while many are out
protesting gun violence
and the moronic, petulant
politicians
that they hate for their hatred (irony),
transit workers are being
beaten in the streets to silence,
Minnesota families are being taxed
beyond belief to silence,
and social media is acting big brother to silence.
i am not sure that we all hear.
but you don’t
care, and you are there.
go fund me about it.
go start some new petition.
go join a herd of same.
i have too truly.
it is my true duty.
we all know nothing except for that
dusted shades cut the coming light like warm butter,
at the inside hard wooden floor
shadows of imagined exotic and warm,
where rental plants went fastly and
turned terminal in our Saturday’s hue,
in the camera slant, above the golden lamp…
did that rhyme enough for you?
i think i am worried about space debris.
i feel it again, undiscern…
and question everything as everything should be, like:
where are the lunar rovers on earth’s cameras, now?
where are the gods in tragedies, how could they allow?
where are the other sides being told under microscopes amid ads?
deep reflection then a Snapchat to friends
and family who i wish were closer in outer space
and inside with me because of the cold
outside, that is here in April…
what do we call it again… what do we say today… ?
i think they changed it from global warming
to climate change yesterday in below average temps, to
work with our subjective weather model,
so the Narrative can stay the same when it bleeps on the network.
by the negative assertions and constant commercials…
that is why i love modern literary criticism
and the scientific method.
i know nothing, as we all do and i know that.
but you might need this pill to smile.
perhaps something is wrong with you and you can’t tell yet.
Freedom
Window light is free
Saturday morning free
wind, the breeze is free
daydreams are free
the newsfeed is free (with ads)
your Facebook is free
elections of leaders are free
free thought, not speech–costly
your free time is free
words and ideas are free
and everyone you meet
death & taxes, also free
water is free (sort of)
space is free, not real(ly)
family trees are free
sight to see is free
trees are free, so is peace
hdtv is free, your opinion, free
groupthink is free, tho not for me
individuality is free, you, me, &she
the library is free
there, the internet is free
free to choose and be
free to protest and speak
feel free to label freely
America perhaps is free
the earth is too free
advantage is free, fate too, &destiny, free, free, free
i think you know what i mean
depends on where you look
& at what…&how…
we are all free to not believe.
shells of us
judging a book’s cover, imagine my face imaging.
infinite sides to a story, to a story’s story, but i know.
my flesh tells a tale, probably, as yours does too.
drawn in the blood of i forget them, never met, who cares i guess.
Passover at Easter, some pink ham in me again, belching.
nothing like anything. nothing like i just exist.
broken short nails, overgrown cuticles and shining bald spots.
adult acne keeps me younger than you might think i am.
alphabet soup of words keeps me sane.
reflections of thin air, in thin air scares, wisps.
clowns were in that movie of course, dark rooms, found footage.
still, i see apostles for anything relevant: novel sorts.
new, spring, green, now, on top of the every-thing, any-thing that is
trending hashtag section of their Twitter feeds.
until tomorrow’s Godzilla prowls painting a new-thing to hate,
until the next big no-thing, the next day.
then you do what they say, like clockwork spinning good, wait.
and you want to be different, unique.
then you tell them how much you can relate.
i guess they covered this on the cover. forget this poem.
Broken Box View (The Old Hospital behind Diehl Hall taken Apart)
broken box view,
i stand at a darkened window
& move to some forgotten doorway
watching a crane tear
through a dying building,
someone sprays water to
dull the dust.
redbricks hang in the 4 pm sun.
here, i am a child again, Tonka toy,
i am a boy learning deconstructionism
under marbel serene, brutalist screen.
workers are focused, me on them,
in this scene.
there, i go.
tracking as a lighthouse, lakeside.
broken box view,
i wonder who used to be there.
a million pieces in my head from the 1990s, in summer and winter and with my family
one time, in wintertime,
my dad flew his ultralight plane
to about a 1,000 feet above La Crescent.
he was over blue lake at the time,
at which point
he dropped an old bowling ball,
straight down from the blue heavens.
it hit mature ice and shattered
into a million splintered jet-black diamonds.
its inception played out in reverse on mute.
in summertime, over Wildcat Landing he did the
same stunt with a Santa and a parachute.
i wonder about physics and propellers.
i wonder about moments and momentum.
i suppose he was creating novle myth here locally,
reprising antiqued beliefs,
taking awesome to new inspiring heights.
and now the dust settles on one-of-a-kind.
i suppose, or not. i don’t know.
i guess i sometimes remember these things
and wonder where those new inconoclasts reside.
too many sycophants to being glib modern Spectacle.
maybe he was just raising hell in the 90s,
being like he wanted to be, naturally,
high up in the wind, free.
no politics had a hand in it.
no opinions that were unreal.