Picketed, another generation pushing for advancement in the age of reason,
Logical, radical movement
Trying for less invasive measures of medication
To take the blinders off the prejudice of non-conformity and reach the masses
A promise to ease the pain, promote healing, the overall good
Met with violence, verbal slander, from mommies and daddies afraid of a world outside their white fence,
Fearing independence, the expansion of the mind, an openness in their youth to allow radical change.

The bloated belt bent backwards, white collar replaced by hedonistic practical libertarians in pursuit of happiness for all
Sick, disgusted with the man, the one behind the podium whom allows for this animosity on a group that did everything right, legally sound
Tired of hearing the whispers across a university, the hopeful gushing’s of elated individuals bright- eyes naive
Of a system that won’t allow something this controversial into the public, afraid to lose their hold on a potential capitol
On something that should be as easy to find in a free market as Captain Crunch, Coca-Cola, and Rice Krispy Treats.

Grinding down, fluffy-green-crystal bud
Dank yellow smoke smoldering out of pipes end, seeping out of closed lips billowing out of nostrils
Dragon fire down a throat coated with a week worth of soot, and experience
Choking, coughing, laughing away the misery
The disappointment in her fellow man to refuse to even consider the validity of a proven product
Knowing that if it was anything else a miracle drug composed of fairy dust, unicorn hair and the ***** of a thousand angels; approval would have been immediate.
Whip lash.

Flick, flame, fumigating
Baking myself into a calmer state, watching with ******* grace
Twitching with the need to take action
To control this negative reaction, to slap the of face limp **** conservatives
So consumed with themselves, blind to the pain of people who have lost hope in other forms of relief
Alternative therapy shut off by a system obsessed with its war on drugs.

It was supposed to be
The dawn of a new age;
A new set of dialogue
On a more balanced stage
With better lines for
The actors to deliver.
It was supposed to start in
The sixties and last forever.

We didn’t really know for sure
What this Aquarius stuff was
But it seemed to us to be
A metaphysical enough cause,
To change the way we acted
And to shout down the rest;
To face the demagogues
Then put them to the test.

We stopped wearing uniforms
That said we went along
With the hard-assed leaders.
We put a lot of it in our songs.
We called them what they were
Greedy warmongering ******.
We protested and picketed
And promised so much more.

We spoke out loudly on TV
And in crowds in the streets
That we were through will genocide
And would not accept defeat.
We cried out that our government
Had assumed the role of villain
And was murdering for no reason
Not just men, but even children.

But, we let it all die down;
We let the government slide
On investigating the truth
And keeping the truth inside
A carefully chosen batch of
Criminals in public office.
We let them go on making war
And making money off us.

We let them cheat and lie
And re-write acceptable laws
To support their bloodthirstiness
And we gave up on our cause.
Maybe all that protesting gave
All our marching feet limps.
Or maybe it’s because all along
We were just a bunch of wimps.

I knocked on society’s door,
Hollow footsteps through the crevice of civility,
A ***** welcome mat with a broken doorbell;
No visitors wanted who were not invited,
And understanding was buried under the porch.

In Law’s front yard,
picketed with ire and arrayed with disorder,
Olive branches strewn across dry grass,
lay an empty briefcase marked in leather.
Gavel and irony betrayed her whimsically.

Garden beds in front of Understanding;
Plundered of roses and wanton petals.
Bland stems wilted amongst the weeds.
Relinquished of entitlement; water led
Towards apathy and entropy instead.

A house of Perhaps: vacant,
Open front door to empty rooms.
Leased to opportunity but vacated in days,
Renovations procrastinated; mocked by
The neighbor of dismay and wry.

Ignorance paved a new driveway,
The unanimous watch of Lively Cul-de-sac;
Gated community with hopes of manicured
Lawns and pools. Procreated in the minds
Of not wild men, but surveyors.

Have we yet captured the schemes of our misfortune
A solace granted to us, picketed by our tedious hangups
Oh lost have we been
Wondering the labyrinths halls

Each time we find our steps take us no further
Our stagger is broken
By a light projecting life outside the hallways walls
While envy flaunts it's final solutions
In loo of a future we are attempting to grasp
Our steps move us further once again

Now, just as forgotten times before
Do I see that the peaces of our scheme
Are collected gradually over time
and my mind is the cage for their housing

The fragments are fluid and known
To our past selves on a distant day
But now I live life again from a stance of their recall
While at the same time tempted
To step back to the labyrinths halls

I knew a man who knew how to tear down walls
He was no patriot but he saw the fall of the Berlin Wall.
He told me that to build is an art,
But the hand that lays down the bricks
Should be ready to tear down the walls
When they serve geopolitics.

I listened to a heretic who preached that
Social boundaries limit movement,
Only when one hesitates to toe the line
And break out of confinement.

I stood with a revolutionary who picketed
White picket fences and  manicured lawns,
Watching from a concrete sidewalk,
Where grass learned to sprout between cement cracks.

I traveled with a wanderer
And searched for the North star in the dark,
Until I learned my footprints,
Like the constellations in the night.

At the Berkeley protests,
the streets smiled with
sledge-hammer teeth
chomping away for peace.
Windows were smashed,
trash became the air
     in flags of ash,
police in riot costumes
picketed the peace
     like a fence
teaching the pretty
     protesters a thing or two about place
but the tear gas said it all first:
the system is broken.

Nothing better than I chance to show you how I’ve froze over hell givin’ Beelzebub a chill,
Your fables hold little weight when you try to justify their existence as long as I continue dissect your deities,

Not that I am entitled but I can careless about how you explain yourself without the brain,    
I’ve been broken and forced to put the pieces back together because I’m not ready to embrace the oblivion without a say,
Without of a chance to reciprocate what you didn’t do for me,

I’m telling you to **** yourself till I fill in your grave,
Get ready son for your vacant destiny,
I’m done with the mental constraints of your needs,
I’m fed up with taking a beating for the ignorance that breeds,
Your about to bounce a check that will leave you dangled at the neck,

Not a threat but I didn’t oppress the armed of ancestral resistance,
That desk can’t keep you from the reach of those who believe in unconditional independence,
And you know why you walk a thin line,
It isn’t because of those nickels and dimes you earn overtime,
It isn’t because you drive home to a white picketed life full of lies,
It’s because you know if one of us grabs a mic we might turn to the tide, the next chapter of this species existence,
Making you extinct,  

You think daddy’s inheritance will let you pass any Bill,
But it only takes one to change the tone,
One to alter the course of ****** fostered governance,

Not suggesting a *****’s renovation,
Or an imperialist’s intervention,
But an interruption to this Nation’s corruption,

**** your principals, **** what your father’s told you,
It’s our turn to mend this debilitated democracy,
To end this domesticated atrocity,

So sorry not trying to foment insurrection,
Just asking the children to picket your legislative lickings,
The documents you pen in order to silence dissidence,
But I’m not going to fear old men with millions,

I can't come back.
Sorry, pastor, I can't come back.
Sorry mom and dad.

I can't come back.

I have seen crippled men beg for pennies outside the mile-high walls that guard the glittering, gem-encrusted Vatican.
But I haven't seen Christ.
I have seen good men's funerals picketed by angry mobs all swearing to be the hands of God.
But I've never met the rest of Him.
We've seen holocausts, crusades and conquests **** millions in his name.
But I have never heard His voice.
And I think those men holding those guns missed the point as far as his commandments go.

But that's not why I can't come back.

I ducked out from under the umbrella of religion and I felt the rain
And every day since I've been learning to take the wet with the dry rather than seeking shelter in what's comfortable.
And what's more, I've gotten a clearer view of the sky than ever before
And without that umbrella
I have seen something.
Or the outermost edge of something-
Something unimaginably large
Something not only too big for words, but too big to see all at once.
Something bigger than me and you and god and everything.
And I can't unsee that.
I've surrendered to the fact that not I, my children, or their children will be able to fully comprehend the vastness of everything,
But I am willing to die incomplete before it.

So sorry mom and dad.
Sorry god.
I found my own truth.

and that’s why I can’t come back.

Consciousness

Water: nutrient of life through stereophonic obstacles, only to be satisfied by truth.

The energy of consciousness: Consciousness around the world only effecting everyone’s affect.
When the world is consumed by fire, only then will the ashes of the picketed walls of consciousness lay in ruin bent down to the last man standing: our own.

“Never judge, lest ye be judged”

Will you be able to stand at the catacombs of wisdom and touch your breath?
To feel the column of air beneath your fingertips?

Yonder lay the cow of death.
Through strobe-light skies we find the lonesome moon pondering the universe that lay beyond it.

Since the sun first rose and spilled its golden light like nectar across the darkened fields.
Since the night first whispered soft along the ground and painted it deep blues and purples.
Since the rain first fell from the stars, and, gentle, infused the world with some of their light.
Since the moon first hung, pale and luminous, above the night muted world, filling the cracks and crevices with an echo of dawn.
I have known you since wind first breathed life into the trees and swayed them in their eery dance.
Since winter first chilled the world and hid its life away beneath the unyielding snow, and since spring first battled it back with the valiance of warm rains and sunny days.
Since thunder and lightning first hurled the the sky at the frosted ground, and cleaved the heavens in two, stripping away the world’s soft lines of defense.
Since the first balmy days of summer sighed into the mind and burst upon the senses like the sun captured here on earth.
I have known you
Since the clocks first caged time from its wanderings,
Since before the world was small, when wonder still waited behind every corner.
Since the veil between reality and dreams was just a dream itself.
Since the oceans first caressed the shores and ripped away leaving battlefields of ravaged shells.
Since the rivers first glowed crimson in the last rays of sunset, and since the seraphim first sprinkled dew upon the spiderwebs at daybreak.
Since before such ****** concepts as Good or Evil were picketed upon each creature,
Since nature ran wild and stopped at nothing,
Since the darkness first crept into a man’s heart,
I have known you.

you rose up from the murky depths
breaking the surface of stilled waters
disturbing tranquil oceans and calm seas

at first, a gentle ripple-

rolling roiling reeling
collecting bones of sunken ships
pulling pieces of dredged up memories
along your wake of destruction

you turn yourself inside out
over
          and over
                          and over

into crested waves
crashing into my sandy banks

darling,
wash away all my self control
and resistance built up over pent
disappointments and picketed frustrations

the past engulfs me;
heat of your skin pressed against mine
lips pursed in anticipation
of the last time you said you loved me

love,
flood my lungs
for i think i'm running out of air
to breathe into this mirage.

Don't let me be
acquaintance ancestry.
Celestial bodies deny me peace,
your sensitivities shielded by a moonlight sheet,
picketed by skyscraper evidence markers.
They died from lust for light, broken trust and fright.
I'm looking for the inevitable morgue.
I, malnourished of day,
recede among the intangible tangents
of lesser-used thoughts.
I let the shadows take me because...
they should have a long time ago
and I was too scared to let them out of my veins,
let the abstract crack on my neck
leak demons and my trust.
Don't let me be
predetermined possibility,
never so whole as seraphs and satanists,
guided by singularity.
My lives were revolutions,
guided by weaker constitutions
encapsulating a prescription purpose
that tours me past milligram monument men,
marble ghosts braver than I am.
Let me be the helpful dream,
the stitcher of seams;
it seems the tie is torn too much,
the threads too thrown astray,
too tangled to discern the strongest chain,
the strongest way to reinforce
the conclusion of my weakness.
Let me be the used-to-be,
the once-was boy who could never see.
Blindness is a condition I accept willingly,
and deafness with it, and old warmth's retreat.
Let me be cold, forgotten gold,
less a frozen dawn than a synapse half-way gone
buried down beneath a tombstone treasure map
with an epitaph two decades long and footnote dates.
I never liked dates, smoke breaks, moments that
persist longer than they should,
like I have.

The furniture of complacency comes burdened with
Eyeshadow & Mercurial past-idlings/
I have no theatrics to share with you dear
Eccept the sidewalk for all its smoke,
Accept my heart for all its dust

Nervous flames of a violet under close inspection
Deemed too upset for office countertops!
(I will avail you of the screaming that goes on here)

Machinery of white sleep
Surrounded by freckles & laughing
That makes the headboard shake/there is drunken quarrel on the street
There is pacifying the horror of someone's misgivings ! Everything in its place like a jewelled
Skylight or the hallway aroma of stale cake

& a hundred starving dogs quiver at the sight of you
(the sea decides that it doesn't want to **** anyone again
            my shoes are starting to wear down
       The ******* mouth of the sea is sorry
       Is so sorry for all those it drowned
        The lion cloaked in laurel caged at the center of the sea
      Is growing old
      & sick with innocence)

     Bloodied flowers crown her hair and shy roots remember the wars of her thickened heart
     The softness behind her ears like spots of April honey
    
     (A veteran of what we are capable of inflicting on each other!)
    
I know the stench of the sidewalk,
Mirrors do translate the language of thoughts/
                     Remedies are concocted under invisible snow
                     (mist & directionless droplets make clear the sky and
                     The whole temporary palace of
                     Picketed clouds,
                     A visual hurdy gurdy)

In darkroom tone-
We, resigned to another daybreak
In seeking the holy flowerbed-
     Do smear our kissing words to
     Lipless leaves
     & mournful faces

when I was saved from
       the thicket picketed with thorns
               and soon the sun receded behind
                      the triple peaks of then, now, and yet to be
                               you howled into the glowing period
                                     vast, sparkling and combing the lands
                                            could I have grabbed your hand,
                                                 where the warmth stays and hearts flutter
                                                        and feet walk in sync past, now, and yet

I was hurt
It wasn't nothing new
Something I should be use to
something I should be already use too
I ignore the signs and lies
And just stare into your honey brown eyes
Mesmerized I give in
Letting your sweet kisses poison me
Oh how you've frozen me
I'm stuck on the past yet currently in the present
I'm stuck on the future with white picketed fences . . .

Every jumble of parts that fell together,
all puzzled at their place, are us;
the infintismal small stuff
of dreams and nightmares,
repeated till they've driven us mad
and had us searching for the impossible,
the drifty philosophical queries
of life living and existing.

Ribbons of rainbows tie us in knots,
connect our dots to the gold within us,
mined and shined to shimmer the normality
of community,
as we live and love it with little homes,
picketed and known only to us.
Those green manicured lawns
Where we raise our young and aspire
To be the corner stone or corner piece
The bit that makes up their sky,
So we can do down in history
Without going dusty in a box
Forgotten or lost
As most puzzle pieces are.