Pie Chart

You spend a third of every day in bed
You spend a third of every day at work
You spend most of existence being dead
So loving others you should never shirk

If twelve percent is spent in eating meals
Then twenty-two is all I have that's due
To read and watch some shows and spin my wheels
From home to work and work to home, and you

And so I ask for two percent each day
And spend more time than that just to persuade
And often fail to get some couples play
When tiredness or soreness make you fade

Beloved, heed the math--A half percent
Is all I need--the rest for you is meant

My Tale

I found no cacao tree--yes, that's my tale.
I gave mankind no grapes--yes, that's my tale.

When opportunity arrives, I fail
To recognize his face--yes, that's my tale.

A sack of wind, a hurricane, a gail
That spins, winds me off course--yes, that's my tale.

It's sitting round upon a hill, my pail
Or jar that leaks, is cracked--yes, that's my tale.

I do not even hunt for a white whale
Or tilt at windmills, brave--yes, that's my tale.

An albatross, a kraken, filling sail
That keeps me off my course--yes, that's my tale.

An empty theater where I regale
My fans and followers--yes, that's my tale.

A bush, a brown-tipped hill, a rusty nail
That holds me up, alive--yes, that's my tale.

I burn a bitter flame, exposed like shale
That never truly dies--yes, that's my tale.

In shallow puddles I fear death and flail
In all initiatives--yes, that's my tale.

I'm loved and loved and loved behind my veil
As poet Zatavu--yes, that's my tale.

The Storm

The very wind has turned us timid--trust
In madmen, liars, power-lovers blows
Strong off the coast. We're lost. Our limpid lust
Has lured us to these Sirens, black as crows.

The sands are shifting, houses twist and fall
Into the frothing sea. There's monsters there,
Where once was only weather--hear the call
Of dragon-voices, snakes replacing hair.

We cower now below the rocks that roll
Into the sea--we pushed them there--we freed
Protection from the sea--we found our goal,
Destroyed our heroes, reveled in the deed.

Distrust has now become for us so strange--
Become the hero to become the change.

Social Distancing

I have to stay at home--now I can work
On all the projects I've delayed from all
The work and everything the children must
Be doing. Some good projects must, then, fall.

But, no. It's online meeting after meeting
For me, my wife, my kids. I can't home school
The kids because of busy work the teachers
Must send. The internet's become a tool

Destroying time to work on anything.
No Newton will create a calculus,
No Shakespeare will write a brand new King Lear
Because we have to drown in all the fuss

Of people who cannot imagine you
Could make good use of time for thinking, work,
Or creativity, or do a thing
Of value unless they're there, always lurk.

There's many things my children, I could learn--
There's many things that I could think and write--
But those who think they know how best our time
Is used destroy that time with great delight.

Of course, this poem preaches to the choir--
The only ones who would read poetry
Are those who would agree with all these lines,
And they, like me, are yearning to be free. 

Meetings

How else could you spread out into an hour
A minute's worth of information? Each
Must ask the same damn question, build a tower
Of great redundancy upon a beach
Dissolving in the waves of boredom, speaking
For the sake of speaking --there's nothing new
And never will be past some random leaking
When all our minds are down or each one flew
Into a daydream where there's something real
That's taking place. Stop wasting all my time
With all your self-indulgence, endless wheel
Of wind that wind into this boredom-crime.
The more you blather on informs the earth
How little value your job's really worth. 

The Promised Land of Liberty

And as the waters wash across the army
Pursuing all the prophets who foretold
Their certain deaths, I look up to the rise
That leads up to the mountaintop, the gold

The sun transforms the edge will found the true
And just society that we've been working
To bring into the light. We know the smarmy
Will seek to rise again--there's evil lurking

Within the hearts of every woman, man
To take advantage, take from others, take
Your life if necessary. The demise
Of that will never come--yet, we can make

A place where everyone will get their due--
I see it from the mountaintop. I can.

COVID-19

Succeeding means there's no evidence you
Succeeded--showing that you care brings strife,
Resentment, and all you say could be true,
But nobody will thank you for their life.

It doesn't matter what is, what good
It is, if virus or economy
Or education--doing what you should
Gets few rewards but anger, curses, envy.

The sweet abyss of nihilism lures
Those who would change the world--why not give up
When everyone refuses all the cures
You wish to pour out of your golden cup?

The virtue lies within the very fight
To keep your love and life from ever-night. 

Youth Stigmata

My hand goes to my side
I pull a palm of blood
I look--I see no wound
Red drips into the mud

How can I bleed, no cut,
No pimple burst to bleed--
Why is my palm in scarlet?
What did this doubtful deed?

I sponge my side--the blood
Is gone--I soap my hands--
The water pinks to clear--
The voice, it now commands

I never told a soul
About my bleeding side--
My parents never knew--
I you I now confide

What as a teen I kept
In silence--none believes
Me now, I know--and yet
My memory retrieves

This awesome, awful cures
And blessing none believes
Or would believe--God's voice
And touch God's choice receives

I'm waiting, still, to bloosom
My soul remains a bud
And yet I've lost this mark,
No longer bleed His blood

Fallen

Once Ba'al blew across the desert, dark
And full of lightning, whipping rain--the hinter-
Lands flooded--leaving, he would leave his mark
In summer heat--but he'd return each winter.

But he was wrestled from his winter skies
And trapped down in the underworld--his passion
Diminished, dissipated--a swarm of flies
Replaced his soul and made it dark and ashen.

The one who fought the serpents now if found
Among the company of those who sent one
To tempt with secret knowledge which then bound
Their lives--would he have fought to kill, prevent one?

Oh, what complexity would we have lost
If Ba'al had been on the Earth, not buried
And bade to buzz and rot--that was the cost
We paid for truth and everything it married.

Political Theater

The theater of cruelty lives on lies
We fell ourselves--the actors, heroes, win
Our hearts with promises that those who sin
Will get their punishment, be food for flies.

The theater of the absurd denies
The game is serious--there lies the gun,
Still warm, but we believe it's all in fun--
But streets will run with blood to get the prize.

Commedia dell'arte now rules the day--
No, it's a satyr play, the tragic end
Of tragedy a face, a feast of fools.

Why can't we have a Theatre Libre
Instead of agitprop? We must defend
Humanity from psychopaths' old rules.

Elusive Mysterious Smell

There once was a goddess, Demeter,
And a man who thought he could beat her--
He turned on his charm
And showed her his farm--
But the daughter of time thought him fetor. 

The Body-Soul of You

You are the wave-field space-time that I love,
The sequence of nucleotides that bring
Me joy, the body that brings forth your soul
In its becoming, makes me want to sing.

Your soul was strengthened, weakened by the winds
And waves of family and society,
To form the you your body grew--I look
At you, and love all that you've grown to be.

Yes, you, I want you in your nakedness,
Exposed so you can lose your fear, the mask
That covers body, soul both equally,
Because the same--I give my love that task.

Desire is both love and lust, the two
Are one--and thus betrothed shall love be true. 

In the Moonlight

The serpent slithered through the valley
     Searching for a whole
That it could make into its alley
     Comfort its warm soul

A million tadpoles in the river
     Searching for some land
They feel the air and then they quiver
     Changed by unseen hand

The serpent sheds its skin renewing
     life and then it feeds
On tadpoles swimming by--it's doing
     What it must and needs

Upon the bank thick grass is curling
     Hiding fear and food
Beyond the banks, the water's swirling
     Life pulls back its hood

Xenophilia

There once was a fuzzy brown beaver
Who feared that a snake would soon cleave her--
She met a serpent one day
Who convinced her to play
And now she won't let her friend leave her.

To Conquer or Be Killed

They've come to burn the ships of meaning--
They sailed to a new world
Blank canvases unfurled
The changeable winds harvested
Upon the salted water bed
To undiscovered countries they were gleaning'
But dimly, dimly on the quantum waves
Promising to make themselves their slaves
To circumstances, chance,
And to the wanton glance
They learn had promised nothing
And only promised nothing
In all its promises and offerings
Where even disappointment plays and sings
The ships are burning on the sand
To testicles of glass that now demand
You only say where you will soon be leaning

Becoming Who You Are

They've gone, the father, mother, children, aunts
And uncles, all grandparents, cousins, dog.
They've gone, the heroes with heroic rants,
The teenage gangs, rebellions lost in fog.
They've gone, the pastors and police, the order
And authority of written law.
They've gone, the business people, every border
And nation, what all elites like to gnaw.
They've gone, the eveners and bureaucrats,
The baby men and women whining, wild.
They've gone, but never gone, like feral cats
And city rats, the ghost of your dead child.
They're never gone, but you must learn to give
Each part its due for you to love and live. 

Golden Arrows

Why read about the life of Goethe? Why
Not read about the lives of common men?
I do not need to read where I have been--
For virtue aims at better men than I.

Why read the works of Shakespeare? Why deny
The local playwright writing in his den?
If there's a chance of greatness from this pen,
The greatest teachers must make my words fly.

The greatest trees grow in the deepest soil--
The deepest, widest roots raise branches bold,
And winds that wrap around the branching limbs
Will strengthen them through their near-constant toil.

The greatest artists mine the purest gold--
The poorest artists give into mere whims.

The Social Justice Warrior Speaks

Before I can be friends with you
I have to know: what did your father do?
Did your grandfather think things right
As we think things here on this very night?

Did anyone they know once own
A slave? Don't tell me that you all have grown
In ethics--that is privilege-speech.
You're born in guilt and sin, that's what I teach.

Your you's inherited from kin,
Your racism's inherent in your skin--
You cannot change, now don't deny
And just accept that you deserve to die.

The problems of the world were born
When your race came about, and now we mourn
What we perceive, through you, we lose,
Much like the Nazis felt about the Jews.

They've Never Meant to Help You

The 1% are made by Washington
A trillion dollar vote against your one
A President ten million dollars richer when he's done
He's here to rob you with your stolen gun

The legislature lies they're on your side
Believing them ensures no dreams abide
They feed their cronies, don't care if your child has starved and died
Don't be a fool, they've only ever lied

You'd sell your soul to taste a tiny crumb
They sell you poison, tell you that it's rum
They promise promise promise, lie to you until you're numb
They feed you to their sharks because you're chum

The government feeds opiates to you
Their welfare and their wages are the clue
That their eugenics plans remain forever in their view
Their genocidal plans are coming due

You play the game and vote the tyrants in
They rig the game so that they always win
They have you fight each other, fight about their favored sin
Unite, the revolution will begin

Nothing

When markets fall, there's nothing you can do.
When stars explode, there's nothing you can do.

When your true love had fallen out of love,
Found someone new, there's nothing you can do.

When someone will not hear the facts, refuse
To understand, there's nothing you can do.

When Oedipus unmasks to Dionysus,
To show you you, there's nothing you can do.

Your baby's lying dead in her pine crib--
She'll cry no more--there's nothing you can do.

When black holes eat companion stars to points
Of spacetime nought, there's nothing you can do.

When you are making art, if you gain fame,
Or you're ignored, there's nothing you can do.

When antelope are eaten by the lions,
The vultures, worms, there's nothing you can do.

When life continues on beyond your death,
Ignoring you, there's nothing you can do.