?

What are you going to do about it?
You can overanalyze the question
Break it down
Twist it around
Bounce it off the mirror
But you’ll see it doesn’t change
What are you going to do about it?

That’s your question I can’t answer
Like the red pill I can’t give you
And the April that keeps foolin’ you
What are you going to do about it?

There comes a rhyme to fit the season
In time with a rhythm some may call reason
Better watch who you believe in
I see the silence dripping treason

What are you going to do about it?
Who me?
We all know what Bradley Manning did about it
But the scar of war remains
And the effect is still here to remind us
What are we going to do about it?

Until Bradley is free
We’ll be Manning our battle stations
The information war hovers above us all
Let no one be left behind us

United for the cause of freedom
We’ll keep right on spreading information
As peaceful dissidents enumerating ones and zeros
Bradley Manning is a modern day hero

So
What are you going to do about it?
The horizon is calling you
As the sun and moon keep on circling us

What?
Are you?
Going?
To do?
About it?

My poetic submission for the 1001 Nights Anthology

• § •

Devour

Is there something that you want to say
I hear you sometimes in a whispered name
Forging the shadows to survive this midnight
I’m hiding from time and the false sense of light

Are we walking backwards into our future
Longing for a past multiplied by three
Are we bleeding life and painting pictures
What we promise is make believe
All along you were as blind as me

Is there somewhere that we can go
I’ll find you somehow and then I’ll know
Forgetting the times that once were clear
I lost my innocence the more you came near

Are you in between the clouds
Are you coming for us now
What you promised I can’t be
All along we live to deceive

All along you were as blind as me
What we promise is so obscene
I think I defeated you but now I’m not sure
I thought I needed you now I’m so impure

I’m haunted by these feelings that I can see
And tainted by the colors for which I bleed
Here I am your living consequence
The result of love betraying innocence

Killing time will not slay the hour
Are you a victim
Do you hold the power
Killing time will not slay the hour

The sun will rise one day to devour
Killing time will not slay the hour
The sun will rise only to devour
Killing time will not slay the hour

Killing time will not slay the hour
Are you a victim
Do you hold the power
Killing time will not slay the hour
The sun will rise only to devour
Killing time will not slay your hour

• § •

Forbidden Quests

By forbidding quests of wonder why
We lose the ability to fathom try
Without desire to see the sky
Without an apple for our eye

Without any thumbs the hands go numb
Without any toes the stumbling shows
I’ve pondered the riddles fiddles by some
What are they saying – Division is dumb

I drew a circle that formed a square
Then colored it blurple without a care
I found a square that looked as a crown
But could not share the required frown

I found the answers lost in time
Then formed a riddle to make them rhyme
Without a how I answered why
And discovered who by their goodbye

What is the cure when vacancy pours
Ashes to ashes but where is the dust
Mistrust is the curse where love locks doors
Dust to dust the gates of heaven will rust

Let me wonder without loss of why
And you will always be my valentine
Squares won’t fit in round holes
Pairs don’t mix with divided souls

The face of doubt
The loss of clout. . .

• § •

Robotic Soldier

Like a good soldier
I’m looking forward
Like a good soldier
I’m marching backward

Blow the tunnel
There is no love
When you’re stricken
By those above

Obey the man
The one that beats you
Vote for the hand
The one that bleeds you

To hear the silent
And see the dark
No longer violent
From the Ark

Having sailed without devotion
As one floating in slow motion
I’ve maneuvered past the waves
The fleeing tides of distant graves

Reflections on war
As I remove the bandage
I’ll show you the scar
A lifeless heart
Show you the price
A life in depart

War is the primary agent
Turning our beautiful brightness
Into a rich bloody darkness

Dulce Bellum Inexpertise
It’s time to rise up off your knees
Dulce Bellum Inexpertise
Rise from hell up off your knees

Your beautiful brightness
Born of my bloody darkness

But you’re sworn to peace
So I live by the gun
You warm the deceased
Beneath my cold sun

Hear the mechanical robots
Align at the door
The gunfire shots
Combine kill for the score

Your beautiful brightness
Born of my bloody darkness

• § •

Where Is the Peace

The pastor wears a cross
As the poor bleed out the cost
The bishops serve the boss
As the children endure the lost

With minds forged for slaying
Upon altars built for praying
When love gave way to raping
Truth was long past escaping

I’m tired of losing all notion
Of sincerity in societies motion
Now charismatic distortion
Consumers mental abortion

But maybe it’s always been
But will it always be
So truly untrue
So surely unsure
You have your pleasure
I have my pain
That is your treasure
I would have no gain

Inside another heart dies
Have you seen the lost ever ask why
With minds forged for slaying
Upon altars built for praying
Consume your mental abortion
Then pay to diet on distortion

Hypocrisy is the hypothesis
But how will I know
If I’m taught what to see

There is no spoon
There is no spoon
But in this room
I’m in this room

Intoxicated by the wine
That I can’t taste
Blinded by design
To wither and waste

Where is the peace
And why do they lie
They’ll never desist
If we give them time

The pastor wears a cross
As the poor bleed out the cost
The bishops serve the boss
As the children endure the lost

• § •

11:59:59

Tonight was the first time
For the next-to-last time
I missed the early signs

So now I’m sitting here
Just wishing here
That time can make it
All more clear

But I’m losing
In this godforsaken maze
Like quicksand
These godforsaken days

As I focus frown
I write it down
Then life comes back
It’s time to drown
Tell me
Where is the other way
I hear you
Like silence everyday

Left to stay right here
I will die right here
If I play right here
You know that I will sway

I know you love to feel
But what is real
The ego is what
What I need to kill

See the duel – It’s so unreal
So damn cruel – I made you ra-real

These ways. . .
No longer can I lie
These days. . .
The innocent are crucified

• § •

Evolve Internal

In the interest of brevity
Can you grasp the severity
Will hate cast off sincerity
Or will love reckon this irregularity

The world is viewed
As night and day
Forgetting when it rains
The sky turns gray
Forgetting when it rains
The rainbow plays

In order to be yourself
You need to see yourself
In order to free yourself
You need to find yourself

Self is the battle
Most worth waging
Cursed as the womb
When black and white
Will not bloom

In the process of evolving
Chaos compounds revolving

What is flesh but a cage
To bind you – Bruise you
Divide – Then conquer you
What is flesh but a cage
Don’t get lost in all the rage

Love is so simple
Have we lost the basics
Love can be so regretful
If we neglect the basics

It’s the internal
Which sows infernal
The invisible reaping
In our visible world

• § •

The Tormented Conqueror

The tormented and the tormentor
They are one and the same
A different song
But the same damn game

Some things never change
While others stay the same
Some things never change at all
While others remain until they fall

So I’m going through the motions
Just like the times before
Unsettled as the oceans
With deepness to explore

Starring at the abyss
But not long enough to witness
The eyes of crooked silence
Lifted by the absinthe

Everyone holds something
That we can’t see
No one’s granted the right
To act as the sea

• § •

The Void

I am the one – That you long to deceive
You are the ones – This nothingness bleeds
Guarded by your silence – I have felt the spoken word
Sowing innocent violence – Will you eat what you have served

I hear you calling out – Where the lost cannot be found
Playing with forbidden doubts – I have long betrayed your crown
Now that you are naked – The distance fades between us
The kingdoms long been forsaken – Betrayed by your fucking lust

We are the beggars – Begging for the tease
Forever begging – Begging baby please

I taught the truth –
I lived the lie –
You seen the proof –
You heard me hide –
I bought her truth –
I sold her lies –
My life’s the proof –
Is it time to hide –
Your life’s the truth –
When you can’t hide –

What I refuse to be – Keeps right on pursuing me
Faceless in the past – I realize that nobody is free
Are you alive – Have you crucified the creed
Will we survive – This repetition of human history

Down on my hands – My hands and knees
You’re not as good – As you first seemed
I feel the scars – So that eye can see
You turned me in – To make-believe
Now I’m defined – Down on my knees

We are the beggars – Shipwrecked by the seas
Forever begging – Begging baby please

I taught the truth –
I lived the lie –
You seen the proof –
You heard me hide –
I bought her truth –
I sold her lies –
My life’s the proof –
It’s time to hide –
Your life’s the truth –
When you can’t hide –

The taste of honey – Is what you promised me
Now that I’m blind – I cut so eye can see
I am your dirty scar – You are my wretched crown
Raised to the stars – So we can burn ourselves back down

How long ’til ignorance – Is no longer an excuse
How long ’til we silence – The voice that we refuse

I love the pain –
In faking real –
I am alive –
But for the kill –
That’s why you see –
What I can’t feel –

The truth is veiled –
But it’s not hidden –
The light has failed –
Are we forbidden –

I am the truth –
I am the lie –
You heard the proof –
You seen me hide –
I stole the truth –
I sold the lies –
My life’s the proof –
But you still hide –

Your love is only make-believe
Why am I  begging – For a taste of your disease
Did I really want – To see what you believe
That’s why I’m begging – Begging begging please

I feed the hole – Becoming one with the void
I devour what is whole – I was sent to destroy
Call me what you will – There is no escaping this
The prophecies fulfilled – I am bliss you ignorance

How distant the taste of days divine
Your bitter end will pass with age old wine
Forging simple truths in the riddled rhyme
How much longer ’til it becomes your time

• § •

Become

Dream
The dream
And become what
You would love to
Be. . .

• § •