lift the veil over productivity

i summon my strongest wants
and relent to the highest bidder

i am always late to rise
cause i'm a known day-quitter

i must catch my delayed dream
before it sequesters me

and may my fingers dance like dust
floating through an errant sunbeam

North-Western

Riding my horse into the white sun,
I escape the formidable fury
of my still-fresh mistakes.
I tried to game the players,
cheat the clean-shirt sheriff,
play the same stucco'd notes
as every paint-slapped piper
that's ever peered over the drop.

I would bust my head a hundred
times open to spill its goods,
it would be a lifetime of good
done in a tight-breathed second.
The waves are hungry.
The foam floats to witness
me turning away,
riding my horse into the white sun.

Captured

I adore your latest effort.

Such a shame it will be ground

into dust— yeah, too bad for us all.

My mood ring is going disco

as I sift through your stanzas,

seeing what you took for good

from our moth-eaten monarchy,

thinking maybe you’d prove

that you weren't all that bad.

Oh baby you were cool—

the way you wanted it.

Darling you were sweet—

in patches, and like a peach

there were bruises all over.

My queen you were kind—

though I have said before

a thousand kindnesses

is not the same as kindness.

Lighthouse of an old life,

the day my hand was forced

to grasp the ticket in flight,

I buried relief between sobs.

My dear, you knew our reign

had reached its derelict end.

I am sorry we couldn’t be friends.

Yuno, You're Right

A sip from the cup of fantasy
gets me good and gone.
My storyboard smudges
and makes way for the silhouette,
determined that I forget,
and yet—

Time and distance, what of it?
Reality is how you fake it.
I have a psychotic tendency,
my delusions have awakened.

I am not the First,
never meant to be,
but if by some off chance
your universe breaks
from the weight
of losing your best friend,
I will be waiting
to be your new future,
to be your dead end.

the bullet-riddled words of the boston bomber

Now I don't like killing innocent people,
and who doesn't, after all, you only
become what you hate the most,
it's forbidden by Islam and Christianity
both, our own humanity forbids it,
and he knew it. He knew that when
you hurt one you hurt us all, but forgot
that you don't have to believe in Allah
for that to ring true. Now I don't like
to embellish the words of a murderer,
so I'll stop. But if heaven really rests
at the bottom of the barrel,
I don't think ending up in a boat
with a sharpened pencil shedding 
light on your darkest delusions
is the best plan God could devise.
It was lack of planning
that brought him there,
left to scribble out the bullet-riddled,
frightened confession of a hate-addled
brain. How fitting
that the justification for his revenge
was turned to cheesecloth,
because his love was full of holes.

These difficult feelings are just for show

and when the word go flows
out of your mouth like wine
pours from a broken promise,
you'll forget how it feels
to be at fault.

You have built a hammock
between the crosshairs. Refusals
dressed up as invitations keep
landing in your lap. The skyline
flirts with the void, a love story
you know well.

You cherry-pick your pleasures
and burnish the platter with your
tongue. And you are not the only
song to come up dripping from
the slew of those behind you—
that is well tested—

the worst of us shies away
and the best of us gets bested.
When the word go tickles
like a feather on your lips,
at least your compass is
unconditional.

The illusion that you are alone
softly squeezes your shoulders.
Your hands have gone colic,
they cry and cry and who knows why,
you have wrung them all you can.
Listen,

it is not a mandate to pull yourself
from the murky depth, you are allowed
to float, thrash, sink, burn or soar.
But no matter how you move on,
you will never go anywhere without three words:
I was wrong.

The Trajectory of Hate

Nothing I do makes enough money
to hook the ears of the hokey crowd,
who poke the stirring harmless giant
with news of what it's all about.

Handing out reams of bibs and pacifism,
I paddle through the sea of god-fearing
folks, and mark the veneer crumbling,
the bottom line at last exposed.

And it only descends further,
furiously assembling steam,
conning the common interest
with the promise of their furor.

Give me your rabid, your poor
huddled masses of prejudice.
None will be turned around.
I lift my lamp to the golden rule.