Blame It On The Genes

There's always some kind of pathetic pressure.
Like the current in this sickly river
You walk past everyday, it pushes steady and
Hard and destroys your senses one by one.
It's a shock from a cascading current of fear
Or a curiosity that pulls you like you used to make
Your mother do in such painfully public places.
But I have to press the button and put the finger
Down my throat and there are things that
I could do that are much worse I suppose.
In my head they're not even words but to her
They are two ton bricks bearing her down
And shattering bones, so I'll build a dam and
Staple it shut, powering down and building her up.

Why I Need to Start Wearing a Watch

The fake bells from this corporate clock
Won't have any competition where I'm going.
The silent skies will let the day pass unnoticed
And unwanted by the ever-dying monks.

The only vows they make now are to an
Hourly wage that comes straight from the coffer.
I'd prefer it if just one gave freely
Of his time to give me some of my own.

His and my daily routine has now become
Strange and undesirably new, like a pair
Of old shoes that you haven't put on for years,
But what's not here is killing me too.

I celebrate the hateful rain that falls like
A dead wet reminder of all the things
We love to complain about but easily forget,
But returning, means more than most of the rest.

This rotting wooden bench just drinks it in
And breathes it out like all of these changes
Never really happened and never really will,
As the sun beats down and dries out his bones.

It'll Cost You Five Dollars To Kill Yourself

The wind on this bridge pulls me
Left and I just might let it.
If I can hop the concrete fence
And find there floating some brief control,
Then maybe the toll was worth it.

It's not the auto dive or the
Sinking steel that I really care about,
And I don't want anything to end quite yet,
As long as it's my nails digging into
Rubber wheels, letting go and letting be.

All this space between surfaces seems
Meant for something other than bored
Naval officers putting on a show.
Maybe I can upstage them and
Put your hard earned money to good use.

But then I realize that fighting the wind
Is actually fun and much less
Predictable than the self-loathing SUV's
That bring friends to their knees in marvelous tears.
What happens to me is so damn unknown.

Abort The Mission

The worthless wallet sized speeches they call salvation
Are the niave astronaut dreams of a balding young boy
Who never realized the binding would break if you
Hit the nail with the end of the book. Stop the presses
Permanently and fire those writers who've never seen
Real death; they are the descendants of thieves
Who built empty nation upon empty nation by picking
Rocks from the ocean and pretending they're pearls.
I say we drown them now in their own ink and
Pull out the pages they glued back in so
There can be no nation without action of hand.
If art is imitation then we must keep painting
With brand new colors, to brighten the eyes
Of that beautiful girl.

A Never-Ending Ode

What could I write but a never-ending ode
To sing my ever-growing love.
Up end the oak and watch the vines
Wrap us up from head to toe.

Never wash your heart stained skin
Or take the earth out of your eyes,
And let the night fall down again;
Such a sweet scent to be conquered in!

My fingers walk on desert dunes
To find some perfect symmetry
And memorize the entire map,
To every sacred inch consume.

So happily I lay the road
And make cement from sweat and tears,
For as the new horizon comes
I'll write this never-ending ode.

Interview With An Insect

If you look closer at the ant you burn
Through glass, you might see some frail form
Of yourself slowly dying in the heat that
Came from a matchbox marked by the past.

Did you speak to it there on the slab of cement?
Adding interrogation to outright torture,
Forcing the mirror of fear to show the
Parts that can be so easily plucked.

All the hard and heavy lifting has been done
And now Marcus must find some place
To be safe, but first he must prove he is
Who he says he is, or at least who he wishes to be.
But there's a long line of others waiting downhill,
Begging for burns with chattering teeth.

The Frankenstein Oak

The trees bleed from orange to brown
While the other arm shows bone
And leaves the half full fools to fight
For something that they don't even want.

They'll eventually fall to the fake ground
And wonder if this newfound hell is
Being run over by round white angels who
Come and go quickly, just to torment you.

Those who stretched out when color was there
Might just get lucky if a passing storm
Or a gust of air can set them in soil,
Surrounded by those young and greedy admirers.

Just pray you don't find yourself floating
In the backbreaking ocean where life itself
Has frozen in heat and becomes sectioned off into
Those that are worthwhile and those that are not.

Then here comes the bright young man
With his flourishing shape and fresh pale skin,
Who'd rather not see his future unfold,
Pushing out further and ignoring what's left.