They bought up the bands first.
Every half-bit guitarist with some ripped
denim clothing jumped at the chance
to have more than bus fare to the next gig.

They bought up the bands and they
turned them into Spam.
Canned meat that is meant never to expire,
meant to be shipped to islands all over the world,
large and small.

Packaged, processed, made of who knows what.
It says what on the can, on the band, sure.
After all, who’s ever met a label that couldn’t be
doctored or fudged or a flat-out lie?

They bought up the music and the music flowed,
heavy with propaganda pollutants,
and we all changed our minds.

Our minds were worn as riverbeds are worn
as the music flowed through like a river flows through.
And the smokes we smoked were the smokes they smoked,
industry-purchased, paper-wrapped cancers.
And the shares went higher and the music played louder
and the bad that was turned worse
until everything turned from flowing to forcing
and the music was the ocean, large and terrible and murderous,
with things deeper and darker lurking beneath.

They bought up the bands and the music
and they wiggled their music-wedge into
the doorway of the tube, the telly, the tv, the idiot box.
After all, what’s so big a leap that the ocean of
the machine that is industry-music can’t manage?

They bought up the music, they converted us.
They bought up the television, they led us by the nose
like  ducklings, like lemmings.
They made us believe in art, believe in something
with lead-based paint covering the ***-metal caricature
of something that had been, long long ago,
but which never was, not truly.

Politics is pervasive, and politics pushes through.
The biggest stack pushes the players around,
makes the little guy fold even if he’s got a royal flush.
Because the biggest stack bought the half-bit guitarists
and the music and the television and all of us, bit by bit.

The biggest stacks have been buying us, every one.
And each of us has chosen sides, multiple sides,
because we don’t know what we’re fighting for,
but we know we’re fighting and we know we’re being bought.
It’s a difficult war we’re all fighting, alone and together.
A difficult series of seemingly pointless battles,
and we’re being bought and sold all the while.

But isn’t it nice to be wanted.

By Arcassin Burnham


Ya peeling at my heart here,
I'm ready to retire,
I'm ready to retire,
But more so inspire,
They coming after me with buckets like
I'm on fire,
Like I'm on fire,
I'm hotter than your sire,
If my eyes on the price and my head held down,
They will still take ignorance and I'll still
smile.
And I'll still smile,
I ain't going nowhere , you aint running ****,
Tired of you lames trying to run my ****,
I must be the most hated person in my
city , if I wasn't then I would be living happy with
friends,
Just cant seem to find the real ones, just
ones that pretend,
Bend,
All the rules just to get what they want,
I'm the one that don't end up with happy
endins',
walking around smiling in your face trying to flaunt.

I done had a long day, ain't gonna argue
with you people when I get home.
I was facing battles in my life where I wasn't
really happy with being grown..

And I.
Would like.
To say.
My peace.
With out.
The long.
*** speech.

how lovely
that depression is acceptable only until the breakdown.
it must garner sympathy but must not inconvenience,
look pitiful but not be unproductive;
like you are allowed to be empty
but only until the deadline,
will receive prayers and patience
only until your sadness translates into lazy;
they will claim to understand
only until you have stayed days in
without seeing sunlight,
fallen behind on classes,
missed projects you cannot return to.

your education
and your government
will allow you to be suffering
up until it ties you to bed,
makes you miss days of work
and drown in debt
and lose yourself;
afterwards
it will call these faults
the folly of an able,
merely careless mind;

mental illness
is a ghostly disease —
it exists
and everyone fears it
tells you to check in regularly on your friends for it
speaks of it only in respectful tones
a hushed whisper
about the rising death toll
or buried in a joke about the great
millennial existentialism
(how wonderful
that we have grown close enough to darkness
to be able to laugh at it)

and yet you cannot call it real
cannot claim it as an excuse
for not sleeping
or not eating
or not waking
or —
worse —
not working.

how stupid that we
are allowed to be hopeless
so long as we are not tired.

Woven patches of grey,
hues slow in momentum.
Tattered gaps letting through
              gleams of radiance.

But in motion do the faults
get sewn in silver linings.
And this blanket  
             mesmerising below.

Then the lonely flower opens
       its petals, reaching towards
the patch work of loving greys
                 yearning for a touch.

A singular drop falls, taking its
                   time to meet below.
So far has it descended to gently
              caress her wilting petals.

Replenished dew drops hang from
                         now pristine colours.
It waves in the subtle breeze,
      swaying in a dance of gratitude.