yes i understand god cannot love me till i please you

i understand why you left

for an adult whose childhood

was one of abuse and abandonment

nothing will ever erase

how it was all my fault

i’m a disappointment

 

i’m a crumpled piece of paper

with no words

 

and all these christians

who tell me what i must be

to be accepted

are right

i don’t belong

in their religion

without forgiveness

 

so let me be the worthless piece of shit

who will never amount to anything

because to me your conditional love

represents a god

whose face resembles my parents

and inspired the me who wrote

the dark streets of decay

and i would rather suffer eternal hell

then pretend all is well

in a heaven with a god

who has to punish me

because i am someone whom

a mother could never love

 

oh and do me a favor please

shut up

you don’t care about me

you’re the priest and the pharisee

who walked by the injured

on the side of the road

it was the sinner who helped

because only the humility

of knowing  your own frailty

creates compassion

you do not represent christ

the christ who forgave

the woman who wept on his feet

dried them with her hair

while religious rule

gave no excuse for her sin

while the god of love

ate with the publicans and sinners

because he understood everything

sigmund freud never could

 

and how every action is a reaction

to the love you say i will never deserve

and what i must do to earn

till i am a dog that pees

on the floor

because i don’t know what

the rules are today

among your intolerance

for my inability to earn your love

 

it’s really not that complicated

until you meet someone like me

who questions the deity

of your authority

and sees you as just another person

you require to satisfy the lies

which allows you to be

the antithesis of selfishness

and tolerance of a god

that you have no desire to be

because god can only be relevant

if he agrees with your needs

to be considered to one

who must be obeyed

and the one who dispensates approval

 

and, yeah, i see you

without a clue

you are the one that will use

your ignorance to your advantage

while wounded such like me

can see

the christ of the gospels

who railed against those who see

while gathering  the wounded, the abused

by you

under sheltering wings

of whom we sing of the hope

that the scope of his love includes me

instead of what you say his love should be

 

***

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

even the gods of war fondle the promise of peace

faking the frontier found among

the foliage of some forgotten floor

i go to the store

just another day

people view people as in their way

shadows that block their share of the sun

 

when i was young i knew nothing at all

now i know even less

and i confess i had it all wrong

the search for happiness of where we belong

the labor for the reasons for our suffering

is a colossal waste

 

amplifying our acceptance in a world

whirling so fast you would

not even be missed if you were flung

from its sphere will never steer

you in the direction of a mended heart

growing closer or apart is an illusion

something you perceive

 

selfishness is the antithesis of clarity

trying to be a god who fashions

the world after their own image

will only frustrate your frailty

 

you will never find what you need

while trying to satisfy needs

this is not a concede

or a status of self-sufficiency

it is an end to the endurance of answers

and the allowance of being who you are

and not what you are expected to be

and loving others for who they are

even amid the scars they seer into your skin

 

the moment within

is the moment where you are

and what is happening at this moment

is all that really matters

the moment should not be judged

after it has passed

just remain in each moment while it lasts

and all the people with the dyes they cast

will never be able to mold the moment for you

 

ignore their ingredients

their antecedents

i love without having to be more

so at the store  

i’m buying something i wanted

without inducement, without being hunted

 

what makes you happy is not my responsibility

and what makes me happy is no concern of yours

 

***

 

 

post apocalyptic prayers

creative juices flowing

what i’m undergoing

i’ve yet to comprehend

 

bought groceries for

a homeless family

filled the toys for tots bin

 

haven’t been drinking

but cigarettes stinking

as i burn through

a pack a day

 

don’t have much to say

but other’s needs

constantly present themselves

and i help

till sometimes i get worn out

 

found the water

stared through the smoke

of my cigarette

 

pulled out pen and pad

neither happy or sad

but when someone

wants to know why

i help so much lately

my eyes tear and i walk away

 

conversation is so meaningless

 

i think my name is

being passed around

the lips of the homeless

cause they see me

ask for a cigarette

a sandwich

i say yes

 

recently i published

two more books

didn’t take a second look

before finally handing

old words for publication

 

they are no longer me

all i now see

is the moment

and the immediate need

and i don’t even really

know why i’m doing it

 

i just am

and in the depths of

my atheism i wonder

if something isn’t

bringing the need my way

since i’m willing to help

because it just keeps

coming from every angle

 

but at this moment

on this beautiful day

i’m where the pretty

people play by the water

to steal the solace

of a little solitude

poets need time to pen

 

enchanted while watching

a couple make their way

across a field

quite some distance away

 

i haven’t found purpose

i wasn’t looking

i haven’t found belief

i wasn’t searching

 

other’s needs have always

been there

i wasn’t unaware

suddenly i started giving

and all other aspects of living

fell like lifeless leaves

the ground receives

to begin the process

of decomposition

 

i didn’t intend this transition

or purposely put away perdition

i just started rescuing raindrops

while water washed over me

like a flood

 

and in my mind that over analyzes

everything i cannot turn green

the photosynthesis of my thoughts

to understand what brought

this all about

 

and why i no longer sniff

the wind for happiness

but have become content

within the give

 

***

 

 

the statute of my limitations

in the end

finding someone who can love you

for whom you really are

protection peeled, laid bare

is what’s going to be material

when you are taking your last breath

 

the disagreement and disbelief

of those who watered your hurt

will never occupy a lonely bed

 

and you know what?

all the philosophical, political, theological

are defense mechanisms

to sooth your anger with justification

deflect the truth

that all you really feel is alone, unaccepted

unless you’ve projected

an acceptable view to the crew

until you are a functioning alcoholic

 

i’m tired of crying in the wilderness

baptizing the lepers that exist

in the socialism of my mind

while everyone defecates my internalities

and are so disgusted

they flush without looking

 

i’m emotionally exhausted from dancing

with schools of thought

on how to detach

exist alone

when all i’m really doing

is consuming anything

which helps me forget

how alone i really feel

 

oh the things i’ve done to feel loved

right or wrong

the baseball glove

secures the wild pitch

the pitcher never meant to throw

but too many wild pitches

and you are no longer adequate

to command the mound

to satisfy everyone’s expectations

 

how do saints give and give and give

immortalization with canonization

while i exist within the space

of a trace

that there may be grace

for someone who knows

but can’t bestow

the allotment meant for endowment

 

ignorant idiots idolizing

the insignificance of individualism

cannibals who feed with endless need

but i only have so much flesh

 

again i’m emotionally exhausted

called in sick to the solace

so i could linger in the layers of late night

sipping schnapps

smoking

walking where no one is at hand

to make demands

phone off

traffic drowning out a cough

from a cold i won’t let take hold

allowing myself to shelve everything

amid my poems of nihilism

 

because i’m just a guy

who will be putting away

the last of the laundry

that is waiting for me

turning out the lights

quandary a bed in which

there is never a reason to be naked

 

wondering how i got from being

the author of the first volume of

the dark streets of decay

to this way

where all that remains from those days

are the alcohol and cigarettes

 

***

With a foot on either side of the divide I write

        Look, I get it; President Elect Trump wants to allocate a trillion dollars to rebuild the infrastructure, a beautiful thing. American as a country and as an ideal is the most wonderful place in the world and deserves to shine brightly. This will put people back to work and it resembles the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt which brought us out of the Great Depression by putting Americans back to work, building the highway and bridges that connected this great country and placed such a demand on cars that more automobile manufacturers sprung up and drove down the price of vehicles so that it wasn’t only the bank president who could afford a Model T. By the 1950s we had Jack Kerouac on the road and James Dean symbolizing this innate feeling of liberty we Americans have and are entitled too by taking to the open road so that even today the American Dream is to retire and attach a fifth-wheel so we can travel across this great land of ours; and you know what? That sounds great, but not at the cost of hate.

          Yes, to create more jobs than there are workers forces companies to offer competitive wages and benefit packages to entice people to want to work for them; but at what cost? Percolating into a fine brew the discontent of the hard working individual who can’t afford to take their family on a vacation is not the result of corporate greed but because of people who don’t look like them and shouldn’t be here in the first place?

          We are already free and should support this administration’s desire to make America great again by bringing jobs back to this country, but we should also fight these racial undertones through the rights guaranteed by the Constitution by not allowing the civil liberties of any individual to be taken away or prohibited in the name of national security and the idea that if it wasn’t for this group of sinners God would bestow His blessings on us once again and you could have everything you have worked so hard for.

          Remember, the middle-class is already gone. There is just the working class and the rich and the luxuries they enjoy by the benefit of your labor and how the real issues they distract by keeping us off track by deflecting the blame onto anyone but the American people who are responsible for the actions of a government that is suppose to answer to the constituents they were instituted to serve.  

 

          ***