To Humans

I write despite my overdue silence,
In light of my grudges and slights,
To enlighten the thoughts and emotions
I’ve reserved for my own contemplation.
Having distanced myself so thoroughly
I’ll admit my lack of comprehension
In matters I’ve never engaged in
Or only watched from my privileged shelter,
But even when I detested you,
Counting myself among your kind,
I couldn’t help empathizing
With the burdens you’re seizing under.
It’s easy to criticize your failures,
As I’m sure there will be more,
And judge you in harshest terms
For the cruelty and neglect
You imbibe in endless cycles.
I’ve wanted too much from you,
Expected things that seem trivial,
Like a respect for shared existence
And the universality of feelings.
You break hearts too easily,
And I know they can be brittle,
But I could never quite accept
Your ugly side with ease.
Your shallowness and petty conflicts
Routinely, it seems, betray innocence
So the gentle moments you all enjoy
Are wasted for inane reasons.
You neglected me as so many others,
But I know I’m not superior.
I’ve shared your burdens
And your entitled sense of indulgence,
Took things because I wanted them
And disfigured what you thought precious.
I’ve tasted the light of hate,
The bittersweetness of callus violence
Against myself and others,
And I’ve made my justifications.
As much as I’ve despised you,
Forsook your feelings in light of mine,
I never lost that vague connection
With our sublimely tragic condition.
At your best, you make me love you,
Creating your projects of passion,
Embodying your best ideals,
Making fantasy almost tangible
And creating art from your pain.
I want to love you every second,
To comfort and be comforted,
Inspire new ideas
And converse about our tragic past.
I need to feel something better,
And I know you do as well.
For our sake,
I hope you can save yourself
From the overbearing nightmare
You’re still busily creating.
I can’t hate you any longer,
But I cannot help hate your stupidity,
Or the dismissive simplifications
You project on everything you see.
Like an addict without hope,
Burning bridges just to feed
That passive will to power
Or to distance insecurities.
You could be something beautiful,
But it’s hard to picture you
Facing up to your flaws
In any meaningful way.
You could bury yourself
Alongside your egotism,
Proudly burning us to ruin
To say you died without mistakes.
If no choice is made
We could end ourselves swiftly
Without ever really perceiving
Our consciousness in its true light.
There’d be no one to tell us
We didn’t learn from our imperfections,
And the other forms of life
Wouldn’t miss us for a day.
We’ll be what we will be,
Our beautiful tragedy,
If that’s the way you want it
I’ll be here to see it pass,
But I’ll always remember,
And I’ll probably regret
The possibilities we lost
And the parts of you that I respected.

Captivating Commercial Saga

Awareness and arousal

Awoke unto an immersive square,

Pastel polished pixels

Spoke in motions posed with glare,

Entreating eager eyes

Into a cavalcade of myths,

Beseeching supple minds

To discover what they wish.

Dreams on silver screens,

A corporate cultural sensation.

Breeding entertainment,

Feed suckling lips of generations.

Memory and retention,

Daily dramas with prescription padding.

Models and role-plays

Impactful stories told for selling.

Tele-moral notification,

Digital lives live no less lies.

Captivating commercial saga,

Eyes achieve ends as characters live and die.

 

Streaming Life Anywhere

Judging value

In indiscriminate measure

Through the process

Of identifying constants

Amid variable personas.

Chaotic babble

Interwoven with emotions

Clouding personallities

In insepid debate

Signifying little.

Introspective hell

Latching onto safe platforms

Expressing the darkest depths

Of existential dread

In idle whispers.

Entertainment

Like an inconvenient memory

Signaling dire warnings

As questionable information

Presents itself in lace.

Daydreaming watchers

Wondering within access

On the possible implications

Of life on Mars

Or anywhere.

Complexity breeds

As simplifying destroys.

Any and all answers

Wither on

Or grow away.

Between The Cracks

In systems complex,

A function unaccustomed,

Between the tall spires

Of civilized estates,

Wander weary children

Unburdened by order,

Creeping through the cracks

For scraps of a niche.

Workers and worriers

Consigned to commission

Could scarcely fathom

Such anarchic fashions.

Scouring the cities

For profits and pleasure

In whatever scarce amounts

Their subtleties can acquire.

These unguided forces,

So volatile and so reckless,

Surviving as a single self

Amid so many societal tempests.

Uninhibited by customs

But restrained by necessities,

Hunger, stress, and heartbreak

Without a remedy or a compass.

Unlost without direction

And unashamed without justice,

The wisdom of disorder

In nature’s law is too apparent.

Live on or die,

Obtain or go without,

Learn quickly or be snuffed

Like a candle blown out.

So the builders and planners

Imposing straight lines and roads

Offer little but questions

For these wanderers to pose.

“Who are you helping?

Can disorder be owned?”

Calling from the cracks

And splinters in the road.

“Enforcements must be vain,

For surely you must see

Nothing can be owned

And everything is free!”

 

 

 

 

 

Pleasant Springs

I don’t know why,

But cruelty always lived in that town.

Maybe it was in the water,

Regularly dosing the inhabitants

As it was swallowed every day.

Perhaps it was under the influence

Of some madness inducing parasite,

Indifferent to it’s casualties.

Or maybe it was cursed

By the remnant of some spirit,

Exercising wrath against the living.

Or maybe it was just cruel.

All I know,

Is that it was hardly innocent.

Behind the pleasant persona

Of a quaint woodland town

Lurked a sea of illness,

Brutallity, and active hate.

To walk the streets

Was to be exposed

To those who stalk the weak

For hardly any cause at all.

Stories of random beatings,

Robberies, and rape

Would circulate so often

To be an ever-present rule.

The law,

The real law evident to all,

Was the Melian Dialogue.

Never spoken, but even so,

Obvious to all who saw.

Small town America,

Christianity and moral life,

Those superfical platitudes applied

So heavily to disguise

The ever-present disscordance

Dancing before their eyes.

The same persons clamoring

For prayers in church gatherings

Walk out continuing

To prey on one another.

Maybe it’s the water,

Some parastie, or spirit.

Maybe it’s a culture

Of sickness they inherit.

I don’t know

What caused the place

To be the way it is,

But cruelty lives there

Nestled deep

And all do as it bids.

 

Children Of Pain

Never forget a childhood spent in pain

Or the sufferings that are unique in youth.

As a living being dependent on protection,

Conditioned to accept and embrace their misuse.

From seething traumas to reinforced behaviors

We’re shuttled from shelter by society’s whims.

Pre-designed systems of disciplinary education,

Traditions of conduct to make us like them.

Emotions you’d feel but maybe couldn’t explain,

Ideas dismissed as mere innocent mistakes.

Assumptions that you couldn’t know better

From adults who didn’t understand how you think.

Petty injustices seemed relatively large

When individual happiness meant the whole world.

The first steps towards tasting the bitterness of life,

To the first sight of cruelty’s colors unveiled.

Remember your rights and remember your wrongs,

Remember the choices left for others to decide,

Remember what you were and how you’ve been changed,

And remember the battles you used to fight.

Know children everywhere will face the same pains,

Know they’ll be fighting as we did to survive,

So when you acquire some decisions on fate,

Remember adults are who structure their lives.

 

Leviathan

Power, punishment, and privilege

Demanded, accepted, or predestined

Damned to be a piece of this puzzle

In assimilation as in rebellion

Welcome to the machine my son

Participate and perish herein

As cells in circuits interlaced

As blood in our Leviathan

Protection, peace, and pleasure

Paid in luxury and exploitation

Survive, thrive, and embrace it

Serve and suffer its expectations

Refuse, resist, and raise a fist

The weary, beaten, and broken-hearted

The cycle of revolution carries on

But a circle only ends where it started.

America becomes Britain, becomes Rome,

Becomes Greece, becomes Persia, becomes stone.