Centers in the Margins

Speech
as sound
and
nothing else
takes little
to produce

costing
less
than what
it would
to enable
thoughts original

proper elocution
aims gain
and
not much else

a tongue
well trained
is able
sufficiently
to resemble
animate brain
of possibly,
people

Patriot Acts

- for Aaron

Simpler then.
No longer crown
but country
territorial
marking
property.

Somehow
complicated
now.
A notion
"freedom"
changed
the story.

Democracy
purportedly
knows not
an "other"
still Patriots
insist.

Difference
often converging
in sex, color of skin
and money.

Odder still
Patriotism
makes
a comeback
worn
like a hat
eaten
like a doughnut.

Ironically
the most
patriotic act
is to purchase,
buy,
and transact.

punk poets

written words
so banal
as to provoke
emotion
yet often
too exclusive
to be common

privileged
to the point
of mass production

monopolized scripts
point it straight
to oblivion

once in a while
punks emerge
waxing lyrical
to the tune
of the politically
personal

A Prior Problem

nothing goes
without
saying
not even
"nothingness"

even merely
saying
something
or
anything
ends up
meaning
something else
to
someone
or
another
or
simply
nothing
at all

Mean Girls

From
early on
little girls
learn
the price

affection
is paid for
in
hooks
and
talons

most
"friendships"
temporary
alliances
among girls
"necessary"

to get
the "other"
girl out
of the way

boys make wars
but
girls live it,
wage it,
and
all the while,
deny it

is powerlesness
the motivation?
is meanness
of spirit
an instinct?
or
a defense reaction?

Unpopular Democracy

Liberation
is never
a mutual
equation

democracy
hardly
egalitarian

louder voices
always
drown out
feeble ones

but
the biggest
joke
still is
the vote

to have
the freedom
to choose
but not
make
the decision

My Faith: An Argument

Faith
is
not
instruction,
neither
code
nor
symbol

not all
ritual
spiritual

hesitation
plauges
meditation

of saints
who
lived
to
die

our minds
we lost
somewhere
between

the break-up
of
body
and
soul

Instead
I argue:
Faith is
a relation
a compassionate
reaction

Meaning
is in
the looking
and not
the sign

Humanity
is elemental
to
the divine

Edible Principle

Yours
are
mighty messages
giant phrases
I am
supposed
to seek
protection
from harm

thunder
and
bellow
scaring
every fellow

they
who harm me
by believing
they
could buy
me

they
lorded over
me
you said
fumbling fools
and
drunken idiots
who had
to pay
to
get laid

I lost all
dignity
you said
and
I wondered
how
fools and idiots
never did

I listen
your shiny principles
how I wish
they could be
warmer
to the bitter
cold
of the heart,
the soul,
the pit
of my stomach

The End of a Notion

Once worthy
of oration,

my nation
is now

just
a station

a temporal location
a minimum relation

memories movable
just as
familial connection.

Agony of a Gnostic

It makes no sense
all those symbols
rituals
gone awry

why take
a blessing
from someone
unworthy?

his hands are dirty
by association

his mind
even dirtier
through confession

Compassion knows
no native soil
it sprouts
in unlikely
potholes
and
grows
in between
barren rock

amid
the stoic faces
of saints

in the blank
stares
of devotees

perhaps
not nurtured
but
chanced upon