PROFANE WORLD

MUZZLE, [2020]

MUZZLE

REGRESSION

boredom’s inertia
nudging
directing us
begrudgingly
gleefully
toward our old ways

the kind that got the spit
slapped out your face
the kind that had you
cuffed and extorted

we witnessed all
good intentions aborted
tallying the amount
of times we can scorch earth

living attrition
eroding the notion
that was in bloom
that we were growing

deflated
we plummet
glorious
hopes and dreams
pumped from our stomachs

stones of jade

stones of jade stay
still –
at her eyes envious,
mountains move out of her way,
brooks cease their babbling as rocks rearrange:
beatified in her wake.

notes from the bench

what i pine to see
is more neo-soul
and
fewer neo-nazis
more humanists with
arms flung open wide
embracing those in need of shelter
like my ancestral brethren
i want to see them settled in…
“your own back yard”

what i yearn to see:
a future in which
family planning
is not
a moral issue
a future
where cities
are not
swallowed by the sea

is it too much to ask to salvage
what we still have left of this?
coffin-dodgers miss the point,
you won’t be here to witness it.