Control Respect

/ majormattusa

When you showed your father
You could hold that snake
Without flinching.

When you heard them coming
Wrapping your finger around
The plastic trigger.

When you first glossed over.
Feeling the truth in blood
Learning to hold the leash.
The thrill of releasing the lie
About meat and making things happen.

Curled into a ball, in your bed
Anticipating unknowable lightening strikes,
Listening for the RAP TAP TAP of rain drops
The thunder shook your walls
Like the sides of a roller coaster.

That day in summer camp.
The tools and the protocol
The wood in your hand
The passing of the torch.

Not control,
Respect
For distant thunder,
The child
And the childhood’s end.

Coercive Diplomacy

/ majormattusa

The leash follows your explorations
I keep my thumb on the button
I’ll bag your shit
For my neighbors

You feel free and safe

We limp along
Two bullets at the bar
Patriots under duress
Hollywood guilt
Outside the body

Boys find their purpose
Playing guns like guitars
Piece of wood
A Samari sword

At what age can I start judging?
To save a life
How big do I have to be?
How important
To me

The earth of my skin

/ majormattusa

Has been through so much
Frozen and thawed frozen and thawed
I am starting to nap
The next ice storm sends my body into hibernation
The birds need so much
They eat fast
Leave their broken shells beneath the feeder
So much time looking for the ones that dropped
Winter has no time to mourn
No time to consider gender or spirit
There is one sun for every winter

Fire men

/ schwervon

Excuse me, sir?
You left something
Right there on the bench
Next to me.

Marks on the launch pad.
How many suffer
For a flower to grow?

“We burn them to ashes
And then we burn the ashes.”

We learn so much from fire.
Everything burns the same
Beautiful and bright.
Everyone in the room knows
When it’s on.

A million tiny tongues
All going at once.
Do they taste anything?

“If I could lick my own balls
I might never date again.”

Fire changes things
With one quick click flicker
Forever.

The gaze of a father
Turns the skin to Silly Puddy.
We forge weapons
During commercials
Hack away
At the hanging bags of Jello.

The fire is in us.
We feel entitled to write books
To burn.

Decide

/ schwervon

Day after day
The sad beauty.
Watching the little girl
Ooze out of you

I need to decided which one I like.
No I don’t.

Work poem

/ schwervon

Every day every look every word.
Every moment wasted
Tanks filled, sitting.
Beautiful works of art collecting
Dust in warehouses.
Transfers of power.
Not even ink on paper
Fleeting bursts of energy
Obligitorily touched
By expendable employees

Morning

/ schwervon

The dream informs the nightmare
Every abuse is a snowflake
Sometimes we lie
When we tell the truth
What if the Morning Pages
Are the poem?

All

/ schwervon

These old feelings
Like books
And grand sailing ships,
Clear windows of glass
To new worlds,
Now something different,
Heavy
Chains around the neck
Running through sand
Disguising the path
Inspire by the masochism
To totally different worlds
All good

I awake

/ schwervon

Escaping a nightmare
Moments before a
Collision with a
Telephone pole

Driving
I see a cat collide
With a moving car
Not mine
It writhes in the street
A boy and his father turn
Away
I am fully awake
I drive by