New Centurions

Irrational, irregular; human - more or less.
Your guess as good as mine, ordinary daydreamer
still in single file line. A resounding roar for astounding
gore - a bloody muddy mess indeed. Two ears,
two eyes, a mouth, a nose - it's hard to believe
we're of the same breed. Another rift raft attempt to fly -
hoodrat copy cat lingers by and by. The same
gray hair, black shoes, stripped tie. Different name
for that red scare game - it snowballs and runs awry.

Dawn

Daring moon light, sad somber evening glow
of the stale water shivering in the snow.
My mind wades on the banks, my heart breaks
according to a thousand poems I read and hated.
She gives me the shakes - I got this new twitch -
but so much has changed since we disintegrated.
Sure she left me in this ditch, this dark apartment
dwindling, underpaid and underfed and undersexed.
But I'm a new man Monday morning - all dressed
for success downtown and feeling debonair,
trying not to breathe in the city air or that grumble
of the suited men and woman click clacking intently
passed punks like me who are just stumbling out
for the first time into this brave new world.

Sleep Tight. Sleep Sound

(in case you missed it, 3rd semiannual bustitforjustice poem)

"And still she cries, and still the world pursues."

... can't you hear it?
... can't you hear it?

Try to Disintegrate. Here in this bed you hate.
Wilt and whisper blue like the moon
or some sorry tune. Wrestle with yourself
while the sky picks its plume and
brandishes colors wiry from now till doom.
California can't sleep tonight. It's fogged
and forgotten and desperate for light. Here
in this bed, heated and hated; falling to
pieces - each second more separated.

Focus in, the rain begins,
Falling furious on minds within.
6 years past, far too fast –
Never believed this pain would last.
Counting down, underground -
entombed in wombs safe and sound.
A ghost, a ghost I host within me -
through my bowls and out my spine.
Listen close, hear his chime -
a song of so long and forget me not -
a whisper hushed while his body rots.
A whisper stark and cold,
a life drained before getting old;
another night listening to rain, embracing the cold.

And across the sea, she's alive again, safe and sweet,
fearing sleep, stashed safe in her hideaway;
the night flickers soft before eroding into day.
She sees the world a wilderness,
growing darker and drowning,
starker as her heart starts pounding,
journaling some dream of life astounding.
Imagining the past, long before the blast,
that one gigantic crash - 'we're never going back'
her eyes screamed leaking on the floor -
every day in this hell the sky would pour.
every day in this well life kept getting deeper,
till now, staring up at the moon - it's so hard to sleep here.
Another wound swollen, another life stolen -
the unanswered 'why?'. Another terrifying night, oh lord; by and by.

And somehow we're tied, by all the lies,
by the tide that separates us at sea.
A sea so free, far from this barren place
we've come to need. Separated by age,
fingers fumbling across the page,
a drunken rant induced by rage,
some how, so far, we're both the same.

And the words of Anne remain:

" ... In spite of everything I still believe people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the whole world gradually being turned into a wilderness. I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too. I can feel the suffering of millions and yet, if I look up at the heavens I think that it will all come right ... "