Let freedom ring

"The most unhappy man in the world is he that is not patient in adversities, for men are not killed with the adversities they have, but with impatience which they suffer." - Charles Bailly, 10 September 1571.

America, take up your sleeves; the day has only begun
and there is so much important work to be done.
We will finish by dusk if we stand as one
and sweat and squint in the midday sun.

America, how may I see you right?
How Whitman heard you sing that night?
How Roosevelt dug his boots in thick,
the mud caked on his walking stick

and pollen gathering in his beard
America,
I've missed you dear.

The Undergraduate on St. Patrick's Day

It’s warm tonight.
An early spring to mark
the conclusion of March
while the wind blows itself
in circles against alleyways.

Out there,
on the sidewalks the men
and women are lazily clothed
in last summer’s fashion:
dull green from head to toe.

They spill onto the pavement.
Cars swerve and honk
at the oncoming barrage
of frustrated souls embodied
in youthful wet dreams.

These people squawk back,
shouting at the motorists
to learn to drive their ca….
Onto the other sidewalk,
the mass marches onward

to the safety of a toilet seat
in such times of uncertainty.
Grasping hold of its bright
whiteness their bodies scream
out the wasteful evening

Their future lies in an
attempt to reach prosperity:
competition, marriage
children and church meetings.
What sense of justice depraves

this community?

Where I’ll be waiting. Their
fathers built these streets
and bulged their pockets to
be reckless. I’ll teach their
children about value and esteem

Then they will surely hate me.

"Art is a destination" I hear the muses sing

for Tiffany
thanks for letting me pretend
to be a woman

I

i wish i didn't put myself out there so much
and was proud enough to capitalize
all the proper nouns that do describe
every ounce of my inner being.
But i’m afraid of getting hurt
I choose instead mortar, flame,
to burn the lives of others
who want my intimacy
but they must know
mine is not unique.

i fear i may have
jumped the gun again.
Perceiving things wrong.

“These short lines
Can’t be misread”
i type
i never really liked
to read.

II

Someone asked me once
to name my top five books
and i couldn’t, i’m proud
enough to respond with
an educated explanation…

I never liked the unlearned.

Though people make me
hypocritical i know
i’m not that smart
i blame the glasses
they leave the lasting
impression I’m proud
enough to know
people read me
wrong.

III

This environment is not art:
a small desk with light enough
to illuminate the idle cobwebs
in the corner where I write
the American Spirits smoke themselves.

They wear and scratch at the sleeves
of my American Apparel v-neck tee
They’re hunched over my laptop
typing listlessly through
puffed smoke screens
of insight
that get lost
amongst the ash tray.

“Art,” I sigh as if it’s ME
typing with unmanicured
fingernails stained
like tooth decay on
and off the home row.
Their cherries speak
the click and klack
of type

On keys
where I am not the artist.
I am the clichéd American
listening to Icelandic poets
sing lullabies in a tongue
I’ll never taste nor touch
to the tip of one
genuine spirit.

IV

This is me smoking
The image of a reality
I could capture if
I had more talent
but the boyfriends
never let me sleep.

Instead, I perform ecstasy
On a four cornered stage
Laden with sweat stains
And always dirty sheets.

If only I could get paid
I think with lays
like these.

What matters is
I’m not talking
about politics
or the economy
or the person i
believed once
to be.

V

Click
The economy
Klack
Siblings I never see
Click
Gifts for my father
Hiss
He’ll never receive

Squawk
The lunch I attended
Klack
With my ex-fiance
Click
I forgot to mention
Smack
How great life was without him

IV

The theoretical act
of a pack of cigarettes
smoking me into oblivion
is a device purely likened
to the performance of an
ego overcoming self-
masturbation

Hands touching
fire to fingers
holding paper
while touching
a machine that
offers singularity

And now the rush
ripples through me
the gradual release
of me getting off
finally

How much it means to you

I've seen the easy way of passing by the truth.
I've lied and known the weight in how the lie was used,
but just to make it simple and easier to take
we'll keep this all between us and never have to face
what Jesus did to you.

When you met me then, I asked your plans that night,
you said "I've learned not to plan, it never turns out right."
It all seemed so confusing until you took the lead,
and now we've got that figured out, the worry should recede
of all that you could be.

The Belles of the Ball

Human life is a case of nuclear waste,
festering and buried deep beneath
Minnesota’s Iron Range, where it
waits to sprout mineral wings.

The sound of their tinny nourishment
beat destruction down on everything
that was and now isn’t. Nothing left
living at least nothing actually breathing.

Earth’s orbiting satellites jest “Sic”
semper tyrannis,” having witnessed
the end of a natural habitat. They’re
left to bask in independence,

taste their metallically bonded
tongues and laugh and laugh and
yet, Man’s memory lives on still
in the corporeal nostrils

of the lake’s dry shores whose
inhalation of the fallout radiates
consistent in the forever long
and sordid winter.

The satellites observe these
no-longer-spoken borders where,
above them, dimly lit monitors
click and klack meditatively…

The crags of once great lakes
cast shadows on their depth.
The hypocenters echo the
spirit of a dying planet

awestruck by its sole
inorganic inhabitants.