Valentine's Day 1918

We greet the dawn
from our bed of mud
in a nameless place
that we must defend

Bland rations digested
we prepare our weapons
loading up ammunition
for the coming demolition 

In the cathedral silence
prior to yet another battle
my weary eyes
can see
the cloud of death
now hovering over me

Attack and counterattack
two stubborn forces
dance over charred real estate
in a fiery embrace

Late in the day
as the sun yields the field
I feel that warm sting
ripping through my heart

The bullet forged for me
that I never did see

On my back I collapse
my extremities going numb

Alone with
my crimson unrestrained

Life ebbing away

My fate now written

I'm a casualty today

Into the ledger of death
with tears in my eyes

I gasp
fighting to my last breath

I see the fading sky

The last scene
before I die

And my last thought
is of my first love
far away
beneath the same setting sun

Into the light 
I must now go

but I know

we will be
together again some day

Demolition Position

Let's take dynamite
to the walls of hatred

Hit it hard from both sides

Pulverize all prejudice
that built it brick by brick

Build a new bridge
from the rubble of ignorance
and speak not
of past impediments again 

Truth Written In Pencil

What use to be before
now is no more

Nary a trace 
of yesterday's reality remains

Speculation now saturates
revisionist history
as PHD's pontificate unrestrained
their best pet historical theories

After many high priced consultations
scholarly consensus now proclaims
what had passed for absolute truth
back in the day
never really was

Interpretations have been revised
to edit out the textbook lies
that will exonerate departed martyrs

Victims of unyielding authorities of the past

Those erasers of contrarian dissent

Self righteous judges and juries

of all heretics
who bravely dared

not to salute the dogma
of a black and white world
science defined as flat

Remember this lesson
next time a rigid thinking fool
preaches to you about absolute truth 

A Thousand Points of Tripe

Random patterns

Orbiting constantly

Prisoners of gravity

Can you dig my analogy?

I'm communicating metaphorically
about the human condition
and it's relationship
to Universal laws
when coincidence exceeds
the laws of probability

Or maybe...

I just smoked some bad weed
so my perceptions are clouded
and this flash of insight philosophy
can certainly be doubted
though I rigorously contend
when the fog clears finally
we should be able to find our car keys

Body Work

What a mess am I 

To such an extent
I probably will die

Not an uncommon fate

We all have expiration dates
hard wired into our souls

For this biodegradable species
is an inherently flawed model
and when not maintained properly
our lights often darken prematurely

So a little self maintenance would not hurt 

Nationalists and Zealots

For the greater glory
of the chosen Home Team
let's ship your children off to war
to fight and die for fabric on a pole

Of course the other side
spins similar propaganda
for their version of a better God

Better salvation through religious genocide

Tis such a rigged game

A deadly mind control charade 

Religion and ideology

Incestuous fuck buddies throughout history

The Big Con run for influence and money

Always to profit the powers that be

safe and cozy in their dens

watching the carnage they did wrought

on their big screen TV's

These controlling forces

of religion and corporate government
offering up soldier pawns

as fodder to feed the machine

They in the end are the true global enemy

Poetry 103

Fuck Yeats and Wordsworth
Screw Whitman and Dickinson
Joyce and Angelou too

Fellate Ginsburg
and your precious Bukowski
while you're at it( gasp)

Go curl up with these moldy dead poets

Dazzle the world quoting literary ghosts

Spare me the lecture on their modern relevance

I'm more concerned with hearing your words

Wanna write poetry but not sure how?

Since you never learned in school
how to write a proper haiku

Can't find a decent tutorial on YouTube
on proper iambic pentameter construction?

I suggest you don't fret ignorance of archaic rules

Just say what you need to say

Let your heart and soul guide the way

Don't let structure impede your course

No need to count syllables like a monkey 

Leave that to the English Lit professors
in the corner stroking their hard ons
over the majesty of classical poetry 

Consider The Source

Before spilling your confession
when offered redemption
by those who were offended
do a little self assessment
if the sin they say you committed
was truly a major transgression
or just an over reaction
by self righteous
overly critical
hypocritical
dickheads

The High Cost Of Nothing

The commissar of commerce
took a high level confab
with the czar of finance
to discuss the collapse
of public confidence

After weeks of statistical chatter
and thorough graph analysis
neither one of the experts
could figure out
what the Hell was the matter

So finally the President deemed
a blue ribbon task force be convened
to determine once and for all
the cause and effect of this economic fall

Of course this being
a production of government
meant millions would be spent
in fruitless pursuit of where our money went

Two years after the charade began
they produced a 600 page document
which no one would ever read
lest their eyes bleed
and their hearts break
thinking about the abject waste
of the pot calling the kettle black 

Wither Gutenberg ?

Final words
from the final chapter
of the last book ever printed
now that hard copy is officially dead

'To be continued... " it read

Delicious irony

A fitting requiem
for this closing chapter
of literary history

Or maybe tis a warning

A sentence of prophesy
if the entire world wide web
ever got permanently hacked 
and all our precious
hand held devices
became pricey paper weights

Library doors would be unsealed

Book stores could make a come back

Is this a dream or nightmare?

Tis probably a question
of which generation hymn book
you grew up reading from 

Gender Blender

Me in the men's room
for a quick pee

When quite unexpectedly
a quite hairy she dude

in a sequin dress
enters the tiled scene

with a similar relief plan
in the urinal next to me

I cannot contain my curiosity
so I sneak a quick peek
at the serpent mighty
rising from his thicket

Of course he catches my eyes
sizing up his privates

in a blatant violation

of urinal decorum

In my red faced embarrassment
I mutter softly

“I’m not that kind of guy”

He hikes up his lace panties
and gruffly advises me

and my homophobia

“Neither am I”

Oh Say Can't You See

This rock I picked from the rubble
of the latest calamity
fits my hand so perfectly
I almost hate to throw it
at our oblivious enemy

Of course I am required
to avenge sins of the past
so I throw the projectile
and score a direct hit 

We scurry a hasty retreat into darkness
to avoid being payback targeted 

Everyone riding the cycle of hatred

A litany of futile gestures  

The whole eye for an eye bullshit rap
we as a species can't ever seem to get past

So This Is Low Self Esteem

... one hundred pounds later
I have become the fat fuck
I never thought I would be

Obesity sort of snuck up on me

Denial will do that to you
but the mirror eventually
shatters our best self deceptions

Tough break for my enlarged heart
now struggling to propel blood through
gooey blubbery clogged arteries

At least this battle of the bulge

is destined to be short lived

Then the arduous task

of waste removal

falls to my pallbearers

Hopefully they will be in better shape
than the heavy load 

they are charged with hauling was

A Day In The Strife

The alarm clock tolls
earlier than I need

Out of bed I roll
with all my aches 
and creaky joints
that scream out middle age 

I feel old

Thread bare and worn

Way too much time spent
on self induced detours
that took me 
to my home here in Nonessential 

Not enough minutes left
for a course alteration
to offset the accumulation  
of time wasting trips 

Missing out on all the things
I should have done 
and could have been
when I was young
and so full of potential

The die is cast
buried deep within
the sins of the past

For an aging plow horse
saddled down
with all these
useless regrets

Pigging Out

You can comfortably exist
within the narrow parameters
of standard contentment

Max out your credit cards
on superfluous excess

Social media boast
about your choreographed happiness

Level set with meds
when your conscience starts to ache

Mute that nagging voice
when it whispers 
about a life that is so fake

This illusion is all in the presentation

Yes, you can comfortably exist

Contently suckling on society's teat
with millions of ravenous piglets

Growing more bloated by the day

What a great ham sandwich you will be
when the butcher comes your way

  

Men Overboard

DUCK AND COVER !!!

It's payback time

The shattering of past inequities
for misdeeds committed by our side 
though we were not participants
in any offending situations

We're all gonna take some hits

Penance for sins we did not commit

The whole guilt by association bullshit

Just hope this sledgehammer
out of control pendulum
does not leave any permanent scars

Down Draft

Trapdoor opens

Floor support is no more

as we struggle to prevent
our tragic descent
into the waiting arms
of Chaos Town

A disintegrating place
with crumbling infrastructure
betraying a proud history
of empire and power

Now a mountain range
of smoldering rubble

where frazzle is currency
and the truth served up daily
with a dash of absurdity

cause tragedy
becomes comedy
when it marinates
over the centuries

and all the survivors
who fell through the floor
unknowingly become
the shadow ghosts 
of post apocalypse 

Do you recognize
these apparitions
and the truth behind
their plummeting demise?

They are us

and our sin
was arrogance

The recurring
poison of humanity
throughout history 

Reminiscing at the Ostrich Cafe

Down at the Ostrich Cafe

the wifi accessible crowd

plugs in their wireless buds

and blasts the pop culture loud

in an effective attempt

to drown out the protesting hordes

marching right outside their secured doors

seeking to improve this flawed world..

I sip on my sugary latte

and fondly recall

those bygone days

when music and dissent

were one and the same 

Dealing For Eternity

Back in the day

I use to consort
with demons
of ill repute

We sinned
just for the Hell of it

Made up
our own rules
along the way

That was me

A pagan disciple
of immorality

Until  I found religion
on late night TV

An infomercial
for this
amazing
miracle product
called Jesus

or maybe

it was some sort
of magic mop
that sopped up stains

In the end
tis all the same

except the mop
comes with a money back guarantee
while Christianity
is an all souls
all sales final
total buy in commitment

Exit Carnage

Don't wanna fight anymore
in the political maelstrom
not dissipating any time soon

My views on the controversies of the day
simply don't matter anyway
and the crushing redundancies
of these circular arguments
is really wearing on me

So whether you wanna #MAGA
or ride the #Resistance
please proceed without me

I'll take my seat in the peanut gallery
and hang there until a return of civility 

Pretty Chicky In A Cage

She desired to be
more than your eye candy

Weary of being a lust magnet

All she wanted was respect

The crime of our cosmetic society

So obsessed with surface beauty
we never allowed ourselves to see
the light trapped within the pretty shell
that eventually became her living Hell

Long after the sultry corpse icon 
became the stuff of cultural legend
her well chronicled tale of tragedy 
is still buried beneath the glossy pics
celebrating an innocent sexuality
that was as fake as her naughty smile

The Write Stuffing

I was there that fateful day

when the one and only Jesus Christ

our Lord and Savior

rode in

on a gorgeous white horse

to cast Satan 

and his godless minions away

OK 

so maybe twas a close approximation

of an apocalyptic busting situation

I viewed on a live stream

that may have been

a chemically inspired dream

I'm allowed my binges 

of creative exaggerations

to make the story flow

and proceed in a forwardly direction

It says so 

right here on my poetic license

I bought online for 99 cents

though it as well as myself

may fast be approaching

literary expiration

The War Show

Dust off the off the old generals
Prop them up in front of the map
of our latest war event

We'll get back to porn stars
and pee tapes next week
but now we gotta hear experts speak
about our cool tech weaponry
and how we gotta make Syria
safe for democracy

Blessed Be Woman

That shiny golden cross
is a beacon to the lost

Dangling proudly erect
just above your ample chest

Guiding wandering eyes
to the plunging neckline
and the canyon exposed
in a grand confluence monument
to the spiritual
and animal needs of man

That sly smile discreet

when our eyes did meet

was divine revelation

and a shared confirmation

of my duel admiration

God bless

the glorious dual illusions

of spiritual faith

and the feminine gender

Tis a Troubled Puzzlement

Too many loose pieces
clutter up the puzzle

Our former point of reference
now nothing but a faded picture

Masters of the Universe
have gone missing

Reliable sources now insist
they never really existed

Which means there is no salvation

We are on our own for answers

(sweeps puzzle off table)

(assumes fetal position)

Guns and Sympathy

Here we go

Bring on the low caliber politicos

for the long running hit show

Time again for thoughts and prayers

That played out lament

of our nation blood drenched

that worships and perverts

words written on parchment long ago

when low tech muskets were in vogue 

Let us bow our weary heads
over the mangled corpses
of the latest nightmare event

Victims of our sins

who would not have died

if only we had done our duty

to protect humanity
instead of taking the blood money
which paid for today's
homily of hypocrisy

Formula Worship

Here at the Church of Pragmatism
our functionalist congregation
prays to the Gods of Logic
and orderly sterility

Stored in a warehouse cathedral
of black and white theology
the pilgrims are stacked and categorized
as all personal relations
are compartmentalized
to a spreadsheet equation
that attempts to summarize
the complexities of this
illogical human existence

Shoot The Town Cryer

Outraged commentary

about our failing humanity

streaming 24/7

on multiple social media outlets.. 

The posting of great revelations

about life's many inconsistencies

while tweaking hypocrisies

that serve only to confirm the obvious...

:

Life is inherently unfair...

Guess what?

NOBODY CARES

Reverse Predator

Today we feast on the bones
of the slaughtered beast
who made the fatal mistake
of launching an attack
and charging our pack
thinking it was hunting us
not knowing

the group firepower we carried
while violating

the first rule of warfare:

Know thy enemy

Mirror Mirror Go Away

Don't wanna be me

I never really did

but I've played along
as programed

Being a hollow man
for what seems an eternity

Don't wanna be me

Wearing all these labels
Husband, father, friend,
Half ass professional
bean counting clown

Too many clever perceptions
weighing me down

Trudging in place
with all the other
sorry souls
hiding behind smiley
Facebook facades

All the fucking self pity poetry
from this "Count Your Blessings" guy
sure does reek of hypocrisy

Such is the price one pays
when their whole one act play
is based on a worn out cliche

Tis such a locked in existence
once the path of settlement is taken

This desperation too shall pass
as long as the medication lasts