white noise

i wake to the clang of metal on metal
as ploughshares are beaten into swords
my alarm clocks sulks
a superfluous knickknack on the bedside table

behind my eyes i see gleaming sparks
soaring to the sky
with every kiss of iron on steel

the noise never stops though it’s dampened
by the usual commerce that fuels
the business of living such as it is
in this brandnew incarnation of the everyday

the voices of those with nothing to say
speak the loudest
great waves drowning the best humanity has to offer

with no reason to rise i lie in a cold hard bed
in a cold hard room
in a cold hard life
and whisper words to the dead

who answer in soft voices
never stilled by the shouting of those
who wish to forget

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headlamps

i want to write the pain of the world
in words that will echo in the corridors of time
but you with your shining eyes
keep getting in the way

the hunger of the innocent must be told
in words that will touch the flintiest heart
before their tiny skeletal bodies are thrown
into the maw of history
but you with your shining eyes
keep getting in the way

and who will remember
the millions coughing their way to oblivion
unless this plague is writ in such a way
as never to be forgotten
but you with your shining eyes
keep getting in the way

as i search to frame that monstrous day
when the heart of our country was broken
by madmen with bullets and bombs
and blood ran in the corridors of freedom
but you with your shining eyes
keep getting in the way

an entire race sequestered in poverty
by men pretending to own the word of god
and shelves of ice fall into the sea
displacing creatures with nowhere else to go
still men split the earth for oil gas diamonds gold
as flames shoot out of faucets the homeless fall
onto sidewalks in skeletal heaps and still
the children starve as i search for words
but you with your shining eyes
keep getting in the way

as boys are shot for being the wrong color
in the wrong place at the wrong time
and preachers stand palms open to
reap the grimy dollars of the poor as they promise
life everlasting in a fairyland of whatever suits 6
the moment and there’s so much more
that must never be forgotten
but how can i describe it
when you with your shining eyes
keep getting in the way?

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