the sand between my toes
does not heal me.
there is no peace for me here.
_________________________
When I grow up,
I want to be brave.
I want to say the things
that need to be said,
gracefully. gracefully.
I want to do the things
that need to be done,
fearlessly. fearlessly.
I want to love the ones
that need to be loved,
fully. wholly. truly. deeply.
When I grow up,
whenever that it is –
I hope that I am brave enough
to be brave.
Quick, let’s build a wall.
Make it a hundred feet high;
better yet, make it two.
Take away their shovels
and ladders and ropes
and while we’re at it,
take what’s left of their
dignity and humanity.
Maybe we can tax the
ever lovin’ shit out of them
while were at it.
Just savages, don’t you know
that’s what they are?
If you put a door,
you better bar it.
Don’t let them out.
Don’t let them in.
They might taint our
hypocrisy with truth.
Guard it with your life,
sacrifice yours so that
they can’t have a better one.
Cover your legalities with
words like boundaries,
so it’ll be easier to ignore
the screams when the cartel comes.
We took away their shovels,
but maybe they can pile the bodies
like a stairway of the macabre.
maybe if enough people die.
In case anyone is interested, I self-published a chapbook on Amazon. It’s free for the next four days (including today). It’s not perfect, but it’s the first one I ever did so I’m okay with that. I’ll post the link below. It’s for kindle, but you can read it using several different apps.
everyone’s a poet these days,
don’t you know it?
charcoal marks on our fingers –
would be if this weren’t a
modern keyboard.
got a thesaurus
got a dictionary –
right at our fingertips.
let’s discuss the politics
of late-term abortion –
but for the love of the God
we sure don’t believe in –
make it pretty.
everyone’s a poet these days,
writing passion, fire, and nonsense.
paper mistakes in the waste
but not really cause we’ve
got a backspace.
notebook’s not a notebook,
not anymore.
guns belong in holsters,
not child hands, but
it’s kind of poetic
(and tragic) how another
kid just blew his brains out.
everyone’s a poet these days,
and they mean it.
don’t you question the authority
they got from who only knows
what kind of backwoods Bible.
history, history is a beautiful thing
when you have pictures of people
you can filter like cheap coffee –
sepia always looks a little better on
low calorie Jewish diet.
only 6 million people died.
everyone’s a poet these days,
damn keyboard warriors.
I see you, ready for war
with your gun and your attitude.
I see you there, armed too
with your judicial vigilantism;
your sentence would be swift,
in theory. Painless even.
I am not blind to what you see.
I see the world for what it is;
broken, but beautifully so.
broken, but tragically so.
I hope you never have to see
the aftermath of what I know
you’re capable of. I hope.
So beautiful through the haze
of a gun that’ll never stop smokin’.
Thing is, the thing is,
they were beautiful too.
Broken, but beautifully so.
Broken, but tragically so.
