It’s dead sharks in florida, this time,

while texas burns in a cross

and two chicago teams

are in the playoffs.

I’m starting to listen.

When I was little I was lead to believe that if enough people jumped high enough at the same time,

the earth would move slightly down from the force of the lift off,

and while that’s pretty good physics for a seven year old,

I know that all that jumping neither moved the earth nor made me like MJ.

Later, I was lead to believe that if enough people yelled loud enough at the same time,

ears and minds would open,

walls would collapse

and soldiers would set down their firearms;

but voices grow tired quickly

from organizing large groups of people

to do much of anything collectively,

and no one seems to agree

exactly what it is,

we should be yelling.

So basically

We are silent,

and so ears and minds are closed,

walls remain intact,

and firearms are passed down

into the hands of children

soldiers

too young to remember

what their hands felt like

before ever gripping

a rifle.

Lately, I have been lead to believe in nothing.

Nothing in the sense that all we are

is our composition,

which is a constant vibration of sub-atomic particles

which are always in transition,

so that nothing is fixed

and nothing is stationed.

Just swaying bodies

dancing towards

decomposition.

And this, I,

i find myself

compelled to talk about so much

is nothing more than

a figment of my brain matter’s imagination.

A collection of binary logical

responses and reactions

to sensory input stimuli sensations,

like a computer’s operating system,

based on mathematical equations.

I
am nothing.

I
do not exist.

So why am I still here screaming?

Why do I still keep a jump in my step?

Is it a cruel joke, this circular self-awareness?

Thinking everything into circles

and circles

Into themselves

Until all there

Is to think

about

Is

circles

and the names

We give them.

Lately,

I have been lead to believe in nothing,

but

I

hope for spirals.

In my dreams

I see an oak tree,

red like autumn fire,

on a grassy hill top

closed off by a rusted cast iron fence

with a frail little gate.

and I know this tree

to be you,

and I know this fence

to be the distance between us.

Behind the tree, the sky is crackling

with an over flow of energy

the likes of which can only be

seen by the most careful of

Observers,

mapping the constellations

composed of the hairs

on the back of your neck,

which rise slightly,

in honor,

when you smile

and mean it.

I know this tree to be you,

and I know this fence

to be the distance between us.

My fight is with you false prophet,

The same as my fight is with you

Preacher in a Lexus who shoots a 2 under

By noon each Sunday after preaching

A sermon that focuses on personal life fulfillment.

And with you event organizing church woman

Who does not understand the power of words

nor the power of cliques.

My fight is with

Everyone

And

Everything

That has successfully disillusioned an entire generation

Of bright minds from the idea of God

And has paved the way for this

Unrelenting loyalty to self identity

And entropic distancing from

Perfect, harmonious, unity.

Lord, save us,

Lord, save us all.

dead birds can fall from the sky in Arkansas
dead fish can float to the surface in the great lakes
flowering fields can be spotted with the corpses of cow herds
that dropped dead over night in Honduras, Vietnam, and
Wisconsin.
Oil can turn the oceans crimson,
the earth can quake with birth pangs,
a red calf can be raised by a rabbi in Israel.
My birthday can appear on a billboard
advertising it as the day all hell breaks loose
and still I pray.

show us a sign.

Hey, man, let me ask you something.
Are you happy?
It’s a simple question really,
It’s actually downright binary.
1’s and zero’s.
Yes, or no?
Are you happy?

Now don’t feed me that happiness is the absence of desire,
Hip shit,
Buddhist content philosophy,
‘cause I can see behind the lies lurking in the iris of your eyes
To where the optic nerve is pulsing with brain communication,
That your plight is in transcendent communion
With that of mine.

We are men lost within our own generation.

The secret subliminal screams of dissatisfaction
That screech out when you play the record backwards.
The capsized canoes of boys who always liked
Being in the water better than floating on
A construct that a current carries downwards.
The dead romantics who truly believed that love
Was something a man was supposed to project outwards.
The promised princes of suburbia
meant for motion.
Only.
Upwards.
And it is absurd to me
That this country was built for us.
Cities were abandoned for us.
Suburbia bloomed for us;
Like a garden kingdom
of private schools,
churches,
Golden arches,
And all the Wal-Marts and Targets
A man could ever ask for,
If a man were ever actually
inclined
to ask for a
Wal-Mart
or a
Target.
This was our home,
Our utopia.
They built this for us.
They did this to us.
Waved their wands on a hot summer day
with a glass of lemonade and created a
Bubble
Big enough to contain a
Sonic
Boom.
They were architects
Of a false reality
They taught us everyone was
Equal
And everyone was
Happy.
Favored ignorance
Over educated actuality,
But they could never forsee
Technology,
and
The way technology has grown.
No, they could never have predicted
That the internet would pierce
The bubble like a thorn,
And the cries of a history
Of injustices
Would be reborn,
In an electronic echo
Off mind’s still young enough
To be reformed.
Then
Pop!
The illusion is torn.

We were still just kids when it happened,
And that technology they didn’t quite get
Well, holy shit, did we grasp it.
Learned to code, decode, and map it,
Upload, download, and pass it
World wide.
The world’s youthful
eyes
were
Opened wide
and over night

We learned
they’d
Lied.

All of them,
Every last one.

I was asked not long ago why
Middle class white American
Young men turn to hip hop,
drugs
and guns.
I said its simple.
It’s the same reasons anyone else does.

It stood before us,
bearing its teeth like a wolf sanguine from the kill.
45.65 cubic inches of 5 speed,
77 Horsepower
at 9000 RPM’s,
in line
four stroke,
Café Racer.
Old school English rebel mentality,
built by the Japanese to please
American ferocity.
A steel horse monstrosity like
the mount Pestilence will ride out on
triumphantly when we finally fuck up
colossally big enough
to
break the last seal.
and I can tell by the
devil child grin corroding away
the angst on my best friend’s face
that this ain’t no regular motorcycle for him.
it is freedom
to leave this place.

and man, I don’t know too much about motorcycles,
but that word freedom lights my fucking blood on fire
and makes me feel alive
and so beautifully
stupid.

Welcome to a slam.

Contrary to popular belief,
The world will not end,
Melt down, or collapse
In the next hour and thirty minutes
without you.

So turn your fucking cell phone off.
Close your laptop,
Disconnect the headphones from your stupid “i” whatever.
And open up your ears to the sweet sounds
And slick screams of genius.

Humanity manifested
In vivacious vocabulary turned
Knife slice malicious majesty.

Sweat and blood rite devotion
Be it to God, Man, Woman,
Sex, Comedy,
Tragedy.
Or just plain ole’
Bare backing,
Hard fucking poetry.

Imagine me.
Sitting here,
Pissed off with a microphone
When your cell phone rings.

I’m an asshole wanna be writer,
A sixth year senior with almost two
Liberal arts degrees,
And a mother who had me reading
Before I could take a proper, self-reliant pee.
Trust me,
You don’t want to fuck with me
Linguistically,
Lyrically,
Philosophically,
Or Hip-Hop
Gangsta ass mutherfuckingly.
I will eat your shit up and fuck your
Girl on the hood of my
Dirty Black Hyundai Tiburon,
Like Donkey Kong
Or a priest gone wrong.

This constant connection to the world
Via technology
Is supposed to be used to promote
World harmony
Through intellectual
Unity and mutual
Dialectical
Hegelian
Prosperity.
Instead: You’re googling Steven Colbert
Singing Rebecca Black’s “Friday, Friday.”
Are you fucking kidding me?

Wake the fuck up!
This is border city,
Nikola Tesla,
Luchador wrestler,
Eargasm,
Toe spasm,
Mind melt,
Electricity.

We spit rhymes and lyrical lines
Like the Kool-aid man fucks up walls:

Hardcore and with a red face, outta breath.

‘Cause he gives it his all till there ain’t nothing left.
Life and death,
Metaphor, Similie,
And hyperactive, hypochondriatic, hallowed,
Alliterated
Hyperbole.

Now please.

Enjoy the show, and buy a god damn cup of coffee.

If you let me fall asleep on the floor next to your bed,
like a heroin addict staring up at starlight only he can see,
I’d consider you heaven sent and adjust my affairs accordingly.

I’ve grown so weary and wiry
from chasing down the dead
for their history,
or perhaps
my bones have rusted down
in complacency,
from the dead’s
wasted willingness
to communicate with me.

I cannot speak for them,
but they never let me be.

I’ve grown so weary and wiry,
let me sleep, my love,
just
let me.