Maybe It's Rapture

The devil's at play
in your kids' playground.
He's in your neighbors' eyes
and your Senators' hearts.
Is it the death of humility?
Have we forgotten our humanity?
Maybe it's Rapture:
one dead policeman
and two dead suspects,
or
a head on collision,
or
an accidental overdose
or
a war barely begun,
we're told, but over - so over.

The officer fires
then he crosses his chest:
like a target on his heart
with a bullet, now he rests.
His badge on the pavement
and his brothers surround,
but the damage is done:
no silver lining to be found.
The dealers that dealt
the deadly blow die
drowning in His blood
(with which the streets now flood).
Their families left
with a lifetime of guilt
for the lives they'd built
and the sons they'd killed.

Her car flipped over
on top of mine;
I was dead before the fire was out.
With scorched baby
and headless husband,
I watch the reports
on how the highway is shut down
so "find other modes of transport."
Is this all that can be said
in the wake of what is lost?
The newscopter circles the scene
to survey the cost:
it's dollar signs and hours
and three young lives erased
and you'll never hear my name
or know the smile on my daughter's face.

He shuffles and stirs;
his vision a blur,
walking his tight rope
of disaster and high hopes.
What's another pill?
If only he could sleep.
Ambien and Vicoden
cure all your ills.
Orange bottles fill his dresser drawers;
he can't remember what they're all for.
But he knows those voices in his head
will shortly disappear.
His blood becomes thin
and his skin almost sheer
and when his heart stops,
he won't feel the fear.

The men march in step;
they watch their feet
plunge into mud.
They're hot and hungry
and the air's too thick
to breath their lungs full.
A young mother clenches
a folded up flag:
all that returned
of her high school sweetheart.
Her son cries out for his daddy,
but flags don't play catch as well as young men.
She wonders:
for what cause will my son never know his father?
And she knows "for freedom"
with never be a good enough answer.

So come 'round here all good Christians
(and even you bad ones);
listen here you social liberals
and you fiscal conservatives:
can't you see your planet is crying
as your children are dying?
She can grow anew,
but has grown rather accustomed to you
and she's begging that you be good,
though it's been a long time
since you've been good.
Don't keep your feet planted
still where they stood;
pick them up with all your force.
There's a fork in the road
and it's time to change course.

**********************************************

It's been a little while since I posted anything. I have a job now, so I either don't have a lot of time to write or I'm just too tired to write anything decent. I've written stuff, but nothing decent until this. I've had a lot on my mind. Getting up every morning and watching the news sort of makes me realize why I was so depressed in high school...watching the news can be unsettling in the morning and then it sets the tone for the day. On the other hand, I'd hate to live an uninformed life. Network news isn't the best place to go, but it gives you an idea of what's going on.

For the past several mornings, they've run stories on Officer DiNardo who was killed in Jersey City last week. [Jersey City cop dies from gunshot wounds] It's stuck in my head and is the basis for the second stanza. The rest of the stanzas are hypothetical, not based on anyone in particular. We cover death in the country strangely. Maybe it's universal; I don't know. But we seem to take it so casually. Unless it's Michael Jackson or something.

So, this is about the NEED for humans to look out for one another. We need to treat ourselves and our neighbors better. We shouldn't be concerned about others only to the extent that it effects us. Our world - our home - can survive without us, but...what would be the fun in that? If we don't pull together soon, though...all of everything, erased.












Lots of inspiration...

"Oh, the living and the dying: how easily you bruise. Oh, Delia, I don't go around when the devil's loose..." AA Bondy When The Devil's Loose

"I don't want to talk about Jesus, I just want to see his face. I don't want to talk about Jesus, I just want to see his face. The trees are swingin' like hangin' men, and I just want to see his face. The trees are swingin' like hangin' men, and I just want to see his face. And rapture, sweet rapture, won't you lay your hands on me. Rapture, sweet rapture, won't you lay your hands on me, for I am blind..." AA Bondy Rapture, Sweet Rapture

"Because I've had to come to grips with scope and figure, how my problems stack up in a world this close to ruin; I don't believe that it's rapture..." Kevin Devine Ballgame

"But it's over - so over - you're imitating, fascinating conversations based upon my lies." Pablo Loser Crew

"A young mother down at Smithfield, 5 am, looking for food for her kids. In her arms she holds three cold babies and the first word that they learned was 'please.' These are dangerous days. To say what you feel is to dig your own grave..." Sinead O'Connor Black Boys On Mopeds

"Only that if I were going to call myself a Christian, I'd have to call myself a pacifist as well. I don't think it's possible to c-call yourself a C-Christian and...and j-just leave out the awkward bits." Wilfred Owen via Pat Baker Regeneration, page 83.

"It's been a long time; it's been a long time; it's been a long time since I've been good...Heaven can wait; Heaven can wait. I will be good, swear I'll be good. I will be good; I swear I'll be good." The New Frontiers Spirit and Skin

"And every coughing car and every coiled snake and every shrieking star and every burning stake: dissolved to atmosphere, all of everything, erased..." Kevin Devine All Of Everything, Erased

Far Enough

We're such a nothing of a start.
We stall before we depart;
we never say anything anyway.

A simple plea
with great solimnity,
I lay down my sword.

Words shatter bones
with syntax and tones
and I now I'm beaten and scarred.

Your prepositions paralyze
and your commas tell lies:
you are a walking ellipsis.

But you're sung and not said,
hummed and not read,
and I tap my feet as you fade.

Defeated today,
I wander far away
like I'll find you if I walk far enough.

******************************************************

It's about having something, taking it for granted, fucking it up, and then missing it when it's gone.








"So tie the noose and raise the cross. The martyr's arrived. A desperate plea for sympathy; it's all you need..." Straylight Run Sympathy For The Martyr

"'Let the blue sky overhead,
The green earth on which ye tread,
All that must eternal be
Witness the solemnity."
P.B. Shelley The Mask Of Anarchy

"I had finally given up on love and romance. If I laid down the sword, I'm giving my innocence..." Miniature Tigers Cannibal Queen