Help - a poem

 my head is pounding for solutions but I am lost in thought, lost in lethargy,

I don't know how to move forward without falling apart,

where is the answer to this question I am asking, and how do I go about motivating myself

to do something.

I am lost in my own discretions, I do not know where to go

my brain matter floats in a plastic bubble easily torn and popped,

and I do not know what to do.

Stagnation,

I am supposed to change minds, be effective.

But I keep going into this place,

that I am not good enough.

I dream of reprieve,

but dig my nails in the dirt,

I am lost, my brain is pained,

I am curiously hopeless.

Our Nation Tis of Violence - a poem

 Do you imagine the sound of revolution, coming out of the mouths of those who cause revolution to occur, sounding much like battle cries. Or, are they the tendency of irritated men to see fit to change circumstances. For what is America, but the entitlement that this all belongs to us. That which we stole, and worked on with other hands, that it belongs to us out of sheer might and violence. So much violence.

It wouldn't surprise me to see the Declaration written in the blood of the poor, of indigenous, slaves. It would not be shocking to me to see the eyes roll of submissive housewives, and daughters as all-men shouted great hoorays. What a wonder it is then, that we pretend we were ever great, yet great at causing great violence.

That great exploitation of promising the working class the world and stripping it from them, or that's the illusion for how much of it actually was there's to begin with. How ingenious to turn the poor man against his African neighbor, to ensure that the lower class didn't form its own force to smite the elite with gods holy-fist. To make a middle class feel superior, while still holding back a majority of savory crumbs. What an ingenious exploitation.

But see it too, the way some of that promise came true. How rich the nation was, and how fortunate it that it had an ocean to shield it from the brunt of World Wars, and to come out super powered more than it could have imagined it would be, by the good fortune that the world burned. The promises though, came true for some, but only after much violence. After civil wars, after lynching's, after economic collapses and starvation, after pandemics.

How the carrot is dangled in the face of a poor boy, like me, to go out, get an education, become anything you want to be. How the higher classes look down on the poor boys, like me, and see only social climbers. I was told to climb that ladder, but what they don't tell you is they don't truly want you there, then they may have to admit, maybe the working-poor aren't all lazy, aren't all stupid, aren't all Neanderthals.

It's a wonder, in our pursuit of life and liberty we justify so much murder, shootings, stabbings. America loves violence, in our media, and on our lawns, but especially on our lawns. Our streets lined with sovereign citizens, and the rubber bullets bouncing off heads, and AR-15's shooting rounds from would be vigilante-wannabe-punks that penetrate faces. Silence lives, stop hearts. 

What a twisted place this country is, has been, how much they spruced up the more unseemly branches of our history, to make us toe tap in time to the rhythms of that old state song, that old Star Spangled Banner song. How kneeling in prayer is virtuous and good, but kneeling in solidarity is an affront to a flag. To mourn the promise of what that flag is to represent, and test that freedom of speech bubble, and whoa, see how fast it bursts with a thousand pin pricks, of people who'd like to string 'em up, dead.

America is violence. Kids stuffed in cages. People stuffed on reservations. In interment camps. As they tell us we are good. And those planes, like missiles exploding up our towers, and we ignore the savagery we perpetrated on their grounds, and how if it was us, and has been us we retaliate on their ground just the same. No justification for murder, but it is a hypocritical people who vote for blatant sexist-liar prince who is responsible for hundreds of thousands dead. Base voting on economic turn around, at the expense of lives, of the poor.

What a bloodied soil we stand on. It is not fashionable to hold your country accountable, it is more fashionable to let it bend you over and rape you, and to be so abused by it, that you have to say that yes, you like being used, no matter how much it hurts you, and you hurt others by your lack of introspection. America is violence.

When the Ferris Wheel Breaks Down - a prose poem

 

A view from up on top is preferable. If the Ferris Wheel breaks down, that is. Middling pods give little in way of refreshing vantage points. But if the pod gets to tip-tip top can scan horizon, palm to forehead in faux salute, and a squint will grant you a fuzzy far off look-see at a hazy light show of skyscraper lights and festival blinking. There’s much to see there, when the Ferris Wheel breaks down, that you can distract yourself from the chaos and misery that infects those lined up to ride the Ferris Wheel. Like you they waited for hours, but unlike you they’ll never get to get stuck at the top, when the Ferris Wheel breaks down.

Still on earth, they fuss and kick, watching in disastrous dissatisfaction as once spinning Ferris Wheel comes to a completely, and abrupt halt. Stopping as it were, some near the top, some middling, and some just off the ground, but those in line will never get to know. Departing the ride just moments ago, those that got the whole show. Children laughing with cotton candy grins, sugary highs, filled to the brim with life, and those in the line will never get to know how it felt to be on the Ferris Wheel, before the Ferris Wheel broke down.

When the Ferris Wheel broke down there was some careful contemplation, some minor hoping as the fixers took to fixing, and repairmen repaired. There was a twist of a ratchet, the cursing of frustrated man, but eventually they had to call it. And as the chain went in the way of the entrance ramp to announce: Ferris Wheel Closed, a hundred or more people, what seemed like millions bitched and they moaned for they had waited all day to take their turn in a pod, to see the hazy skyline, to view like gods down on mortal men, but now, the Ferris Wheel had broken down. They would have wasted a better part of the afternoon staring at the backsides of strangers, or friends, or family who were as good as strangers. Having ached and pained their way from lesser attractions, and wasted their money away on gimmicky games, for shittier prizes, they would feel rageful, justifiably rageful that they never got the chance to know what it was like.

Carnival men, are tired though, worked for days, set the whole thing up, kept it oiled and going. Kept the gears turning, the pods bobbing as the Ferris Wheel circled around. Opened up the gate for next batch of ticket carrying consumers, and never intended to squander on their promise, that everyone would get a chance to ride on the Ferris Wheel, as long as the Ferris Wheel didn’t break down. And for a moment, when it did, when the Ferris Wheel broke down, they wanted very much to keep good on what they said. For years their reputation was staked on the promise of that view. Their modern machine was built on the back of other failed models, that were looked at and conjugated with other designs, for years, since way back when, when there was a rope and pulley system, and the Ferris Wheel was harder to operate, but now it should have been spinning slow, smooth like buttered silk, but it was halted and jammed, and for all that they could figure, it was an act of God that brought it to heel, and for all their intents and all their purposes the Ferris Wheel was broken down, the Ferris Wheel was closed.

You don’t see most of this. You don’t hear the promises broken down below. Your view is pure, your company beautiful, you are feeling serene. When you peek over the side you do not gather up psychically the internal machinations of the people below. You were once them, waiting in line, but you now have your view. And though getting down is on your mind, to get on with your life, you do not fret too much, for you are filled fully with roasted peanuts, and elephant ears. The taste of cinnamon and sugar clinging to your teeth like memory treats of the bigger meal. So, when you look down at the raging voices, you do not hear the anger, only the whispered shouts as though your miles away.

Those in line begin to play telephone, ear to ear, saying the breakage is a scandal, a lie. That the operator is tired, the repairmen careless, the owner of the show is ignorant. Bastards, they think, as the stamp their feet, the ground abused and imprinted from hours of waiting, of walking. That same line, marching forward in baby steps as the Ferris Wheel line whittled forward, but continued to grow, never ending.

The carnival workers are dismayed. It was almost time for their shifts to end, it was almost time for the end of the day, but the red eyed anger sinks teeth into them, and their fears feel the bite, their anxiety is realized as a hundred, seems like millions of angry men, women and children scream on at them. The come at them with torches, and clubs, pitchforks brought by those nearby who heard that the damn commies were taking over the community. It isn’t long before those on the bottom ring of the ride, in those pods closest to the ground, are forcibly removed, even though they never got even a little higher. They are bludgeoned.

You don’t see this. The sweet air, free up there, that sweet air tastes like blissful ignorance. You don’t see the mob scaling the side, you don’t see the Ferris Wheel covered in blood, the broken Ferris Wheel drip dropping red crimson tears down onto foundations of that machine. And as the Ferris Wheel tips over, only then do you feel the rush of wind meet you as your head collides with rock, and Ferris Wheel collides with the rest of you. It happens so fast, and you wonder just as it ends, as your brain spills on community grass, if it was worth it  to sabotage contraptions for the benefit of you and yours, unaware of anarchy stewing among the masses below.

Second Star to the Right Straight on Till Morning or 1 Month to Go for First Year - a poem

 Platitudes are numerous.

Wind beneath my wings, lift me up to stand

on mountain tops, completing me.

We know them. You and I. They know them,

out there in world-land sipping on morning

coffee, finishing off an evening night

cap. The platitudes are many. Terms

of endearment are etched on my chest

cavity, a cheat sheet for my pumping heart

to remember them. To always know them. A positive

torture, holding my fist of red fleshes eyes wide

open, but not forcefully, in fact, my heart

has asked to be overwhelmed with: sweetheart,

baby, love, honey, sweet. These are many.

And my heart has taken to insomnia,

trying to fill in a note card with finest

print, but I've left markings on the board,

saw how desperately it wanted to get one-

hundred-percent on this pop quiz, test, short answer,

paragraphed exam. For the platitudes are many,

what we can have, build, what family will grow

within us, between us, of us. Moments of levity

throwing red shells into banana peels, laughing

over grapefruit flavored German beer, how "sloshed"

you get with one 3.4% contended bottle. But not really,

we laugh and joke, and even ones you don't like, like

cold La Croix can against exposed arm or leg. Irritation,

but then you go and do same to me. See, my platitudes

are not grand, in the crudest sense of the words,

they consist of promises to be present, to be near,

to let our hearts whisper solutions to problems to one

to other, and to figure out long-form how to solve

for X and Y. My platitudes are many, that I will never

let you purposely win at Mario Kart because you in fact

are perhaps better than I am now. My platitudes are many,

how I'll guard your heart but not possess it, not restrain it,

or control it. These many promises, of children, of puppies,

and kitties, growing up as one big family. Not nuclear,

but modern, here, and now. Not holding on to subjugations

of old timey books, and themes, old timey patriarchal tradition,

for you are human, not woman, as I am human, not man,

and as humans we are capable both of getting to mountain peaks,

lifted up on one another shoulders, strapped in to one anothers

restrains, heaving and crawling, with footholds, or by digging

deep our fingernails into jagged rock, willing to bleed and be pained

for you, but typically refusing such pathways. My platitudes

are many, are numerous, are legion, my platitude is to ensure

to you that our climb will be carefully chosen, resisting roughest

ways unless weather pushes us toward them, we will together

contemplate, and discuss, map out and plan, welcome suggestions

and decide together which routes to take, always tethered, always.

The platitudes are many, my endearments clear, oh sweet honey baby,

we've co-opted this kart to suit two.

Pro-Life - a poem

 Save our children, is a good sentiment,

we should indeed save them, for they are in need

of saving. But, in what universe do you imagine

that children are not seen as important, or classical

pawns in our day to day. Of course we beg to save

the children. For people to take notice of babes

lost from their families, ripped from them and locked

away. Used in ways that they should not be used,

and those abuses go on and on, and day in and day out. Remember

local news stories, broadcasting windowless white vans

in vicinity of missing children, last seen near white

van with no windows, that was message that spread

on broadcasts so that people looked on suspiciously

for any such workers van, even if workers were 

just what they were. This 90's epidemic of unmarked vehicles

picking up and snatching kids, and very real threats

that persisted so that Liam Neeson took to threatening,

and making good on threats of finding, and killing,

using skills to attack sex traffickers who'd kidnapped

his daughter. These are stories that existed already. Without

aid of viral campaign, and task forces put together

to battle these forces of evil, and social media always busy

with preemptive tactics on how to protect yourself in Wal-

Mart parking lots at ten o'clock in the evenings, or in broad

daylight. This isn't news, or hidden, always constantly sharing,

me and you, always.

Save our children, trends in hashtag form, sinks teeth into an algorithm,

taking advantage of national spotlight on trafficking, to sneak in a Qanon

theory, theorizing a pizzagate message even when that was proven

to be false, and laughably reaching coded messaging, but not funny,

and deftly heartbreaking that people could have been killed with self-

possessed liberator of not-even-there sex dungeon in local pizza parlor.

These, are the fingertips behind pushing this message, trying to shut

up mouths of more important matters, because they know no one will challenge

protecting our children without risk of sounding repugnant to average

people who don't give half a thought to sharing things on the internet.

Save our children, its simplicity at its finest, and finely hijacked

to bring about rabbit holes, and deep dives into internet spaces, sprouting

friends, and searches, with a click to further clicks, until you're teleported into sharing

everything by faceless creature on other end of computer screen who is eager

for chaos, and world burning. Hardest thing? It works, and while you save your children,

with your share, true forces of change, with the means to help are deprived of resources

are sent on wild goose chases, and very soon people will die.

Save our children,

But they don't mean children in cages, five years old or younger

forced to represent themselves in immigration courts, timidly

speaking broken english, nodding for understanding, but not truly

understanding. Or young boys on lawns playing with toy guns,

with brown skin, because that's the story that often is told, and shot dead,

and we say save our children. As our nation bombs other nations

and dead babies lay in grieved mothers arms, and dead children

wash up on shore. But we are here, they are there, and save our children,

only our children, but only a certain type of children.

And the propaganda of late-term abortions, that paint the image of cooing

babies being ripped limb from limb, and if that were truth, I too would be

outraged to know it, but that is not truth, and often we subject pregnant children

unable to mentally cope to have children, and destroy what they could have had,

though some turn out fine, and what of those children overwhelmed to eat,

and we say no don't feed them, no handouts for those freeloaders,

we forget these children.

Save our children? Save yourself, and the hell you may find yourself

in for your hypocrisy for even Christ made no differentiation for smallest

on our mother Earth.

A Forest Story - a poem

Yester-year, 

they planted seeds deep in garden for safety flowers to take root.

More as grass than beautiful tapestries, roots were many 

and multiplied, and they took to planting trees. Trees grew up

in awe of patches of flowered grass, to them kingmakers

all of them, knighting the saplings but when adulthood came

and hearty bark made muscular armed, and hardheaded wood

the revelry seen of common ground lurkers dissipated, evaporated

into clouded sky. Trees were mighty, god-like, powerful spirits

able to ordain their way.

Tomorrow-eve,

the forest is plentiful full of towering trees, barked

devils barking orders, changing clothes and trashing

floor with their unmentionables. Layers of shedded skin,

dead, smothering floor, and what was promised lurks

and suffocates forgetting the sun. The garden promised,

in this garden, has forgotten its humbled beginnings,

forgotten fables telling hard-truths that trees forget were needed.

Through gaps in foliage, passed star-fished bodies of browned

leaved, speckles of sun-rays hit flowered-grass, and sustains them,

on occasion man comes along, or catastrophe strikes,

and lumbering arrogant trunks cut sawed, cut, struck, snapped in half

collapsing like dominoes on one another.

Today-now,

flowers are thankful for simple aspirations, wind no cares,

saws pay no to little mind of grass blades, but on occasion

they miss very much full-embrace of sun stolen from them

by the children they nurtured.

Slumber Song - a poem

 you start to wonder,

if wondering is it all,

that things are different now

that once big becomes small.

how the starlight shines infinite in eyes,

and thoughts of babes and pets

and two-bedroom upgrades

are in regular supply. How it feels

to partner up, to furnish, clean, 

arrange the setup of spaces shared,

that everlasting bond, strong,

no matter how emotions play fickle

while you dodge and maneuver

between medications, and treatments.

as kitty climbs castle-high tower

and purchases like a bird all sharp-toothed

and eagerly lazy, you think you could sleep

soundly forever, even as your country burns

itself down all around you. 

there's still time to cozy up and dream,

still whispers of everything's

and we who tiptoe through along creaky

foundations of our brother land

it seems quite possible,

as if hoping were all it took to be possible

that there is a light at the edge of the shadows

and pursuing that has never been a waste

of time.