500 years ago,
On a shoreline in northern Peru
More than 140 children,
Were ritually sacrificed,
Their chests sliced open,
From the sternum,
And their hearts ripped out,
Literally, all in one day.

In America over 5000 catholic priests
Have been reliably identified,
As child rapists,
And that's just since 1950.
And only in one country.

Over 300,000 child soldiers exist today.
The worst of the worst,
Had to ****** their parents,
On the day of their abduction.
Think about cutting open your father's throat,
And watching him bleed at your feet.
Over 30% of child soldiers are girls.

This poem won't trend,
Almost no one will care,
And I am certainly no saviour.

But somehow, someday, somewhere,
The essence of us must change.
Only art can save us.
I know that now.

He sat,
sweetly serenading
the elderly lady.
Their hands
were clasp,
and she relaxed
as the pain
of living
slowly faded.

This was his gift
to take something
many were happy
to give.
With soft words
and strange energy
he channeled
his humanity.

A willing ear
open to hear
all songs
and melodies
of heart ache
and physical pain.

So, he sat
and passed
a chicken sandwich
to a strange old woman.
He listened and heard
all that she said
with and without words,
and for a moment
just a brief interlude
in the darkness
of her daily life
there was a sense
of love and kindness.

Hazel eyes
of cosmic wisdom
and compassion
he did not
see strangers in pain
and walk past them.

He sat,
with a sobbing stranger
who needed someone to listen,
gave him a ride,
let him use his cellphone,
and spent more then
a minor moment
willing to hear
what the stranger had to say
as tears moved
across a tattooed face.

Maybe it was
a fruitless endeavor
to expend energy
on people
society
had discarded,
the deeply scarred
and charred bits
of burnt out
hearts,
maybe one moments
is not enough
time to undue
a lifetime of abuse,

but he sat,
kind hearted
ears open
and willing
listen.

Why I am so Beat

Something about...the road, old shoes and sore feet,
motorcycles and wine,
greasy diners and last dimes,
half a stale Hoagie left to eat.
Man, that's
why I am so Beat.

Headed out west from town to town.
Dry-rot houses, faded signs,
Pioneers in rags, so behind the times.
This dead world keeps puttin’ me in a funk,
Pal, that’s why
I’d rather just stay drunk.

Girls and boys in every bar,
From Kansas to Colorado,
Hit me up for drinks and manila tar,
Trying sadly to feel what I do,
Man it’s hard;
That’s why I feel so scarred.

I came out west to find my soul
And saw emptiness instead.
Don’t ask me where I’m heading next,
Cause I don’t know.
I’m friggin hexed.
All I know is drive & drink & sleep;
Man, you know
That’s why I am so beat.

August 3, 2018

when we are in love
we are raw red hearts
bleeding
exposed to the flesh
of the night air
in crisp, sharp breaths
ventricles open wide
as its beats paint
the stars crimson,
skylit rubies
baring all
peeled back touch
of cells like
the muck of our guts
spilled out yet
       somehow contained

My insides are
braided, like veins
pumping life into universes
receiving the tender fire
of your jeweled, earthy words
rising to meet each kiss
like an abulation

I am
boiling cherry broth
in this heat-licked ice
that melts upon the tongue
in salted frenzy,
delightful

Wash over me
Hold me in cupped hands,
                       gently
Take me by the tips of
my soul's hips,
                  firmly
for I am at risk
of being pulled into
the sweeping monsoon
of
     your
forever

People move
in fear,
migrating from
the dangerous militia
chasing them
with death’s gleam
in their eyes,
fathers carry
their daughter,
mothers urge
their sons
to move on
as miles pass.

Strangers
and
family members
are tightly packed
and stacked on top
of one another
as a world of choppy water
moves them forward
to a harbor they hope
is safer than the home
that they ran from.

Thin tired faces
hungry and anxious
hoping to escape this
nightmare,
easily inches from death,
move to march
across soft lands
and desert sands
seeking something
us soft bellied
cheeseburger
loving sedentary
men and woman
could not comprehend.

I hear the horrible hate speech
screeching out at me,
beer bellies bulging dangerously
with prechewed stupidity
denying the humanity
of these struggling human beings.
Tears of strained patience
crease my age lined face
as I try to explain
the reality of another being
who is suffering.

My peers do not hear me
instead they promote fear greedily,
But I see some strangers
holding up signs of love
speaking the same truth
that I eschew
to show all of you
that refugees do not walk
without a reason,
and we have enough resources
to be decent human beings.

America,
I am tired of
your bad boy
obsession.

I am
fed up with
the adoration
of this racist
nation
with confident
sociopaths.

See,
these guys
used to make me
laugh,

but there frantic
antics
got really dangerous,
and their harmful ideals
have become
a plague level
contagious
social pathogens.

So, America
please stop
enabling these
war mongering
old men,
with inferiority
complexes
that make them
keep waving
their rocket wieners
at foreign nations.

Or else the
nice guy minority
will take our
goodwill
to other countries
and let you deal
with the real
fallout
of your
nuclear
gullibility.

There are shots in the distance.
Teachers push their students
to the nearest exit.

Crying and afraid
one girl runs
all the way
into the woods,
while another
calls her mother.

Reporter asks if
she was surprised
that this happened.

The teenager
is barely able to speak
without trembling,
but manages to reply
that she figured
it was about time.

This has become
so normalized,
that we have
shooter drills.

Hallways become warzones.
Ceramic tiles are stained
with barely teenage bodies,
shell shocked students,
walking disasters
disassembled
and stranded in the middle
of American nightmare
that we can’t wake up from.

A ticket won’t take
these tired children
to a safe and warm place,

won’t help me escape
from the darkness
that stains
their strained face.

My fear is misplaced
as a scraggly faced stranger
stumbles out of the night shade
asking for the time
and any spare change.
My apprehension
is mine not his shame.

A shining sign
sears the night,
illuminating the people
who sleep
just inches from my feet
under a thin torn blanket
that barely conserves any heat.

Their struggle
makes me uncomfortable.
It is not love,
but guilt
that makes me give
the hurt homeless kids
a buck or two.

A day away
I barely
think of these
struggling
human beings
as I luxuriate
in my comfortable lifestyle.

My child doesn’t need to behave.
Yours can be consigned to a grave.
My child is a bully, and that’s OK
Yours shouldn’t be in public anyway!
My child should go to any school he wants
Others only if they don't choose to flaunt.
Too bad if yours suffers misery,
We whites will just re-write history.

We prefer blacks go away and roam
Because we won’t finance their home!
We point to ugly days like Attica
Then tell them to go back to Africa.
Don’t bother with a Freedom Bus!
Equal rights is only for us!
Interracial relationships sicken,
Just a case of the plot thickens!

None of this outrage would be true
If it was what whites get subjected to!
All that crap about White Supremacy
Has not one claim on legitimacy.
It’s totally wrong down to the ground,
Just an excuse to keep others down.
Criminalizing rights protestors
Is a social outrage altogether!

People at this stage in history
Still so unevolved is tragedy.
To even utter these hateful words
Are among the ugliest ever heard.
They only have themselves to blame
That they still remain the same.
It’s up to them to accept the challenge
And work to put mankind in balance!

A string of obscene things
came slip sliding
out of
the greasy hole
where you shove
all that sugary
junk stuff.

Crusty cursing,
crunchy coronary,
contrarian
causing you to
spit chunks of crap
back at me.

You spew your pathetic
prejudices at me,
spilling a stream of consciousness
racist river
right down my throat.

Your blood pressure
rises with every syllable.
Until, your constricted
blood vessels cause
your clogged
and shrunken heart
to stop.