"scapegoats" poems
She’s seen for what she wears
for what's beneath the fabric,
Nothing more, nothing less.
She can’t stop what's going to happen next,
But that's her fault.
It’s just a regular day for you and everyone else like you.
Just something to do and forget about later.
You can act impulsively,
But it's her and everyone else like her who has to live in fear about that.
Not you,
Nor the ones who make the rules.
The ones without a care in their minds about this are the ones who are in control of her decisions.
The ones who don’t need to think about what they wear,
Where they are,
Or who they’re with,
Are the ones making her think about them.
She’s living in handcuffs and its as if this is a mockery of her.
Are you just testing her to see if the handcuffs are secure?
That they’re fully locked?
Don’t worry.
They can’t come undone.
You won’t let them come undone.
And that's just how it works.
We need to hold your hand.
We need to follow you, the leader.
We need to change ourselves because it's our problem.
We are the scapegoats to the polluted minds of the animals in control of us.
It's our skin, our body,
That we will have to live the rest of our lives with.
But since it's our body, it's our fault.
Nov 14, 2019
Nov 14, 2019 at 11:36 PM UTC
I am half-Chinese and a half Filipino-Spanish.
I have only learnt to speak Filipino my whole life.
The best advises I have received is that there is no right or wrong,
that labels does not always help.
That no matter what, I should just go
and "Live my life", or "Sing in Full Voice, Until Then".
Attentive to a fault to the work or person at hand.
Because of routine and living demands, sometimes I
only pay attention to what is available or given to me.
Like the quest for the Spices of the East, I could no longer live the same way when the time came. I had to learn preservation and other flavors.
In a Asian Food Show, someone shares
How some later generation Chinese had to study their own native language in secret between 1966 to 1998.
Stories of how their migrant or refugee heritage have made them scapegoats of many local tensions.
And varieties of words and ingredients also native to Chinese and later generations that lived offshore.
Many of us now in the thrash of our collective songs
towards healing and full living as humanity, continuing
refugees and wanderers in our own ways.
Where we see our indigenous-selves and our oppressor-selves,
is not as difficult as we are usually made to,
in a world of artificial
demands and surpluses.
One old song gently reminds me
in many languages singing,
as another bowl of handmade noodles
breaks open into countless random pieces:
We are only passing through earth.
Made to experience, and let go of our fears
and limitations.To gather our remains so that
it is inanimate buildings and objects that are used
by the living instead, and nothing is left behind.
To not leave a trace. To learn how to love.#
Sep 3, 2018
Sep 3, 2018 at 1:27 AM UTC
the committee
has convened
(kangaroos corralled)
the agenda
is set
(scapegoats framed)
the politicos
are preened
(perfect patriots)
hair coiffed
teeth whitened
(fangs sharpened)
correct talking
points bulleted
(minds closed)
puffed chests
perfectly postured
(bombastic bravado)
freedom fighters
stand firm
(Constitution usurpers)
American flag
lapel pins
(sparkling bright)
liberty's spirit
and tolerance
(roundly condemned)
special interests
are watching
(payola earned)
partisan lines
clearly drawn
(democracy doomed)
Music Selection
Cream: Politician
Oakland
10/1/10
jbm
Apr 12, 2013
Apr 12, 2013 at 7:46 PM UTC
.*oh forget Disney H'america... technicolor H'america was the bomb... gentlemen prefer blondes... oh **** no... the seven year itch... the Rachmaninoff scene... bell, book & candle scene... whoever the genius was behind the technicolor project, outmatched the Disney in 1950s H'america... little town America... big little ******** worth of Europe... eddi reader...more like: keep the cats, a woman may desire luxury, but a man a freedom... keep the town, the summit, the fireplace... keep your luxury... just give me the shadow, the sun, the moon, and the road: perpetually greeting me.*
oh forget looking
for scapegoats
these days...
full blown schizophrenia,
happening,
all over the anglophone
world...
me?
i'm just looking
at the lampoons...
sorry...
lemmings...
and the English?
top the table in western
world...
they thought they'd be
bailed out by
the H'americans...
good luck rolling
that pin-ball...
not gonna happen...
they have their own ****
to deal with...
it could have...
but now it will never
work out, no anglophone
alliance bail-out plan...
it's a ******* farce...
it's a bogus in the bogie
in the ******* coalmine...
forget the canary...
**** i'm seriously flipping
the coin on phrases...
FDR contra DJT?
magic!
no... the politicians were always
going to place the card...
the joker... free-fall dance-loose
feet...
my bet is...
it'll fall flat on its face...
the eastern European Achilles
heel of the europhiles...
that's a supposition,
not a proposition...
or thereby, pre-....
but i do love being a spectator
of rare sport...
en masse schizophrenia...
a nation, divided...
what a load of ********
the English thought that their
anglophone alliances would
last, would encrust them in
a new globalization mechanism...
even the ******* Icelandic people
think they're European...
what did the English think?
just east of Las Vegas?!
an island surrounded
by a massive prehistorical lake
"facility"?!
no one is looking for scapegoats
these days,
there's no one to blame...
mea culpa, mea culpa...
these days?!
everyone is looking for the lampoon
brigade!
- and let me tell you...
mea culpa mea culpa...
no one is looking for a scapegoat
worth kristallnacht;
people are looking
for a lampoon...
or...
karmesinrotherznacht,
the night of... broken hearts;
broken, crimson hearts.
Oct 22, 2018
Oct 22, 2018 at 6:54 PM UTC
When I was 15, I wouldn’t have believed you
if you told me all of this about constant lament
in a Red painted Animal House of scapegoats
that I’ve yet to see
it’s
streets of beige
it’s
fast food bad food no food spilled milk or beer
it’s
the South no the East maybe West probably North
it’s
in the air the water the meat there’s just too much heat to breathe or hold a job
it’s
hourly wages and daily commutes of gypsy peddlers in a town I’ve never been to
it’s
the cigarettes or nicotine my useless spleen filtering things I should never inhale or drink
it’s
divorce rates leading to ***** flicks c-sections finding acquaintances on monitors after dark only able to generate laughter over years of tears
it’s
women
it’s
pain
it’s
the migraines we get when we're waiting on the rain to paint the beige streets bronze
it’s
rolling trees metal trucks frozen lakes lumber jacks and ice fishing
it's
the anxiety of right wrong bad good all grey in the sunshine without you
it’s
the words of times you said meaning more to me than it ever could to you
it’s
the colossus of Wall St. overbearing my own suit and tie un-ironed or cared for but necessary none the less
it’s
CCTV the fight for power Government foreign travelers or terrorists Project Paper clip MK Ultra Plum Island persuasion propaganda Paul Wolfowitz
it’s
who governs what you can afford when you sit tattered on a curb after earning another mans bread
it’s
what has or has not been said 7 times or none that still lingers on the grass out front of home or house
it’s
no matter how big you are you still answer a toy phone handed to you by a two year old
it’s
the tears of Alexander when he realized there were no more worlds to conquer
Oct 29, 2012
Oct 29, 2012 at 2:37 PM UTC
Terminal is a bullet to the neck from 200 yards.
Terminal is the bleats of sacrificial lambs served under the table.
Terminal is the silence and the spectacle.
Terminal is the confusion of warped legacy.
Terminal is the predator of scapegoats.
Terminal is the wasp in the hive.
Terminal is the city devoured by the hill.
Terminal is the scale teetering on an edge.
Sep 19, 2025
Sep 19, 2025 at 10:17 PM UTC
oh better not say that
mind of hell
tongue of heaven
better not think depraved
veiled demon, licking ******** for car payments
God watches
what will people think
am i good person
birthday face
shut eyed stiff
not dangerous, like a gun in the face
did i say the right thing,
cypher of morality
the knot of good, a slow strangle
a frightened worm
wont risk tears
eeek
here come the scissors
technology brains wired like weaponized monkeys
eater of crumbs
heatless heart ransomed for the ******* rent
can i evaporate
like a dead cat in a black box
better then tripping all over my self
strings attached with hooks
on shunted limbs
a relic of modernism,
office life
talking scapegoats hissing
always haunted by what's missing
guts spilling through clutched fingers
apologizing to a faceless crowd of sea shells
and bagged heads
minds like the small screens
sitting all day
frenetic fingers and burning eyes
exhaling only
there's a part of me thats been crying since birth
be careful
what you do
in the land of the free and the brave
Oct 16, 2017
Oct 16, 2017 at 9:49 AM UTC
Was it as easy for you
As it was for me
To drop your defenses
And live our lives out eagerly
The over anxiety from my loves lack of piety
Or better yet how I tried to populate her minds society
With the idea of an image
We both dreamed to consume
The dark goddess
Breathing new life into my futures sullen bedroom
But the way her mind acted as prison guard for what her heart truly wished
This tiger was trapped in a cage of life’s never ending vanquish
And I gave with my heart
My will behind my ideals
Every artery embroidered on my arm slowly splits and spills
The red liquid that we both seemed to hunger
My music and my words that breast-feed this god-forsaken thunder
The concept of time appears to lose all of its meaning
Distances in space are
Disregarding and demeaning
For the depths that I’ve reached
Engulfed in this woman’s shadow
As she gently cut the cord to my everlasting battle
With life
With love
With all of the above
Scapegoats and memories in a field of push and shove
A ****** of myself, the things I can’t control
If love controls my fate, then let my future go
And I wish I could hate you
But I’m too busy trying to relate to
Your brains past events that caused
This corruption of the person we all knew
So true
But now the feeling of fear in your heart
Has single handedly reattached the strings of puppet manipulation to your trembling arms
And I curse the day you realize your heart has no vacancy
Undermining the unmotivated prayer of “God wont you **** me please”
Understand that your art is something to guide you through the thick and of the filling
Of the cup that was once half empty, but now has shattered and is spilling
On the floor, that I lay
Head like a ball of clay
The summer was a time for me to digest all that was on my plate
Music and syllables to describe how I felt when you looked me in the eyes
Still sit in my note books but I no longer ask the reason why
I didn’t know better
From the decomposition that you dealt
The anger, lack of pride and destruction of myself
Left behind, no longer
No time for this distress
I’m moving forward through this desert
On my everlasting quest
With life
With love
With all of the above
Scapegoats and memories in a field of push and shove
A ****** of myself, the things I can’t control
If love controls my fate, then let my future go
May 20, 2012
May 20, 2012 at 8:57 PM UTC
So you think there are monsters that wander at night?
Witches and demons behind every blight?
Laughing hysterically, evil incarnate,
Sowing your fields with their parasites?
So you think there are devils that live in your ear,
Right next to the angel that you never hear?
Examine them closely, and I think you'll find,
None of your actions are from puppeteers.
So you think there are angels that watch over you,
Because they've got nothing that's better to do?
Letting you suffer, sometimes for fun,
Maybe that's why angels go to hell too.
So you think the demons and angels are fighting,
Scratching and clawing and screaming and biting?
Come now, you know it, that if that were true,
Don't you think clouds would be way more exciting?
No, I think you know there's no God in the sky,
No Satan below who can be your bad guy,
No good, no evil, no nothing at all,
We invented them back when our stories got dry.
Scapegoats live down below politics,
Blame is our addiction, and we need our fix,
But there isn't an evil that was ever real,
Because sin didn’t die on a crucifix.
Oct 12, 2017
Oct 12, 2017 at 5:34 PM UTC
We hobble along with outrage fatigue
And watch as nothing ever exhausts
Our Machiavellian leaders' use
Of the media to win at all costs.
False story lines prevail.
To hell with accuracy and precision.
Sowing distrust of higher learning
Solidifies their paranoid vision.
Watch how their destructive disdain
For expertise gains vitality
As people's opinions and feelings stomp
On any form of objective reality.
Watch as they rewrite history;
Notice how data can be erased
As they become suspicious of much
Information that's science-based.
Language becomes weaponized:
Hyperbole, salacious lies,
And slippery superlatives
Celebrate truth's demise.
Party loyalty: that is key.
All that matters is the sale.
Hijacking democracy
Becomes the goal: the holy grail.
Mobilized by grievance, they
Inflame fear and anger. They hope
That we will find scapegoats to blame
When we are at the end of our rope.
A general illiteracy
On issues that affect our lives
Keeps us all in doubt while they
Create fake news and sharpen their knives.
Ah, how they want you to fear
Government, which is ironic,
For they themselves are government.
Look at their smiles, cold and sardonic.
Give equal weight to both
Sides of arguments, they say.
That's how they can justify
Bigotry and lead us astray.
While extremist views go mainstream,
Blurred lines make life hazy.
Keep watering narcissism,
And you will see it grow like crazy.
Their careful manipulation of language
Proves how much their rhetoric's swollen.
The people find it hard to accept
That basic freedoms are being stolen.
As we lament the death of truth
And wonder how it came to pass,
Before we cast blame we must
Peer into the looking glass.
-by Bob B (9-28-18)
°Inspired by "The Death of Truth" by Michiko Kakutani
Sep 28, 2018
Sep 28, 2018 at 11:37 AM UTC
Can you hear that sound
Like a tiny whining
You're a sad eyed puppy
Inside
It's a kind of yearning
When pining
away, wanting someone or something
So expensive beyond reach
The mind begins to fantasize what it's like,
Infantilize what's real life.
Enlisting unreasonable scenerios
Creative now with lies
And denials and exit strategies,
Scapegoats of close members of family, accusatory..
Blame all but yourself
Inflammatory story's demise
Because the lost moments spent
Pining away
Will die unknowing your real life self.
Inside that fog of fictitious false depictions
Who dat?
Starving yourself blind
See there on that podium
Your bad phat shines
Always in first place--gold medal favorite
Hooray it's not quite you or even true.
If pining were a sport
Having lost your minds
You'd all be winners.
Celebrity famous, go on
Crave being extra, so street savvy
"Hey Alexa, Google, Suri
Define obsession."
Pining turns dangerous
In absentia dysplased
Souls are stolen,
Human replicas.
Still carrying on pining
Away.
Killer lover blank.
Got brain? Bullets?
A shiv or Shank?
Sharp as a pine tree...
(Please,
Don't forget to give
Thanks.)
Jul 22, 2020
Jul 22, 2020 at 11:27 AM UTC
Spillin on the paper
Mind, I'll see you later
Over the top, Over the top
It's spilling on the paper
I am here to wait for
My Sheep herd and my scapegoats
Go 'head and stick around,
If you wanna get the blame for
My flaws and my mistakes
All that I am ashamed for
You'll feel my pain. You'll make me sane
My sheep herd and my scapegoats
My philosophy is something iller than the worst disease
Like killers in the first degree
Your gears will never turn like these
I got an appetite
I'm starvin
I'm at the top, just look and see
You gon' make it if you follow me
You just gotta catch that ill disease
Paper, Paper
Spillin on the paper
If you still fail to understand
Good luck
I'll see you later
Mind, I'll see you later
It's spillin' on the paper
So stay right here
Inside my hand
My sheep herd and my scapegoats
I've yet to wrap my mind around your funny foreign language.
That must be why I float above you
So I must be Alien
Who are you, what's yer name again
You all look just the same to me
Some ordinary has to be
Some John Doe PoP CatastrophY
Dear Mr. and Mrs. CatastrophY
Join my herd of sheep and scapegoats
I need many more
To take the blame for
All I am ashamed for
So that I might be sane for
The existence I arranged for
Nov 22, 2015
Nov 22, 2015 at 5:23 PM UTC
Which came first; A.D.D./A.D.H.D.,
or a subconscious unwillingness or perhaps even inability
to give half a genuine **** about anything going on?
I believe social, media, technological, and habitual programming
are at least some of the antecedents to these Modern chemical scapegoats:
Bureaupharmipseudocures, baby!
Causing more problems
justifying more Pharms
making some people rich
depriving and inuring the rest
almost as if depicted in
BRAVE NEW WORLD
Beloved, distracting, ubiquitous Handheld Devices
with cameras, speakers, headphone jacks and microphones
which, at any given moment,
can just as easily be used by you
as be used by Big Brother to keep tabs on you
through GPS, recorded sound and video, transferred and stored data, and company records
almost as if depicted in
1984
"HOLY ******* ****
I practically hope you're saying
(ideally, this is old news)
"FOLLOW THE MONEY."
I hope you're realizing.
IT ISN'T THAT HARD, FOR NOW,
THANKS TO THE INTERNET.
Without the internet being a public, secular (in terms of politics) entity,
it would be neigh impossible to follow the money
without extensive efforts made by very brave and hopefully cunning *************
Nov 12, 2013
Nov 12, 2013 at 12:47 PM UTC
ey yo if you think that 9/11 **** is crazy, take a closer look at jfk pushing those daisies, you could mistake this for the facts of life theme song, sticking its head up the rabbit hole and now you just seem gone, but if you grab on tight and then you pull it, up comes boundless theories of grassy knolls and magic bullets, wheres the love when a 10 year old can a spot a liar with his vision, swiftly points a fat finger at the entire warren commission, what happened we all forgot how to ask questions? lips tremble from a holstered police smith and wesson, never stopped to think if its just water their testing, scapegoats getting arrested, and then promptly murdered, just to take this trip a little further, leaving a **** taste in your mouth like ******* down an entire bag of werthers,
people laugh at 9/11 **** and downplay all the evidence,
but would you put it past a country that murdered their president,
for political gain, theyll put 4 shots through mine and your brain, keep us detained, for days, chuck us in guantamo bay, and then one day we're on a plane flying towards some towers, or wait no we're picking out flowers, bang flash, for my wife, shroedinger's life on the end of this knife, so stop you ***** just listen, this **** may seem sick and twisted, but please wait there is absolutely no reason we live in a police state, thats just what you've been told needs to be done, had consumerism forced down you, and you're told to have fun, and you say thank you and walk way, i'll take my stand another day. and yeah that farmer was an ******* i loved when he got overthrown by the pigs, but we'll wake up one morning and want bacon for breakfast ya dig?
quis custodiet ipsos custodes
Nov 30, 2011
Nov 30, 2011 at 12:56 PM UTC
This trap
Creates a trance
Looking down
Things would be different
How natural is it
Inside a snow globe
Run by computers
Practicing witchcraft
As accidents happen
In cars an in houses
And the crooked ones
Create more Holdens
More scapegoats
***** dumber than rocks
In a storm with a raincoat
Looking up
Things should be different
As Santa claws through our heads
Our minds wish for mud dolls
What will they look like
In heaven’s matinee-
Blood on the snow
Under a blue sky
Dec 26, 2011
Dec 26, 2011 at 6:37 PM UTC
Darling, it’s no spring yet
am going again to bed
no one problem to think about
please, don’t say it too loud
Of course am doing my best
rhyming excellently for the rest
of my HelloPoetry family
of course, scapegoats enough, ne’er my glee
Scapegoats what for?
writers' block and the more?
no muse ever drops in at mine
luckily the sun always shines
Am I the only one without a muse?
oh dear I am not amused !
must I hire or just call?
Wait, I just give a kick, and have a rollicking ball
© Sylvia Frances Chan
Mar 17, 2015
Mar 17, 2015 at 8:39 AM UTC
Few are quite willing to go off and fight,
The sadistic and evil, in the name of what's right.
But all of us struggle as we try to attain,
The lives that we thirst for amidst all the pain.
We live with decisions that often defy,
Our own moral codes on how to get by.
We search for so long, for what makes us strong,
for what makes us weak, and where we belong.
And just when we think that we've gone through it all,
That we've gained all the knowledge of what might befall,
Reality and Life return to their places,
Keeping us guessing and changing their paces.
Our minds and emotions like to play games,
and we search for our scapegoats in place of our blames.
With this, come frustrations that continue to grow,
Disrupting life's peace and life's even flow.
The scars from these battles are not easily shown.
Hidden as secrets; remaining unknown.
The battle within is the struggle of one.
In place of the many; in place of the gun.
May 18, 2013
May 18, 2013 at 6:42 AM UTC
Anger swelled up
Like a huge bruise
All black and blue.
Fear ran the length of my arms
Pulsing, pulsing.
Swimming in desperate despair
Or more like drowning.
Rain falling,
Cool clear blue
Droplets dropping in the midday sun
Hot with an air of cool in it.
Nighttime fell on our small home
In Winchester.
Rain splattered the windows
Like Jackson *******
Sleep was unobtainable
The couch uncomfortable
Another year in this place could **** me.
With the syringes and scapegoats
The dry spells and witchcraft.
Someone here wants me dead.
Another year in this place will **** me.
Your best friend moved to town last week
We met at the local bar
And drank a few shots
And rummaged through your stuff
Laughing and laughing
Until you got home
Another year and I’ll be dead.
What’s this place you call home.
Sep 18, 2012
Sep 18, 2012 at 4:39 PM UTC
1. tear stained pillow cases and dreary eyes replaced a smile wider than an ocean and a heart made of gold.
2. father pressed its hands on your back, signaling you wouldn't stay alive much longer.
3. beer bottles and hashish made its way into the empty caverns of your mouth, and i didn't stop you.
4. broken homes, no, broken houses, were no longer part of our safety, but rather taped cardboard boxes became the alternative.
5. self medication and bleeding bones transformed your flesh garden; scars and bruises were your best friends.
6. dreams of life were shattered, instead buying cans of green beans and carrots were the only goals you aspired to meet.
7. black and blue nail polish, broken toes, and mushy tobacco destroyed the walls of our make - shift shelter.
8. scapegoats blamed you for crashing the windows of their soul.
9. steel bars became an everyday ritual for father and there was no way to raise kids without a job.
10. your parental custody was revoked and the demons you gave life to moved to an orphanage, at least that's what it felt like.
11. water boiled in your brain; you couldn't stand the loneliness and the guilt of the inability to love.
12. your children moved once more, isolation had finally consumed your carcass of a body.
13. not one or two, but three of your baby ducklings turned against you.
14. 'mommy' rapidly turned to 'mom' and ultimately, 'mother.' realization punched your organs to pieces. they're was no longer any love in your cold heart.
Apr 7, 2017
Apr 7, 2017 at 12:48 PM UTC
I remember the lights going off in the brains of young poets.
Deep in the dank streets of New York or Columbia college.
When the blues and twos would come and round up
The beatniks snapping to the howl of a homosexual mind.
When the generational attitudes of those too old to know,
Control the ****** acts of “violence”, or
The deepening scars of our philosophies.
When the urbanization of historical prowess leads to
Gentrified gypsies of the diamond deserts and endless skyways
When the great in the country isn’t good enough
For the red hats and spray tanned millionaires.
When the stocks of corporate dragons burn down
The attempts of upstart knights and online kingdoms.
When the politicians of old become the scapegoats
For the ironically gerontocratic few.
When the female few who dared couldn’t find their lost primaries
Or control the lifeblood leaking out of the Strait of Hormuz.
When the powerful and powerless fought in-between
The dejected and all too often ignored.
When the powered halogen lights flooded prison yards of
Wrongly convicted and murderously in need of help.
When the San Francisco clubs lit up with muzzle flash
And the dancers lay weeping in their blood.
When the schools became places to duck and cover
Or learn to trip a friend when running from a gun.
When parkland high became a manufacturing ground
For casings, tears, and candlelight vigils.
When the American dream came combo packaged
And supersized with obesity and unemployment.
When the education of the youth became about
The profit margin in a spreadsheet full of debt.
When the sun sets in the smoke filled horizons
And sleepless rest settles on the western front.
Dec 4, 2020
Dec 4, 2020 at 1:16 AM UTC
oh better not say that
weaving tongue
better not cut my ***** off
with malignant algorithm's
better not think lions shredding hyenas
while veiled demons lick ******** for car payments
and boarder children gnash heaping tears of blood
desperate for their parents loving arms
and soft troubled kisses
God looks upon his creation and says
"and it is good"
what will people think
am i a nice person
birthday face
shut eyed stiff
not dangerous, like a gun in the face
did i say the right thing,
cypher of morality
the knot of good, a slow strangle
a frightened worm
that wont risk tears
eeek
here come the scissors
technology brains wired like weaponized monkeys
eater of crumbs
heatless heart ransomed for the ******* rent
can i disappear
like a dead cat in a black box
better then tripping all over my self
strings attached with hooks
to digital shunted limbs
relics of modernism,
office life
boring like seamless gray linoleum
talking scapegoats hissing
always haunted by what's missing
guts spilling through clutched fingers
apologizing to a faceless crowd of sea shells
and bagged heads
spread sheet minds like computer screens
sitting all day, tabulators
data schmata
narrow chairs; bellies cascade and bloat
frenetic fingers and burning eyes
lungs exhaling only
robo faux; shut up
happy chappy snappy
key punchers
punched out
there's a part of me thats been crying since birth
be careful
the wolf is at the door
in this land;
the land of the free and the brave
Dec 9, 2018
Dec 9, 2018 at 11:16 AM UTC
Thistle ****** draw the blood,
Jolt from their timeless lulls.
Candle wicks singe the flood
Of ignorance infested skulls.
Watch the fair complexion
Be siren to their common eyes.
A god to provide direction,
The answer to their cries
Words sweet as golden honey,
But toxic to their souls.
The wise dismiss it as funny
Until the joke runs stark cold
Bigotry is their dole
Scapegoats on the menu
Brick walls they patrol
If you cross, they’ll **** you
Scrawny dogs lap up the brine
Of what’s thought to be milk.
Nameless number on the line
To cloak him with purple silk.
Once the throne is prepared
And the cushion well plumped
He’ll suction your air and
Have your humanity *******
Mar 2, 2016
Mar 2, 2016 at 9:02 PM UTC
This bone-tired body is a battlefield
where I keep returning
to bury the same soldier,
over and over.
His face shifts like seasons—
familiar and foreign,
the line between my lines,
fading into fable,
floating into folklore.
He’s died here a hundred times,
and I survived every one.
But I keep coming back,
thinking I might unearth
something softer.
My hands tremble from holding too much—
soliloquies, symptoms, scapegoats,
saltshakers, semicolons, starry-eyed sighs.
My knees buckle under the weight
of a history I can’t rewrite.
No matter how many poems erupt
from my shell-shock,
how many mornings I crawl from trenches,
listening to the sound of birdsong—
I always return, ***** in hand.
He stares up from the dirt,
his mouth unmoving but full of accusations.
"You never let me go,"
he whispers without sound,
"and I’ll keep rising until you do.
Don’t you get it?
You buried yourself here too."
How many deaths does it take
to make a ghost let go?
I’m running out of shovels,
but never out of wishes.
Some wounds are wars,
and some wars never surrender.
If I stop digging, will the war finally end—
or will it bloom
in the silence I leave behind?
Jan 7, 2025
Jan 7, 2025 at 9:10 AM UTC