I thirst.

 

You rip through here

a hurricane

biting through civilians and officials alike

until their bloodshed stains the streets

and the streams tick off the tally of your victims

your only aim to crush and maim

regardless of the death toll

or the reason

or the phasing of the moon

And then come crashing down again

 

while we are left, shaking our heads,

to sweep your secrets

into crematoria and coffins

Then dust off our hands

to wipe away your tears

 

and scrub away the fever

That leaves a ring of soapy sickness

in your bathwater

And then hold you,

bitter infant,

until the tide falls away

 

The constants, the healers,

What some call the mothers

though you are not our blood children

 

We are the ones that soothe your cuts and burns

Listen to your side of the story

And settle the fights of dollar bills

and ancestors

that you scorn without abandon

Hear you simper for a lullaby

As we rock you back to sleep

 

But the sighs don’t escape

until after we’ve checked under the bed for monsters

for the hundredth

or the thousandth

or the millionth time this week;

we can’t let you catch on

that the only real beasts lie within ourselves.

 

We would give you the moon

Had you not tamed it

And the deserts for your sandbox

But no matter what we give

You want it all you want it all

And we want nothing

NOTHING

in return

Just a single peaceful night,

vengeful child,

tea stirred with vanilla and sleep

but your screamings pierce our dreams

and nightmares

 

We are the worrywarts

The unsure

The cautious and the skeptics

Who don’t believe in jumping on the bed

Or in other such adventures

 

We are wrinkled brows and unpressed collars

The “it’s for your own good”s and the seamstresses

That stitch your heart back together

Before it’s broken one time too many

 

And you end up like us.

 

We are the aftermath, the backstory,

the prayers and dictionaries

that make it out of life alive

The Barmecidal harmony, the snatches of hymns

 

We are the scraps of coffee-tainted paper

that you slap against the telephone poles

As if the taste of scathing news-ink

is a bandage for the hurting

And we fold debris into our kerchiefs

saving them as souvenirs

 

And you call us close-minded

You call us cowards

As you snap your jaws and roar

down a vast and lonesome prairie

like the wind

 

Fast to laugh

and quick to run away

 

As we wander the streets lonely,

the gaslamps shattered on the cobblestones,

and stoop to collect the pieces

of the life you left behind.

 

Forgive them, Father,

for they know not what they do.

Fancy, a flighty folly,
I’ve found fairly hard to find.
As soon as she stops searching
so suddenly it slips into sight.

Love’s lack leaves life lackluster,
but lust can lead life lessons
Wayward ones will waste them.
While worrywarts wail un-waning.

Yesterday, there was a cloud and the cloud was turning
Today there were more, and the ounce kept burning
Some bar in Hamburg and dreams of punching Atatürk
The sister wasn't ****, no paper, seven X's
It wasn't a good time, it was a shoddy paper bar
The redneck ******* was the one who turned a star
But oh no
An axolotl with the body of a flying serpent
This is urgent, a full body of the color verdant
Learning the choreography of a murderer of burdens
The static and manic idiosyncracy of skin men
The bodies of three legends accounted to ten
But there was no reception or action back then
But who knows?
The calling of a tender serving drinks to no end
Many friends to attend to and mend the hearts
There were children who drank like worrywarts
And the shortened query of lines was eerie
Peering, they're steering like he was hearing
Some sudden tale of questionable origins in there

The fact that it's all the same **** with no name
Makes it the same old hat, the same old game
A dream of millenia ago when there was no fame
The only person booing was some swollen lame

But it's life and life is strange
How do you change the way you change the way you feel
Rotted brains that don't feel no feel, they steal
But time heals, so time equals no wounds and that's why
Why they wish to live forever on a never-ending ******
But then comes Life-ender, the scythe, ember, mender
And it's all over, no one's sober on this Rolls Royce
Range Rover, said Herbert Hoover the awful goober
And now it's all **** and there stood the stooge
A fool made of reed and a tool made of keys
But what for were keys when there's no doors in need
No trusty steed to ask for the **** or mead
Who knew that life would be so hard indeed
It's that two story fall that doesn't ****
It made them fall ill and lie still for a fill
Of this endless bucket made of Kengo's will
There was a silhuetto of a rusted stilleto
It was well kept like Velcro in a safe or the pocket
Of the dog from Kesto, that *******, he pictured it
Some poor animal and made it sit on the cover forever
That made it sever from reality and come back never
But that's a tale for another lever to pull
Or the fool with another drink in their hands
And a bit of food, delightfully canned or a machine
That was manned by a man who was made of sand
All there's left is a question I've always had
What if I was the cloud, and the cloud was dead?