words of condolence and shared sorrow placing flowers on a martyr’s grave promising justice and change but in the end nothing but gold gilding on unceasing death
arbitrary moments of death arrhythmic heartbeats of hope loss consciousness of tomorrow with staggering steps throughout today chapped lips and tongue dried unable to speak or pray like a child stares from beneath the covers of night’s fears expecting either saints or demons but finds only what was there in the beginning apparitions of lies told
child didn’t your mom or dad tell you ’bout politicians
their words are like those of a used car salesmen everything’s fine until you drive that hunk of painted rusty metal
off the lot then all bets are off and the promised warranty now seems to be written with invisible ink
i stopped by aunt bea’s this afternoon on my way home from work i was telling her about an amazon patent on a dressing mirror that provides you with virtual clothes aunt bea said honey there’s nothing new in that politicians for years have been providing the public with a variety of virtual wares
for centuries black tortured hands have dug in life’s obsidian soil souls seeking the sacred grave where liber lays but each tomb opened held only the ashes of other ancestor’s dreams ancestors who sought manifest equality but found only a mass grave holding the cinders of their ancestor’s dreams
i’ve begun to count each step i take not with one of those fancy exercise watches but on paper with black tick marks totalled for the day it’s a way of reminding myself that i’m still alive though inside a glass-walled prison of social expectation a prison that continues to feed the poor on political gruel and war’s soylent green while a minority enjoys what was promised to all ah the all tapping white canes of comprehension against the political hollow curbs of a make-believe cities of gold all the while walking on the edge of a cliff with so few steps to the abyss