth
specks against the grey
surrounded by the late october gloom
and the steam rising up from the gutters
we are restless and sour
eyes pointing outward
-
every step
every teensy, solitary step
sealed with egg shell footprints
womb nostalgia
tenderness found in autumn colored flashes,
moth-wick sparkles, and fried dandelion blossoms
we remember our grandmas’ knuckles,
chipped tiles on the kitchen floor
-
my dear, my dear
we are stray brown tabbies
bellowing rumble, ears stripped of fur
settled into our corner of the front porch
once we were roustabouts;
waltzing to the waxing and wane
carpeted floors gave way to concrete chill
but now the summers seem longer
-
the smell of cardboard,
cinder block walls, and duck pond water
stale memories with naked omens
we turn to face the chilling draft;
tomorrow
harping on and on about grey areas
while we kick up alley gravel
balanced by surface tension
-
under quilts counting freckles
plasma paychecks peddling uphill
Nov 16, 2014
Nov 16, 2014 at 11:59 PM UTC
You had me at
“I didn’t know you had brown eyes,”
the day I wiped my security locks of hair
from my face
to get a better look at you.
Look in my eyes like mirrors.
The reflection of my sentiment
made you Narcissist.
And the osmosis of our gaze
blessed you beautiful.
You are welcome.
I gave all.
Eyes, and ears,
and mouth, and rainbows.
Until you left me Mr. Potato.
My barren anatomy makes for a
raw piggy bank of deja vu.
Your silver dollars clunk through my Hollow.
Never rust.
You wonder why I
never let go.
Bankruptcy has me petrified.
Putting park walks into penny stocks
waiting to cash in on
two kisses during Christmas time.
Hoping you invest as much in me.
Feb 8, 2013
Feb 8, 2013 at 1:57 AM UTC
first,
a raccoon wrapped within its own intestine.
the asphalt is its grave; i swerve to miss it.
we shared the same air, maybe even a
common ancestor.
someone moved too fast to care.
its the ones with
fast cars and slow minds
pretty faces and ugly intent
artificial kindness but genuine hate
i'm not your friend
just a similar sense of self
it is
fat priests playing golf
lottery ticket paradises
restaurants
embellished mechanized slaughter
fake laughter and even faker love
shopping mall environmentalists
lexus-driving christians
paychecks, TV, lawn mowing sundays
drink yourself to death
please.
the least among us in control
deprived of the mind
the stench of their egos
and their hypocrisy
the gasoline, the cash, and the forced smiles
as i write people die
children die
i'm like many
the fool who knows
but does nothing
the one who doesn't know
that's the good person
the moral person.
second,
a rant, a ****** off rage
the days are stale, self-actualize, the Earth remains the same
dry and motionless
middle-class frustration, planetary confusion,
the ***** of the Earth,
capsized like dying branches
in a wal-mart state of mind,
stupid slobs, rodent minded social egoists
over-organized, clean freak object fetishists
the evolutionary dollar sign
they bay at the moon, it's made of cheesecake
phase transitioning,
you blood clot, Earthly blood clot,
you don't know art
now there's ancient blood on my hands
smokeless, plantless, Earthless blood
detached from Gaian consciousness
stain on the mind
confused, clogged pathways,
clogged with
self-righteous mind flood
piles of ***** tissue,
waning and waxing
force feed me your ******** please
because i have no idea how to answer
in this cultural blood bath
it is the
end of time
the end of mind.
:aaphi
Sep 16, 2013
Sep 16, 2013 at 7:01 PM UTC
Speak Power to Truth, but watch out for Lie Poem
3/01/2014
Sometimes we are afraid to speak Truth to Power.
Have you ever heard that phrase uttered
by some token card pushing sack of potatoes?
I want to know :
Who are these Truth and Power characters?
Why are we afraid to speak with them?
Fear not, I'll break it down,
I met Truth in 8th grade,
watched friends steal candy from a store,
then they shouted, "Wynn go take some more."
Egging on persistent - I couldn't ignore.
I snuck the snack in to my pocket,
pretended I dropped it.
left enough change on the counter
to pay for my friends and more,
high hived my friend Truth as I walked out the door.
I met Power high up in a tower
of offices.
That's right, Power is a bureaucrat who stamps a time clock.
Every single weekday,
as a weak single,
like you and me, maybe.
Power worked for my university
signed my paychecks,
and didn't like me at all.
Power threw a power trip, extorted, blackmailed me and all,
I got was secret meetings behind closed doors,
Power threw me out
said Wynn we don't need you anymore.
I met Truth a 2nd time when I fell in love
and had Truth tell me, Wynn admit it,
this isn't the stranger you've been dreaming of.
But I didn't follow Truth's advice,
Instead I listened to Lie,
and continued to suffer
until emotionally I wanted to die.
Lie, is another character you will tend to get involved with.
Each day in a mirror Lie reviews your clothes,
whispers in your ear you should starve,
need to become beautiful,
to lose weight,
and change french fries for grapes.
Lie wears a funny suit and shows up at your door,
will try to sell you **** on silver platters,
as if you needed anymore,
Power came again to me,
at a protest in the mall,
said freeze, put your hands in the air,
don't move, stay where you are.
Power wields handcuffs,
forged from metal, emotions, or money.
Power is tall and attractive.
Can be so friendly, sweet like honey.
Power is secretly a business partner of everyone in your life.
Power will be there for those who afford to buy its might.
Lie is the friend who your parents say you should kick out of your house,
but instead you awkwardly end up inviting to dinner.
Lie timed their visit strategically.
To dine at your table for free.
(Lie doesn't identify with gender pronouns by the way).
So speak Power to Truth, but watch out for Lie,
because Truth needs Power most,
and Lie will try to hide,
not caring for reasons why.
Apr 6, 2014
Apr 6, 2014 at 6:31 PM UTC
With looping hillside vendors
and red-light beams stalking the
cigarette smoke clouds, clinging
behind business men mobs (of 4 or 5)
and fracturing wildly from green-glass
bottles of soju and the girls
(oh the girls) who guard and call
out from dark thresholds with only
a spotlight of pink neon from
*** Trans Cafe, Eat Me)
the signs from above. And the glass
walls separating the men
from the girls and the short skirts
(plaid like schoolgirls) beckoning,
silent and alone, sitting on stools
(one leg over another) paid at the bars
for two drinks (and 250,000 Won)
usually by Americans, bored and trapped,
stranded (at Yongsun Army Garrison)
they venture Incheon at dark,
with sad eyes and lust, (trading paychecks
for hand jobs) guilty and delaying,
waiting for a three year tour (of
what feels like a lifetime) in Seoul
to end.
Nov 22, 2014
Nov 22, 2014 at 1:23 AM UTC
Today I straightened all of the hairs on my head
whether they needed it or not. I like being organized.
Ironing out the kinks in my leather jacket with a baseball bat.
I try to cut the blues from the spinning record,
flicked numbered matchsticks across vinyl to
set the fleshed room on fire,
don’t touch me, I’m a real live wire.
Being on top of my **** is like handmaking
beeswax candles, I twist & turn, carving wax
in the air—There is always more to do, I
always tried to cross t’s and
sort the junk mail from the paychecks,
accidentally dropping cigarettes into the piles of post.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched you
lick postage stamps for the outgoing flood.
The laundry gets done even though I’m
too tired to pull my key out of the door.
I am in control of my own destiny.
I smoke Coca Cola & drink cigarettes for breakfast
because I don’t roll out of bed on the right side
of any given day, and
yesterday I put my foot
through the television
because tap-dancing on the shards
of the wood-paneled tube from dad’s first marriage
sings gnashed-teeth harmonies
with the microwave’s low groan at 3AM—
I used to eat cold spaghetti in torn jeans and nothing else
while you flipped through channels on basic cable
to hear the collage painting the end of the world. You were
always an empty can that year, you saved
orange peels to fill with oil to burn—
your name whispers itself into the grease hissings and
I hear it over the skyline and I cannot seem to find a match
to strike to light the last crumpled smoke in my pack—
All I want to do is send you photographs with singed corners,
photographs of your letters, attempts to burn away
any sight of you, ways to cut&bind; the flint that ignites
the only bonfire in my eye.
And sometimes I wish I could just scream at you until
the flowers crawl up the brick walls of your apartment;
my kitchen smells concrete like celluloid ashes and
if I snap my fingers to break broken promises and
floss my teeth with violin strings I might not miss you
anymore.
Mar 22, 2013
Mar 22, 2013 at 8:56 PM UTC