Poetry

My laundry is all dirty

My bread has gathered mold

I am a force of nature

A bright light to behold 

Am I an unrepentant liar 

Does all I touch turn into gold

The context’s all depending 

On the stories you’ve been told. 

My name begrudges envy 

My name inspires hate

For better or for worse 

I am the myths I did create 

And if you saw my face again 

What story would that make? 

Perhaps there is no answer

Perhaps we’ll never meet. 

Perhaps that’s just a story 

I tell myself to fall asleep. 

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I want a love with a light brimstone. 

Someone to dust the embers off me. 

A brilliant beautiful hopeless fool who doesn’t fear being alone

But prefers a kiss while I pour tea. 

Someone who leans on me while both read. 

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Another feather in my cap

I don’t mean to boast

That? Oh. I think it’s a plaque,

Or article in the Post?

Another good review

Am I doing this all for you?

I just published. You might have seen it.

Could just’ve been an illusion.

This? Another certificate

In French and Asian fusion.

If all this makes for good impressions

I promise you, not my intention.

I just picked up these gems from Spain

They could look good in a ring.

I’d love to chat but I leave today

I’m in Antartica till Spring. 

Am I doing this all so I won’t be forgot?

I’m absolutely not not. 

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You ignore my obvious jest 

Underneath one of your pictures

I’m not mad, but I suggest 

You ingest a satchel of Richards. 

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You toss me like a dirty coin when I’m anything but

You only value what you can’t possess. Gambling goods, the house makes you a chump

Change, or you’ll be left with less.

Excuse this brief disturbance

I’m done playing make believe 

Giving grandiose importance 

Inverse to what’s achieved. 

Another Movement, A boycott  

Avoiding what makes us bleed 

Another March, Profile Black Spot

While desperate families grieve. 

A scream of rage in inflated terms

Excusing bullies in victim masks

Pretending change is changing words

I’m done with it and all it asks 

The hypocrisy, the ignorance 

The family money that fuels our class

The self righteousness, the indignence 

Can take a number, 

Get in line, 

And kiss my ass. 

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This poem will not change the world. 

Your artwork will not either. 

Your language games will save no lives 

Your activism’s theater. 

You preach to choirs with rebel yells

And nowhere minds are changed 

Make believe you’re fighting hell

Hunger forgets your name. 

“Through my art”, an easy phrase

For “it makes me feel good” 

And heaped on it is far more praise 

Than cleaning neighborhoods. 

Extend your hand and know your sway 

And do not be confused. 

Change, it sees not Think or Say

It answers but to Do

It hasn’t noticed you. 

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“Be gone from me you scaly thing!” 

The creature cradled up his lute 

And on his way went packing 

To where?

To where ever! 

Music needed making! 

Without reserve he played his lute 

And musicians came to know him 

His instrument forever tuned 

Until one day they stole it

Expelled him to an icy stew 

Where they drowned his voice

And broke it. 

Isn’t that the creature strumming? 

For you he’s playing loudest 

No lute to accompany 

His silent show of malice 

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Your humble messenger Death, has come.

Nothing to shoot and nowhere to run. 

He points with his finger, as if asking a question, 

At flaws and the rot in our thought as a nation.

A long dead evil deluded anew? 

A shared secret hatred of Jews? 

A monochromatic morality too?

Red team, blue team, no team, you? 

Your humble messenger Death, waits for what you’ll do. 

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How long’s the fall from thirty thousand feet 

A day or a year, the blink of an eye? 

The frame of your lips is its own gravity. 

The shape of your words caress my mind

Our lips like locks upon the gates they keep

Yet lock to lock makes single key

The ground lifts up to kiss my shoes 

Even Earth loves me nearer you.  

Not wealth, not health, nor any lovely thing 

Has crossed my soiled hands and yet remained 

To savor the richness in this poverty 

A pauper king, cashmere mouthed, crowned in distain. 

Yet I carry riches without facade 

For I am a Poet, A Maker of Gods.