Free

The moon hides in the hollers,
The stars stare through the trees.
The whippoorwill is calling,
Calling softly,
Love, come to me.

The wind waltzes so wildly
The creek can't catch its breath.
The sycamores beguile me,
Guide me to the depths
To find the peace
That still runs from me.

Wasting my days
Casting my strength away.
Oh Truth, take me now,
Find me a quiet place,
Lock this life beneath all grace,
Wash my soul of his face.

The world fades far from reckoning,
My crumbled will succumbs.
The silent light is beckoning,
Come, I'll take away his memory,
I'll set you free.

Capitulation is for Suckers

I am.

The words stand perfectly alone, yet spend most of their time being modified by others.

I am never sorry.
I am hungry.
I am the world that hides the universal secret of all time.
I am leaving.
I am coming.
I am bored.
I am running.
I am making an incision in your abdomen, that I might play with your entrails as you sleep.
I am laughing.
I am climbing Jacob's ladder.
I am in love with my own shadow.
I am having a hard time understanding why you find it necessary to moan so very much.
I am fallible.
I am riddled with disease, and penniless.
I am so drunk I piss in the dishwasher.
I am leaping to my death.
I am hemming up my pants.
I am donating 20% to the church because I know my money will be well-spent saving sinners.
I am watching a red-headed stripper bathe her acrylic platforms in tears.
I am taking you to the dentist.
I am heartily amused.
I am stalking the biggest elk I've ever seen while a cougar stalks me 200 yards back.
I am not sure they remember the day I dropped toxic waste in the high school hallway.
I am nervous around pretty people.
I am gone.

No.

I am. Nothing more is necessary.

birthright

we have a history that we didn't write
and from here on will not read,
morbid fear for the future to come
treachery, rage, petulance, greed.
locked in an orbit we can't overcome
we wail for the freedom to roam,
committing our feet to familiar worn paths
while hiding our lives in our cheap little homes.
we were born of the blood and the fire
with hearts that would not be confined
we opened our eyes with thunder and might
we had a birthright, to master the Light.
then we met the old lie and lay down as slaves
now our children are born without sight.
independence long gone, unaware of their song
vagabond orphans devoid of birthright.
so choose well your brothers
steel and hone one another
stand up and fight for your joy.
rip a hole in your soul and you finally will know
you can only create if your heart can destroy.

ragged

i suppose every class has them, the girls and boys who walk with supremacy from the day they cross the threshold, their clothes natty, their hair so very stylish, their parents' wealth attending to their burgeoning desires like a dutiful butler.

i had three, combed and conditioned for maximum effect, decked in the latest fixation of fashion, that garnered all the boys' attention. never mind that they were as dumb as posts, they looked good, they smelled good, they were all that i suppose most people think a girl is supposed to be.

i was not. i was smart and strange and had a june bug farm hidden in my desk. my closet never held new clothes. i was very much aware of fashion, i stitched together gowns for my dolls and whiled away hours drawing up clothing designs, but fashion held no positive sway on my fourth-grade popularity.

i remember being handed down a pair of Levis that i liked very much, they augmented my two pairs of cotton trousers into a reasonable enough wardrobe for a poor child. i wore those jeans proudly, at least twice a week.

one day those three girls cornered me in the bathroom and asked me to stand at the wall with my back facing them. unsure of their reasoning yet fully aware that something was amiss, i acquiesced. they giggled behind me for a full minute as my face exploded into flames. when they finally tired of their ribaldry and exited, i snagged the tallest and demanded to be clued in.

"you have holes in your pants," she said, with a miniscule measure of sympathy in her still sparkling eyes.

and indeed i did. my ass had worn straight through the sole garment that had offered my appearance a shred of normalcy. i was back to my two pairs of faded and unstylish cotton pants. i'd let some perverted semblance of pride lead me to become a laughingstock for those lucky little ladies who had no idea how it felt to be lowly and poor.

i made it back to the classroom and tied my jacket around my waist for the rest of the day. i told no one and upon arriving home i threw the exhausted jeans in the garbage.

years later on break from university, i found that my mother had taken a job babysitting one of those bitch's babies. i peeked into her crib as she slept, and from nowhere the far distant memory of her mother's wretched giggling seized me. i felt fermented rage shower me from tip to toe. i grabbed a pillow and contemplated the ease of ending that small life in a grossly imbalanced act of vengeance.

i refrained from that nefarious act, but i made a point to look my old enemy in the eye when she arrived to pick up her baby. i know by the way she dropped her gaze that she felt something black and seething brush against her brain.

years later i was in New York for business, still penniless, but many years removed from the shy little girl who thought she could play with pride and win. i strolled into Saks Fifth Avenue in my shabby coat and shoes, took in every floor, touched fine fabrics, looked straight into the eyes of every floor assistant. i took in the jewels at Cartier and Tiffany with my head high, i joked with the doormen and flashed the salesmen my best smile. i was treated respectfully, cordially even.

that day i cured that ugly pride-born blackness that had settled into my heart so many years prior. a beggar in outdated rags, i was still the finest creation on Fifth Avenue and i knew it. i would never again be ruled or defined by my lowly birth, i would never evaluate my worth by any standard but my own ever again.

sister has become the wind

hear her howling in the night
raging hard above the din
but she'll be still by daylight.
darkness is a constant friend
as she casts away her blight
beg her, baby, never end...
she's long gone by daylight.

Pretty Mamas

Giving your best
To the beast
Feeding the need
Not your nest
Venture a guess
What your greed
Forces your seed
To assess. 

Selling your soul
For a shag
Empty the bag
For a bowl
Fill up the hole
Filthy hag
Kids hear you gag
While he groans.

Pretty mamas
Hearts are like cesspools
Minds are so toxic
Playing the worst fools
The babies are watching.

Be Broken

Verse
An arcane cove
I seek to seize
A year I rove
On perilous seas.
Sanctum eludes
I’m lost, adrift
Besot by moods
Too torpid to lift.

Chorus
Breakers arising
All refuge behind
Can’t silence the sirens
Seducing my mind.
Be broken
Be broken
Begin at the end
Be broken again.

Verse
Calm, blue and slow 
A surface at peace
The ebb and the flow
Tension, release.
The riches beneath
Will never see light
A seeker too meek
The keeper will slight.

Chorus
Breakers arising
All refuge behind
Can’t silence the sirens
Seducing my mind. 
Be broken
Be broken
Begin at the end
Be broken again.