The Rules

They think the rules are different,
they’re the same now as they ever were,
changed to protect the guilty,
who always had the key,
wedged tight between
hemorrhoid cheeks,
those who had the bread,
and we,
the rabble rousing rebels,
left to eat what was slathered between
the wonder slices.

If I can’t win, I don’t want to play.

You can take all your high opinions
and hide them forever
on the same chain
as the proverbial key,
a stifled blockage
that when finally handed down
from that hallowed court,
will have the proctors hands
seared clean,
with rock hard diamonds,
while in our socks
they’ll still be
bits of coal.

And on our heads
a carved
scarlet “I”
them thinking that
we’re too interested
in the “Id,”
we thinking
that we’re too
“Intelligent”
to play with lies.

Take a Flying Leap

Take a Flying Leap

I jumped
out of
that self righteous carton,
ran screaming
through the briars
and brambles;
nay sayers
and would be prophets
caught their
priestly robes
in the cutting thorns,
turned their blood
into wine,
and crawled,
intoxicated,
back home.

Outside
is where
all the answers are. (think)
That box has held us
far too long,
it shrinks
constricts breathing
and thought,
and imprisons
fertile minds
til nothing grows
but the killing weeds.

The lucky few
escape the confines,
grow deaf to the bullshit,
and listen to their own,
unique voices.
It is better to step
outside the box now,
than to wait too long,
and be inside
forever.

Clarity

Clarity

Obfuscate,
obliterate;
obscure the meaning
with flowery phrases
and reckless referrals
then give them a shovel.

They’ll dig it.

Partition
each participle;
dangle words
in front of their noses,
don’t give them
a scent,
show them
a fragrance.

Have a whiff.

It’s not that
I want to leave
you blind,
I’m trying to make you
polish
your lenses.
Open your eyes,
use all your senses.

Two dollars on Eureka in the sixth.

I swear I will always
tell the truth,
but I won’t
always say
what I mean.

Carapace

Carapace

Skittering across the kitchen floor;
a Kafka dream come true.
Was it something I’d said,
or something I’d done
in a sordid past life
to be rudely made one
of the hated majority
of carapaced vermin?

I had become
just a bug on the wall
a brown spot,
un-noticed
who sees more of humans
than any would care to know;
the careless fumblings
and drunken rumblings
of two lost souls
tumbling
across a roach slept bed.

Secrets I’ve been told
when I had been so bold
to venture near breath holes
of unrepentant sinners
never bothering with confessions.
Never knowing that I
was their cardinal listener
antennae glistening
with dust from their dinners.

I remember being told
once in another life
when exo was worn
inside vibrant skin;
“Be kind to all living things.”
Murdering one would bring
swift retribution
a final solution
of heel against fragile head;
waking in Armageddon
to find all the world
was dead.

And I, the last, lone survivor
punished for things I’d said;
never the one to dread,
now a believer.

Because

Because

They will find you
at your weakest
when your head is filled
with sorrow
and your body wracked
with pain.
They’ll beat you,
belittle you
and leave you for dead;

because they can.

Leave no cracks
in the firmament,
no chinks in the armor.
They will steal in through
a loophole,
step in from
a long ambiguity,
worm their way into
a back door,
like a Trojan Horse left
as an incongruous gift.
They’ve programmed it this way

because they can.

Lay your feet
on solid ground,
right leg in front
to steady your mind.
Load rocks
in your soft gloves
(Beat them at their own game)
Take the Queen’s pawn
and countergambit,
they’ll be looking
for the King,
and will never notice.

Checkmate comes easy,
for they haven’t the sense
to think far ahead.
Then,
when their armies
lay scattered on the boards,
finish it,
end it,
for all time,
in one place
because you can.

A Penny Unsaved

A Penny Unsaved

Lincoln woke up,
stuck in a wad of gum,
copper taste in his mouth,
there in the gutter
with the other useless trash.

He’d never been a drinker,
he’d rather been a thinker,
a doer and a man of words.
Now he could only see
one side of the coin,
and it didn’t look good.

He’d been stamped
with a legacy
he didn’t deserve;
he knew he wasn’t
a racist.
He’d been tarnished
and stuck in a rut
in a tiny cubed Booth,
and all that he’d done
could be written
on a penny.

They’d burned down his home
So he no longer had an address.
Gettysburg in shambles,
Just a well preserved tourist trap
where losers in blue and grey
shot off their big boy guns,
drama queens by the thousands.

At least things were looking up,
it might have been the other way around.
A smile almost broke through his steely lips,
but a tire ran him over and ruined the effect.

And no one even stopped to pick him up,
A penny wasn’t worth much anymore.

42

42

A scientist
traveling back in time
gazed at
the dawn
of the universe
a gamma ray beam
shot back from
the age of darkness,
the death of a star
grown black
at the edge of womb.

Puzzled,
he pondered
til at last
the red shifted,
showing the age
of a weary traveler
from the place where
hyperstars birth,
and return in a light instant
to die.

A humbled seeker,
he stood in the afterglow,
and suddenly knew,
the age of the cosmos
and laws of creation.
He flew to his telescope,
and sits there still.
Unmoving, he stares,
as he searches the stars
for God.