12.
The Empty Palace

The shortage of time before eternal rest
Fills every moment with a sense of urgency.
Each word, carefully chosen, requests
Apperception for one who will join omniscience.

Proof disallows artistic criticism.
What better proof of worthiness
Than elegaic prose and reflective requiems
Could words provide, and thereby end emptiness?

Perhaps sincere utterance of love,
Or praise of happiness and sunshine
Would show better respect for God above;
A positive creed might reflect the light divine.

Perchance a whisper of magic,
A hint of lore and superstition,
Might conquer vacuity so tragic,
And open up longed for expression.

Instead a philosophy that glorifies death,
And memories of the one who dies,
Binds all expression to greater depth
So the effort will not be despised.
 
 

13.
The bloom of the nightshade opens.
It is spectacluar and attractive.
The interior expands
To allow a brief glance at the stuff of future generations,
Or an altered and elongated view of the past.
The scent moors itself to the alveoli
In the lungs of young and aged alike.
Hesitation to respond magnifies into discomfort until
Action and assertiveness wash the spirit
For the duty of rectifying petty mistakes,
A duty intent on self examination,
Spontaneous but well studied.
Solutions to the problem that will be found
Must take a proportionate time of suffering
To the duration it took to create the morass.
If the examiner has will enough to change his or her image
On the plane where it is observed,
Then one must conform to a rigorous custom of accepted beauty
Before the image distorts beyond control,
Slumps into the wasted state of discord and unkempt self flattery,
Threatening to shatter even a justification for consciousness.
Therefore, from the outset,
The danger shopuld be known;
We are all like poisonous flowers.
 
 

14.
In the night subconscious memory sought out the sleeper.
It snatched rest away even as the incubus of family affairs settled nearby,
Principally the memory of the sleepers
Immature ridicule of his grandparents.
The dream warned the sleeper that he must find them
To correct the wrongs his attitude had inflicted.
The sleeper learned that for many years
They had been in sanctuary from the pain his taunts had caused.
To correct his wrongs and find this safe haven
He need only turn to reverence.
The dream further warned
That if he could not find them
He would suffer the same treatment when he reached their age.
The doom capriciousness brings
Exhausted the sleeper while he slept
Until the tossing ended with the onset of cognitive thought.
He remembered that his grandparents
Had been dead for years.
He had fought with them on occasion
But he had never been intentionally cruel,
Just impatient.
Years after the sleeper had that dream
He grew old.
He saw in his grandchildren the same qualities
That had been so strong in him as a youth.
Horror struck.
In disgust he could see his own weaknesses echoed before him,
In disgust he saw himself as old and forgetful,
The traits he had abhorred in his own elders.
Then he realized the accuracy of that dream he had, of that curse.
For expressing disgust for his elders
He wound up just like them.
The inescapable equation entertained him very much,
So much he forgot his frustration and had a good laugh,
And kept on forgetting until frustrationwasn't even a memory.
 
 

15.
Slices of Feminine Mystique

Nothing could ever match the value
Of the pristine look in a naieve girl's eyes
As she smiles without knowing
That clouds gaze down upon her cleavage with envy.

Nothing could ever match the livid pout of a woman
Whose lover has just gazed without reserve
At the passing of another.

Nothing escapes the attention of a woman who seeks a mate,
Though she will try to hide her sly glances
So that none can confirm the fascination she holds from afar.

The impossibility of gaining favor with a woman
Whose goal in life is only to tease but never relieve
Drives ment o feverish delerium,
To the utter satisfaction of the nymph who will grant no favors.

(Please direct hate mail about my sexist attitude to lesserdevil@hotmail.com)
 

16.
Post Partem Abortion
What bitter food sustains the sickness in human hearts
Until it grows strong enough to be hatred,
Powerful enough to take the life of a child?
Might that food be the hollow sound of denial
As it bounces off of apartment walls,
Denial that sanity ever existed,
Denial that poverty and ignorance can ever be overcome,
Denial of love for the miracle that is a child
     a child meant to mature so that more love could be spread
     slaughtered on the path to maturity
     by a mother crazed by a source
     the whole world would prefer not to know
     a source of venom
     no sustenance could have caused it, no matter how bitter
     sychological depravity brought on by abuse
     self-abuse, drug abuse, child abuse
     sexual abuse, promiscuity
     with so many deficiencies what chance did the child have?
     the woman murders her baby
An end must be brought to the insanity
Which stretches out from poisoned minds in all directions
Infecting others so that murder of the innocent may continue
A pantomime of evil for the enjoyment of their keeper
A grotesque zoo master
Who tosses scraps of uncontrollable anger to his pets
Hungry for that nourishment, it gives them unholy strength
Whenever they feel threatened,
Even if the imagined threat exists in the frail form of a child.
How much can be said of the disease that leads to murder,
Or, to be excuciatingly clear, to infanticide?
Too much can be said.
Silence better punishes what can not be stopped through attentiopn.
In utter silence the lines of insanity may be severed
And bring an end to the bloodshed.
Shun the practitioners of violence
Turn your backs on them,
In silence, if it is no solution, at least can be found comfort
For the grief that exists because there is no answer.
 
 

17.
Outside the rain falls hard.
The wind shows it has the not-so-subtle ability to knock down trees.
Inside the clock ticks as a life slips
Closer to reunion with the earth.
How could it take so long for help to arrive?
Don't they know how serious it can be?
Soon there is darkness enough to keep the storm company.
In the distance sirens can be heard again.
No proof exists that they are headed for this
The proper destination.
The eyes look at the ailing person,
Trying to find a way to help.
They know that nothing will stop
What must one day happen.
The eyes do not know when to give up,
Do not realize that there is nothing that can be done.
Candle light brings an antique aura
To the surroundings during the outage,
Surroundings already filled with antique people.
The classiness of their march to death,
Dignified and soldierly,
Never conveys to the eyes, too young yet to think
That even the youth are on that march,
Or perhaps the reason the eyes never give up looking for hope
Is because everyone marches to death together.
Everyone should help the dying,
But too few actually care.
Thankfully the sirens arrive before the life slips away.
At least the eyes do not have to record another death.
This way they can receive word
And be filled with the knowledge that it was not their fault,
And, really, nothing better could happen to one
So tired of being on that march.
 
 

18.
Even in this state the country tried to leave behind
Evidence and hints leak in.
Everything points to the conclusion
Big things are hidden here.
Secrets go untold when powerful men want them buried.
Nothing should matter so much to history as the facts.
Everyone with any interest in the secrets
Hear about the men who carried them
And how viciously they were silenced.
We can see the wake of evil through our lives
A serpent that yanks its victims below the surface
To drown them before it swallows them whole,
Rather near the shore where it was once considered safe.
No longer does anything mean security.
The voice of protest is kept poor and weak enough
To be easily silenced, like the bearers of secrets.
The world grows larger, and the people who would comfort it
Grow fewer every day.
History should note that there are those who sought asylum
From the endless pages of the passing annum,
But could find none.
In the world of big business, dirty business
Allows all of the injustice to live on so that it might be utilized for gain,
The ultimate goal of the power corrupted.
Even those who have survived with their secrets a long time
Have no safety or security
When to be found out means execution.
Never threaten big money.
 
 

19.
In one of those nightly talks that make life so fine
Not too far in the past
The question rose with regards to whether an armed force
Has the right to assemble in our fair country,
This free nation,
The land of uninhibited civil liberties,
If that armed force is not the preexisting military.
Instead the question should have been raised
Whether or not men who want to assemble with their arms
Are ready to die for that right.
The conversation continued until both participants became angry.
Each side thought their argument self-evident, correct,
Like a religion
Neither person wants to understand
Where the other person came up with such unadulterated crap.
The anger this caused should serve as proof
That conflict over this issue will inevitably result in deaths.
Immaturity thrives in thenotion that established law
Automatically holds force maje re.
The forces of established law espoused stability,
But to the rugged individualist
That stability closely resembles control, confinement,
Even persecution.
My friend couldn't really support the idea
Of military control over who carries weapons in America,
Where people are born free, or at least they were today.
He probably just wanted to play devil's advocate.
 
 

20.
Lines on Dreams, April 1992

The light slowly died out in the squat
As the sun went down outside.
The dust on the floor reminds one of thought
Sacrificed unwittingly to sensation.
A passing notion strikes me that my companion
Has finally died of an overdose here, in the dirty city,
For he no longer seems to breathe.
The bones of his arms no longer have muscle
To do anything but tie and grope about weakly.
It is impossible to tell if he is still alive.
The laugh in his eyes, and everyone else's too,
Burnt out quite some time ago.
The light vanishes from eyes that have seen too much.
God gives them darkness so that the images no longer burn.
If a squad car goes by it isn't to help, or even to bust,
They go by just to get a good laugh
At some plain old fashioned helplessness.
Even I, the veteran of so many collapsed dreams,
Can barely stand.
I would rather crawl over to check his pulse, so I do.
My last remaining friend has died,
Killed by the twisted enemy that lets you live only to toy with you
Before it completely extinguishes your fire.
Somewhere this scene must be hilarious,
A story to add to a gross, morbid collection,
But here is only a quiet, defeated sound
As I lay back into the dirt with a groan.
 
 

21.
Note to an enemy
Should this ever reach your eyes
Know that stupidity can be diagnosed,
But the only cure for it is death.

22.
The dream never ends when I open my eyes.
Every morning the shadow filtered sunlight creeps into my room
To gently awaken me from slumber.
The walls echo with the images from my dreams
In the moment before I forget them.
One morning a realization struck
Perchance the object of scorn and derision.
The conflict between human souls
Born in the lower chasms of thoughts
Spawned by a voice alien to human nature.
A newborn baby has no thoughts of violence
Until life goes on... the emergence.
Ancient awareness survives in violent thought,
Passed on from one generation to the next.

The center of many conflicts
Man has chosen to place
Justification for violence in the fickle arms of idealism.
The flaws in his logic elude his eyes,
Ad hominem abusive;
Justification is filled with lies,
Lies that become graver as the blood begins to flow.
Written ideas disguised as truth,
Veiled in propriety.
Men afflicted with nationalism
Worship those graven ideals, those insane rationalizations.
They never grasp that their thoughts spell doom.
Violence catches the breath and whisks it away,
In the wake only suffocation.
Thirst for blood so depraved, so atrocious
But tenacious.
Draughts of the crimson fluid can be had for free today,
Wherever there is a war.

The memory of the dream
The recollection
All of the dead men wore my face
As did all of the killers, all of the deranged.
I understood just how wrong,
How wrong.
 

23.
Intimate details reveal nothing candidly
About the dignity of innocence in the human heart
When they come from a woman fond of being spoiled
By the embrace of strangers.
Such circumstances trample the blossoms
Meant to unfold inthe closeness brought by love.
The woman fond of deflowering
Disputes the value of delayed gratification.
She denies that waiting for love is best.
Instead she frolics in the waves of physical stimulation,
Certain that nothing can be wrong in a lovely heart.
Animal urges are always the quickest defended
By those who swim in their intricate taboos.
Once imbibed the urge becomes iniquitous,
The urge becomes stronger as the experience grows.
Judgment follows on the heels of misguided love.
Love becomes lost amid tangles of intentions
Rather than found in joyous union.
This is my portent of doom
For you, once mine, farewell.
 
 

24.
Thick clouds of smoke
Envelope reality from one end of the room to the other.
A small battalion of thoughts tries to sneak in.
They gain access to the room,
But then they cower in the corner,
Afraid of what the smoke might do.
They know they must muster the courage
For a frontal assault on the minds of the occupants
Who have been taken captive by the smoke.
The charge from the dark corners of the room
Takes the thoughts through the thickest smoke.
Too late they realize they can not exist
In such a hostile environment.
Most of them perished with the knowledge
That their attempts to free the humans from the trance
Nay, the stupor,
Was at least an honorable way to perish.
The few thoughts that did survive the foolish campaign
Could only recount stories of horror to their commander
Back at headquarters, far from the scene of battle.
They told of a giant hookah in the center of the room
That thwarted them at every turn
And fought with the strength of a lion.
In the end they just left the zombies to rot.
 

25.
The ignorance of passing a slur to another human being
Has brought many lives to an end.
The action often conjures a fury
Inside even reasonable, pacifistic people,
Driving them to kill in a forgotten ritual of lust for blood.
The ignorance of manslaughter surpasses
The stupidity of the slur that led to the act.
No matter how depraved either action could be said to be
When a life is taken the mark on reality is permanent.
Few people will care after the perpetrator loses freedom,
Fewer even than those who will care when they hear about the killing.
With so few people having any concern for life or freedom
One would think people would stop the violence,
But at the level at which insults are cast
The trigger just got pulled
One more time.
 
 

26.
In the quiet of the night some things should be left unthought.
Unsavory ideas make dark corners darker.
The passing of each second contains mysteries
Too transitory to be inspected.
Evil thrives on human thought,
Without humanity evil is harmless.
Evil in ethereal form
Uninhibited by physical presence
Becomes dangerous when dwelt upon too long.

Avoid the thought of evil spirits.
Avoid an attack on your person
By malicious presences.
Remain calm and pretend that nothing out of the ordinary can happen.
Pretend that these things do not exist.
Denial remains the preferred method
To not let it get to you.
Should that fail and malice encroach
On the tidy routine to which you have become accustomed,
Then this simple guide to combat
Should be of immense value.

First, when the attack comes to your attention
With violent manifestation,
Seek outside help.
If that is no longer an option
Either because of the urgency of the situation
Or the isolated nature of your position,
Then the best defense is mirrors, garlic, wolf's bane,
Crosses, bibles, holy water.
It may also be prudent to prepare your will.
The will won't help you stay alive,
But it will defend against lengthy court battles by your heirs
After your demise.
In the event you are killed do not panic,
Just remember that you were not evil while you were alive
Or evil would have recruited you instead of
Dismembering you.
If you manage to get help
Then be thankful for your salvation.

Second, in the event of a passive attack,
Again, the best defense is disbelief.
If that fails to work you may pray the rosary,
Hide under your bedsheet, hold tightly to a wooden stake,
Wahtever turns you on.
Remember, disbelieve until violence strikes,
Then make a futile attempt to contact help,
(Be warned, good help is hard to find,
Especially when you need it to fight the forces of evil)
Then resign yourself to the fact
Nothing could be much worse than a mortgage, alimony
And child support payments.

This advice brought to you by the caring people
At B.A.T. Enterprises.
When you are alone in the middle of the night
Take the advice of the professionals
At Bastions Against Terror, Ltd.

27.
Thick darkness sometimes does little
To reduce the fear of a person who must hide.
The tension magnifies when nothing can be seen,
When just the slightest sound may mean the end of running.
At night it becomes more difficult to see,
But sounds carry much further.
The heart beats, shaking windows.
It roars in the ears of a person on the run.
No one can suppress their personal demons.
When the demon breaks free from control
It thunders victorious black hymns,
Hymns vile enough to taint the ears of the host.
Other people say the quiet builds up.
It grows loud enough to scare a dead man.
Some say the experience approximates
A phenomena associated with acid.
They explain the roaring as a flashback.
Adrenaline paralyzes some when it hits,
The rush too strong to handle as pressure builds.
The weight of knowing that the law
May crash down on your head at any moment
Leaves some people with a sense of dread
So strong they no longer boast
The ability to function under pressure.
Most law enforcement officials could confirm
That the person who freezes in a moment of danger
Will likely act violently when the ability to move returns,
More so than the person who runs immediately.
The man who acts will attempt to evade his pursuers.
He knows that to fight them is futile.
Panic is the father of violence.
No matter what type of person is chased
The chance remains they will turn to violence if cornered.
This sends a message to the men who make their livelihood
By ending the freedom of those who run from the law.
The world is a dangerous place.
Take care that too much confidence doesn't swagger your step.
Desperate people often have desperate strength,
And if you think you are a hero you're probably wrong.
Adrenaline has ended many good lives
For very bad reasons.
Some people do not understand
How serious it is to keep a man in a cage
When he doesn't deserve to be there,
Simply because the law can.
Many people would rather die.
The person on the run thinks a lot
About the horror of gazing at the walls for years,
Or through steel bars at terrible, terrible people,
Some of them prisoners, but most of them captors.
Only God can judge humanity.
Living beings are too embroiled, too biased to do so.
Those who are not careful
Could spend an eternity wrapped in regret
Of mistakes they made while they were alive.
It is true that the men who police America
Are subject to a higher law than the one that is written,
Just as we all are.
There are those who believe
The written law to be preconceived oppression.
A sick sort of hope can be taken from the certain knowledge
That people who hate the emptiness of poverty
Will often turn to crime as a means of passing time,
And that in those ranks there will be those
Who would rather face God's justice than man's,
Who refuse to be humiliated for their actions.
Such men founded our country,
Especially Virginia.
The war against England was a desperate measure
On the opposite side of established law.
The deaths of all the Englishman
Doesn't tarnish the memories of the founding fathers.
Such a situation exists for amny in America today.
Our supposed representation is a lie,
As evidenced by the representatives themselves.
The right to judge criminals who fight to remain free
Is a falsehood claimed by men
Too Whiggish to be trusted.
 
 

28.
What price must be paid for work
Done to survive until death.
As the year's pass the body crumbles,
A shadow of the presence it once was.
Hearing dwindles to faint reverberations.
Memory releases its once tight grip on facts.
The strain of years of caring too much
Leaves the victim of time incapacitated.
Not everyone who grows old
Goes deaf or lapses into senility,
But most suffer a less active role in daily affairs.

The quality of life increases as the years draw to a close
While painless good health endures.
The clock ticks and the machinery whirs.
Events unfold.
Contemplation and reverie distance the thinker from the scene,
A daydreamin golden years.

Those who commit offenses against the elderly
More than any other villains
Deserve the condemnation of their peers.
To delight in causing pain
And to continue to burden our betters
With miserable thoughts and a neglected existence
Are actions that beg for the existence of a hell.
Likewise, those who care for the infirm
Reap the benefits of proximity to spirits
Who have survived nature's tests for so long.
If you are close to the aged it becomes possible
To prepare yourself for the time
When your own eyes will grow dim,
When you have learned so much you must begin to forget,
When you have grown tired of hearing lies.

Wrinkles are but one small price for wisdom.
Odin paid for wisdom with his right eye,
And many people do grow blind as they grow old.
When the eyes weary of witnessing atrocities
Vision becomes dirty and worthless,
Like discarded newsprint left out in the weather.
All of this serves to reinforce the conclusion
That there must be another world,
A better world.
This one grows faint
While the next begins to clarify.
 
 

29.
It's a long road to walk when you feel so low.
Talk to the wind,
She always listens,
Or so I think is true.
By the by walk and talk, alone,
But weigh that your words
Must by someone be heard
As a cackle, as hoarse insanity.
In slow moving seconds
The harsh immaturity of youth's actions
Stretches out more lengthy than the trail,
All rocks that cut tired feet, mine.
Does anyone understand the trepidation
Of casting accomplishments to scholastic triviality,
That whirlpool that sucks your works down,
Of being doomed to minute perfection,
Harsh criticism from an overcrowded oversoul,
Does anyone understand?
Society and orthodoxy drowns the imperfect poet at birth,
A fatal method of natural selection necessary
To achieve the lovely strain so desired,
Not that these words would pretend to the throne,
For such drivel as this sniveling tripe collects dust
And aids only the lonely plight
Though from the heart nonetheless
This has made my hands dirty.
By now hypotheticals have opaqued intention
So hear with me, on:
Parental aggression and mutual redirections
Should hint at the unspoken buffoonery
Of reticent anxiety.
Never forgive the gimp
Who sows discord and pimps for the nightly lie,
Shies from her truth -- agony.
Evening crimes blame the most innocent
For the sins she displays so promiscuously.
If you talk to yourself
The ague of paradoxical mentality
Reduces rational thought to active flight
Away from the scene of despair.
Nevertheless in repetitious distress
I speak all alone to my paper,
Quest about for the dimension's opening
Through which I might warn interested spirits
Of the chills and fevers I have known,
Tell one other human of the thin thread
That suspends me above a gulf
Of desolate, vacant minded reflections.
My face does not show my concern,
Though someone keeps warning me
About what I refuse to fear.
Should the thin thread snap
I'll give a hand clap
And fall to my faces galore.
What could be worse proscription
Than multiple judgments from multiple witnesses
Wreaking multiple scars
On my face in the mirror, all alone.
It could be called a schism, a split,
This attempt to define the beast
That has been released to feast
On all of God's pretty children.
 
 

30.
The man knows what goes on,
Where is he?
A girl runs wildly through the streets
frost billows wildly
frantic baby running
footfalls like the hammer of a heart
loud like a sentence punctuation
run to reach now
the look on her face
welcomes the scalding anger
the wind once said
look away if you see her
remember forever
that to do this to someone
just once is too much
and the man knows all about it
because he's the one who did it
 
 

31.
Now, WITH THE NEAR FUTURE COMING UP,
goals: gather power
refute thine enemies,
avoid capture at all costs.
Modern American civil war -
Financial apocalypse.

So many paths to substantial gain
Drain your base investments.
No one can cope with the outward flow of money
Into foreign hands.
You can spend years in a small room
That has bars in the front
For helping the poor to the south.
The doors to the country have been closed for so long.
Our image:
Self serving dictators.
Prices go up...
The government manipulates commodities.
It seems Uncle Sam never knew
How violent some people would get on crack.
Uncle Sam has left the business
In favor of a heroin glut.
Someone figured out how to calm the people down.
These words could be dangerous
Now
As the near future looks bleak
For the little guy
Out to have fun.
Hopefully the little guy will get stomped
So the real guerillas will have more room
To target the major objectives,
And if it is easier to be recognized with fewer around
At least the war will be between familiar faces.
Maybe passing time brings respect
For the fox who runs quickly but bites hard.
Most people just want an easier time
Buying the things they need.
Corruption in high places
Resounds through a myriad of consequences.
The petty corruption of the home boy
Scrawny and weak by comparison.
Home boy stays strong
Because he stays on his turf.
Even when the world was just peasants and nobles
A landowner could be killed ofr violating a man's home.
Now
In assault rifle times
Police refuse to bust many suspects,
Even though they are welcome to kick in many doors.
They are not overly axious to meet their maker
In such troubled, poverty ridden times.
The police understand the invitation
And the giant gamble that is meant by acceptance.

If you understand the underworld
Was named that because of its size,
Then you probably also know
To get ahead there takes loyalty and daring.
The hungry dog doesn't snarl without reason
When another approaches its bone.
If the foreign dog comes tooclose
He could get is throat torn out.
Sometimes the dog at home dies.
Either way.

Los Angeles understdns
The analogy of the dog fight.
The police state hasn't worked too well out there.
Fifty people could die in every city every day
If the authorities don't admit defeat
In matters of human strength and belief,
If they don't recognize that condemnation
Does not condone the murder of prisoners.
The act, an act of war.
Our president called the struggle a war,
And by doing so lost the chance to control the violence.
When the police kill people
They can expect for police to be killed.
The police will never control the minds of the people.
The police are targets in their own right.
A shooting in the name of a truer freedom,
Truer freedom our fascists to the right would do away with.
Shoot them...
A strategic act to gain ground for a just cause.
If there were any doubts in the shooters mind
When he pulled the trigger
Then what he killed was his own sould.
If he really believes in the killing
Then no torture can touch him
Despite the court's verdicts and orders.
Advocation of murder is a dangerous idea
Now, in America, today.
Down by the river
(the big one down the middle)
Bodies get rolled in.
Sometimes they are never found.
Others are welcome to share in popular retribution.
Rebukes are available to the geniuses
Who think they can get over.
By trying to get over their life will be over.
The end, good bye.
The hit lists await
A large scale outbreak of violence.
The west coast had three days of fear.
Miami had nine.
Much of the nation waits for more.
Full riots in Washington, New York, Chicago
Will mean catch up time in the Dirty South.
Time to clean out the back yard.
Face it
Some of the sleazy get-by's shouldn't be allowed to live
In even the dirtiest of gutters,
And they would not be missed were they swept away.
Do not expect the police to investigate.
A second invitation:
Get over,
Get away with it,
Take somebody's money.
When the air squeezes harshly out of your throat one night
Understand the invitation was a joke,
An amusement for the men who don't give up
After they have been ripped off.
By then it is too late for you.
If you are smart it would be wise
Not to care about too many people.
They tend to be unprepared
When your actions cause them trouble from a distance.
Can everyone see
Why the people behind the scenes
Want the masses to take a little nap,
Want to change the base commodity back to the old stable?
Consider the vendetta
The noise it causes,
The questions that are later asked.
Dead men can't talk,
But sleepers won't.
Memories, dreams of all things bad
Keep their mouths sealed shut.

The big picture clearly shows
The leaders of the underground had the wits

To gather maximum information
About their enemies,
And then take appropriate action.
They are the quietest of all men,
Men who have an interst in blood money.
The stiff penalties
Have ground enforcement success to an embarrassing halt.
The blood will flow too heavily
For even the punk thug DEA to handle,
As much as they thirst for the blood
Of those who see the big picture,
Close friends of the DEA rich from the profits of favor.
They want a lot of people dead
Because they are too smart and too free.

These are dangerous ideas to hold
RIGHT NOW
IN AMERICA
TODAY.
 
 
 
 

32.
Rose scented candles stand lit in an alcove of rotten hope,
Beneath a portrait of the war taken love.
Curtains gone threadbare and tattered cover the front.
News from the front:
There are no good farewells.
- alcove to hearts and garters -
No hints of the past of warnth linger anymore.
The chill on the floor gets colder by the day.
The smile on the photograph weeps.
No letters home?
The ghost should be taken away
From the woman's false hope and vigil,
Taken away to be loved in a peaceful place,
Away from war and work and toil,
To a place where the fabrics are soft and new
Where rose scented candles have never been.
The memory of his smile needs to heal inside her,
As does the gas dealt the earth by the strife;
The world bleeds, mortally wounded,
And dust settles on the pictures.