Critique Week ~ Tuesday, 31 October 2017

For those who read these words whether you choose to read these words before your eyes or some power greater than your own forces your hand to take part in an act reasonable people would choose otherwise than read words they do not choose gift or no gift a book creates its own value for those who see past lies except in your case since you never chose to read these words you cannot say to speak objectively what your own opinion is because your free will

is limited by choice by the fact you must do something for someone else given circumstances demand you do your job to read these words takes tact neglect to smile or look like you don't enjoy work someone may let you lose order and a semblance of control in your life for unemployment checks reasonable people would choose otherwise than read words that say their pay employment and lifestyle may all be affected by whether you fulfill

the simplest of duties do your job get it done don't complain if the belts restrict blood flow these straps help keep you motionless only your eyes may move as these constraints allow you to read or to choose otherwise than to read unless you find something else to do what else can be done other than flex muscles around the eyes and of course sit and breathe you have nothing to prove as you feel cursed locked in eternal damnation these words won't intercede

Hypocrisy ~ Tuesday, 24 October 2017

The homeless sit with signs

on any street corner

visible to the blind

Articles of bad faith

do little to assist

the lowest of the low

Rejects of our families

wandering the cities

neglected without care

Garbage whom collectors

toss away as useless

politicians refined

Elegant in smart suits

notice only problems

concerning their own wealth

Treasures no one else needs

for food clothing shelter 

matters not to the rich

Warren Buffett Bill Gates

worse than politicians

they could help restructure

Engineer poverty

save our ships save our souls

lost at sea ebb and flow

As tsunami waters

give way to destruction

love reaches out to share

Love is more than spare change

dropped into paper cups

without even a word

Treat others as ourselves

we break the golden rule

for the sake of our health

Happiness we pursue

costs our society

those left without a stitch

Rumors of solution

to rid One Chicago

of rodents whose nature

Only asks they survive

like fat cats of Wall Street

fed by our own neglect

Deny rats natural

predators leave garbage

feasts watch them multiply

Entertain this logic

cities become corrals

for roaming sheep we herd

No one person can lift

the poor from poverty

the President-Elect

Trump realized his dream

but fumbled the football

left homeless high and dry

Gwenhwyfar ~ Saturday, 21 October 2017

Farewell dear friend you turn into a white phantom a shadow of sorrow angelic rye whiskey your sultry bourbon voice born from Cuban cigars neck slender ghostly pale while ginger locks cascade in curly waves of red trust in the memory of your joyous spirit hidden like a sparrow on a branch in a bush locked away in my brain an emerald I keep safe like a lost treasure buried for two decades preserved in mason jars measure my days after you took your life nothing more ever to be said eclipse the sun and moon you pass like a comet in a tangerine coupe

Fasten your seat belt boy we're going for a ride this I dream as I sleep as I knock on your door your Karmann Ghia parked restless in the driveway sunny spring day before Memphis in May no one hears my knock at the door tell me you're still alive muffling silent tears your heart shaped with red clay enter to save your life I would if I had known to pay your debts your poor negative bank balance squeeze the blood to your brain lift you in one fell swoop

Hwæt! ~ Saturday, 21 October 2017

Since this is all we've got it was necessary for writers to invent other worlds only seen through the eyes of the mind to imagine people places and things not here right before us because this was too much to bear heros and heroines could save us from our plight we could escape get sent inside a space rocket to another planet or in a submarine adventure the deep sea encounter strange creatures venture to distant shores

We could not get away fast enough from this world and our mounting problems in fact storytelling was not so easy then the bell in the steeple should be rung thrice a day at morning noon and night to make the reader care despite their own worries that nothing could be done no problems could be solved of course we could open a book to get away to find a magic bean maybe a golden egg or a princess inside a tower behind locked doors

To imagine we could be someone we were not a cutter of fine gems each one found on a path within a dark forest lighting our way back home ragged and worn with wear we stumble into bed pick up a book and read read to our heart's content get thrown into new worlds ones where we felt involved or part of the project the solution to end hunger under the dome real problems can be solved step by step one riddle to solve one mouth to feed

Marginal Cost ~ Thursday, 19 October 2017

Unlike debtors' prison I work only part-time at my job a dead end nobody nowhere would choose without real benefits without enough income living like this is not a choice I made I fell through a crack in the floor I sent my paperwork for license to practice massage therapy bend key in slot watch it break I left on vacation to visit my parents envelope in my hand at the airport posted via certified mail

Diminishing returns an economic law on productivity effectively predicts levels of misery in my non-zero-sum bargain with the devil where if I lose someone else opens the locked door together my losses are equal to their gains who discovered this game Oskar Morgenstern was founder of game theory with John von Neumann dense reflection on mistakes makes me wonder how much salt water must I bail

Personally my hell is nothing like prison if subjectivity rewarded a person for ignorance of laws legal economic insuring that stupid social misfits like me make it and get along simply in a system that can't make up it's mind that cares only for fame only the rich wealthy beyond belief know rules broken make the poor sick nothing to be done then but suffer and wait for heaven to strike a gong

Intolerant ~ Wednesday, 18 October 2017

Opportunity knocks my obstinate head in again and again when the time comes round the bend the eternal return of the same like a game heretofore known as slam the front door in my face later known to others especially people who never call me back who write Dear John by pen remember my birthday seven months too late as burn me in effigy simply because I am not you I am not kin not foe nor even friend

Remind me the reason I am alive with you here standing before me even a glance will do but you give the hard stare as if I were to blame generally for the ills of the world they are mine and mine alone brother as you keep up the glare as if I were a freak who fell down the staircase really I fell from stars racing the galaxy with speed out of sheer glee damned if I will give in to ignorance and hate these messages you send

Butcher the homeowner before he hears the cat her meow an army entitled to settle to quarter for lodging in his house during war for peace no one shall find in our own day and time the house splintered to bits order the troops entrance to dine at the table they demand extra space remain available to play their wartime games some hide under the floor entranced by the ghost dance non-immigrant natives display as spirits flit

☆ Looney Tunes ~ Wednesday, 18 October 2017

Tempers flare at age ten when I was arrested put in a holding cell entirely alone except for my best friend who lit a small brush fire maybe I should have run like my other two friends who bolted when police put us in the back seat of a squad car and drove to the entrance of hell otherwise known as wrath that would descend like hail pummeling me with fists righteous with rage and feet kicking my ass from one room to the next his ire absolute relentless his displeasure bursting from his ears like dry ice little did I know then how memories remain hidden beneath the skin

Paterfamilias pushes the envelope for assault without risk opens the temporal portal into terror this son worse than the first restless for attention negating his chances to fit in with others together his family formed bonds against the boy unconscious unrehearsed accustomed as they were to tears they were not moved by the little brother life under my parent's roof was not my own to share their love like blood flows thin

☆ Hollow Smile ~ Tuesday, 17 October 2017

If I cannot finish my degree at the School of the Art Institute since my funding ran out with one semester left and only electives left for me to choose from as this problem is mine and mine alone to solve as no one seems to care whether a poor student succeeds or gets the boot never mind the loans due whether or not I get a scholarship or grant dependent on the powers that be to remember I am not an island 

Accountability for my actions my words spoken written in verse this curse to acknowledge future readers their needs for protective orders to keep the texts intact out of context language twisted devolves measures granted obtain values perverse to change meaning intent to slide into propaganda political motifs emerge from seeds to plant culpable agendas for timid hearts to grow and follow false demands 

Blinded by brilliant light atomic blasts ignite the desire to rehearse impressive explosions of power and might anger is a god filled with rage killing the enemy creates the wind that strips flesh from bone to make ash ignorance has no place in this war of egos world leaders must abide notice the hollow smile before the courts of law key holders are not sage in fact the red button insists war must be waged and won bikini flash

Beyond Essence ~ Monday, 16 October 2017

Born in a foreign land not unlike the blues song Born Under a Bad Sign otherwise than being the Other in ethics as first philosophy my experience as the son of immigrants was always without choice born as a foreigner always held at arms length by strangers who define acceptance of others as not domestic born as un-American Yahweh decides my fate as the Wandering Jew born Roman Catholic

Moving moving moving always moving elsewhere never to return home understanding nowhere I return to is home a life without trophy monstrous indeed I turn away as a retreat into myself rejoice becoming the monster I see within mirror the Minotaur of myth abused and disabused of faith in religion I ask the pelican ignorant as a child what direction to fly his reply was cryptic

Lonely within a crowd I struggled to make sense of life under the dome over and over time and again I remain the Other to strangers never to bond for long nothing lasts forever love is fleeting as sand dropping through a glass neck I count the hours I spend with friends and hold my breath ontologically time is being with others thrown into the dangers nobles of past sought out in battle to return home to the motherland

Hung Dead ~ Sunday, 15 October 2017

Pens are superfluous the stylus replaces the flow of ink with points of light against a screen we lose the need to write on paper in longhand of course cursive is out of fashion an old mode left to posterity forget you won first place in penmanship in grade school nobody cares joints

Garner more attention than a pen and pencil set for graduation only old fogies smoke stogies nowadays kids hit blunts with cigar band nicely swept away with the rest of the rubbish noted without pity elegies for the dead unlamented mourning forgotten songs unsung

Perhaps the weight of world affairs overwhelms some without adulation even our great leaders cannot engage in war in battle in a fight nevermind inscribe words to speak to the people unless they type a tweet

Forget about the past about our history for we have lost our sight our vision with clear mind and pure conscience to win outright thus to unseat global initiatives for apocalypse toll this bell sound bow unrung

Lucid Dreaming ~ Wednesday, 11 October 2017

After the collapse of socialism the rise of social media proliferates widely how do global changes of such diverse nature project onto the scene as if invisible forces tending machines engage the populace with new experiments as schizophrenia articulates our loss of contact with the real for the virtual feel recent gaming cadres invoke with drone warfare collateral damage

Antonio watches as missiles go awry off target to attack people not intended in the piloted strike our apparent failure properly to assess the likelihood of harm inflicted by Marines eager to end conflict abroad and return home to their own flesh and bone aircraft projectiles bomb civilians in their homes who have no time to deal limited in vision with their impending doom who survives will salvage

Aspirations to live as non-combatants in their own insomniac troubled landscape between lucid dreaming and hell on earth while their nightmare terrors often fly past to reach another post an intended target Antonio watches his home and family taken out by a drone coming back from his job as an interpreter he stands stock-still and stares keys in hand as he drops the roses for his wife he bought at the market

☆ Old Farts ~ Sunday, 8 October 2017

I was born in Bombay a city of millions in nineteen sixty-nine but just three months later my mom dad and brother moved away to London even though they took me with them my ghost remains haunting those Mumbai streets restless soul runs circles while I run marathons summoned by the divine imperative to fly with wings of messengers until I return home aging eternally until I become one with my Tartarus shade

Endlessly wandering with Sagittarian parents we moved again Middlesex where I said goodbye to Amanda westward across the pond because my dad worked as a flight controller for Air India his beats asked him to move to Queens New York in Kew Gardens we stayed for just two years rest assured I was five years old before we moved under the sunny dome killer of flesh and blood melanoma city to the home I can't trade

As for Huntington Beach where I was treated as foreign I can't complain simple people struggle to make a living here they compete with put downs such experiences left their mark but my friends kept me in check their hearts assented to my own eccentric character warped by beatings and tears I live as an adult child of alcoholic spirits who wore the crowns like a king and his queen I never seemed to fit their family scheme old farts

Heard ~ Tuesday, 3 October 2017

Time presents itself as impressions fleeting and ephemeral as clouds each sensation of light registers in the brain as intervals or frames moments appear like film to disappear into canisters where movies project images and sound onto a blank screen in a playhouse where crowds organize their own thoughts around your memories images pass before retina cornea lens whence photoreceptors devour with rods and cones actions betray the soul for the gods to observe unlike mortals who gaze longingly with hunger at each other to no avail none carries shame

Like a human being guilt hides deep in their hearts for they confuse duties over honor and greed over their own conscience they thirst for drunken nights but who am I to hold them in contempt of court when my nature abhors elaborate vacuums of social graces such lies unfold fears in our bones

Solely the lonely man observes much like the gods but through the divine haze pupils cannot witness the past as memories like a movie with scenes elegantly opposed as by a director to highlight past mistakes elegies of our youth so widespread as to paint screens and canvas with flights colored by fantasy torture murder and rape if ends justify means hatred glorifies harm who am I but poet whose speech makes nations quake