I come from the great unwashed
womb of the child
who didn't dare dream
from a scheme
where the last lights are embers
from ravaging concrete flames

I come from the house fire of
denatured childhood
abandoned architecture
indolence in adolescence and
wrestling with the will of the wind

I come from crawling smoke
lingering in doorways
lining streets paved with
pejorative and placation
where the insightful ask is
"wit are you lookin' it?"
and the answer is always
a wrong one

I come from malnourished minds
where the bytes outnumber
the starving they would feed
from where the drowned
still walk around
coveting concrete feet

I talk to the pines. I sit
under their boughs of perpetuity,
rest my head against a security of
surety I can't quite grasp.
I tell them I am lost, that the search
has been costly. I tell them
I am the red squirrel
who lost one too many nuts.
I tell them the axeman has no love
for the taxman, though both
have been cut loose. I tell them
nosotros fuimos hechos
para más que esto. I tell them
there are things I've done
that not even the clearest sky
could observe, that pride is the fall
of the haughty man
and what comes after isn't worth a mention. I tell them
Old Man Wibble may have been
a drunken fool but at least he knew
what he was doing. I tell them
my attention has leisurely slipped
into a dimension quite immeasurable.
They wave their boughs
like wings in the wind. I tell them
this song could never be wrong
for the music is our own.

There's the exit door
Handle-less

They want to rub us out
like Jack never met Jill
vigorously
whether it's with culture or with pills
we're excised
by the rising tide below the hill
we'll die up here
who will be the one to make the ****?

They want to put us out
to pasture
like a light
They want us all to doubt
we have a real reason to fight
They've got us figured out
so They think
well, They might
switching up opponents
quick as day turns into night.

They want us to be quiet
as a mouse is to a man
They want our only diet to be
yellow eggs and spam
They want us smiling sweetly
like our teeth were made of jam
up here we only grimace
at Their sinister advance.

They want us not to linger lest
our love become the truth
They want us to move on
without a second point of view
They want us to point fingers
so that's just what we'll do
and who are They?
the question asked, the answer
could be you.