This prison
A prism
Honor roll and
Debate club
*
No room for cheerleaders
Everyone is a cellphone casualty
*
To walk is to swim
To cry is to bleed
Road trip hajj voyage and sojourn
*
Bury the egg to
Prevent this dream
From becoming reality
*
Independence is a fairy tale
Autonomy a fable
Economy an absurdist fantasy
The university a tanning salon
*
Stepfather buried our
Sacred artifacts in the sewers of
Darfur Rwanda Ethiopia Sierre Leone
THe South bronx and The 9th ward
*
And they tell us racism is a thing of the past
But how come there is no Genocide
In Belgium or Sweden?
*
Getting $6.15 an hour
Doesn't make you free
In a place where the graves sprout
To remind us that
We all must return to soil
Our digital networks will distract us
Only for so long
The clouds will conspire to
Bring 35 gallons of truth to our shoulders
As we stand at the pump
Pull the trigger that will unload
Processed Earth into machines of
Steel Hunger
*
Everything was moving but their minds
*
They were the storm that toppled their city
*
Discipline is Freedom
*
"'Using single quotes within double quotes
Is a sign of impending insanity'
Quoted Vladimir Nabokov
(As quoted by Andrei Codrescu)"
*
The only police I appreciate
Are Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland
*
The therapist's therapist
Prescribed him to catch
The ferry across the river
And get off half way
*
We were
Holding a cocktail party with the rapids
When it dawned on us that
We were the drink and not the straw
*
Marilyn Monroe had ugly feet
And I am not convinced that she read
Ulysses
*
A baptism in the swamp
A cataclysm of cattle
Every house a yacht
*
When will they learn
That tagbanging
Is the advent of holy scripture
Like Han Shan's koans
Carved into unsuspecting trees
*
Sleepwalking
Convinced we are awake
Our makers unmake us
Shake us from the orange tree
Shipping us to a supermarket kiosk
*
We pass through this plane
Like wind through an accordian
Our finer parts escape through
Holes carefully places
Infrequently we reach a frequency
Only dogs and gods can hear
Like an ATM we punch codes
Into a virtual surface
Expecting dispensed paper
To satiate or save us
If you repeat something enough times
The people will believe it
It does not matter if it is true
Beam it up onto a screen
And they will value it more than
Their own relatives
It does not matter if it is worthless
We have already bought into the recycling trend
Recycling trash
Recycling people
Recycling ideas for another useless film
Primal instincts intact but contorted
Now we hunt in malls
Fish in cyberspace
Our reptiliam centers plucked
And dropped into aquariums
With sand an blue rocks
To keep us company
Someday soon we will be the souvenirs
Tourists purchase during their
Most mundane Holiday getaways
***
French Quarter Fragments
Untitled
I have waited my whole life
For just one man to be a man
To not be afraid to be wrong
In the face of public opinion
To not be afraid to be right
In spite of the consensus
I have waited for one father
To be a father
For one man to just listen
To understand the
Potency of an embrace
I have been waiting
For some time now
For a man to come along
And empty themselves
Into the community
Free from a personal agenda
For one man to know the
Truth when he sees it
And to trust love when he can't
For only one man to move
Out of the way and let
The women blaze the new path
To not be too proud to learn
From their courage
Their genius
Their kindness
Seems like I have been waiting
Lifetimes for an apology
That has been deferred more times
Than my college loans
Like I've been waiting at
The railway station hoping
To board a train that won't be
Arriving anytime soon
I have been waiting for one man
Just one
To bury their egos in the backyard
To prioritize moral over more
Been waiting for one man
To raise his vulnerability up
On the nearest flagpole
And finally
Surrender
