Teach all day, then build all night

Hey, man
The poem I worked so hard on
Got erased
And replaced with a
Blank space
So now I’m working twice as hard 
To make sure that it’s not the case
So these next few lines I dedicate
To all of the institutions and ideals I plan to desecrate
Because all of these things that hold us back
I plan to designate to detonate
No, the revolution will not be televised 
At any cost
We ask that you preview the news with the TV off
And be reminded that the first few lines of this poem
Got erased
Don’t let it happen to you
And all of the things you believe to be
True

I’m gone given
this is lyric
what’s true slug, grain
killer dose
already in you
encountered
too readily skin
lets water in

me dijo english was
a lever the rock citizenship
for her mother

gravity choking on
respect unreciprocated

The orange glow of the sun that morning,
burning you into my mind and memory   
I once had the dream of one day,
knowing you but losing you too soon

Head lolls back, forth, just
not stranger’s shoulder.  Unseen
rocking chair cradles
me.

The scritch-scratch
of this blue pen
mimics the spinning thoughts
wheeling round my head again.
In this life ephemeral
ripples on a foggy pond
why are we even here again?
Whatever god
or eldritch horror
beyond the reach of the palest starlight
coaxed the cold flames
from coals that coalesced into my consciousness
couldn’t you have left me well enough alone?
I didn’t ask for these atoms,
synaptic connections,
this blood and these bones.
We’re drifting listless
a sinking ship on a slate-grey sea.
At the end of it all
the cold hard line
at the edge of the world
what did it even mean?
Revolutions on tilted axes
nowhere and everywhere
simultaneously.

There’s a sifting going on.
My life is shifting.
The contents are getting mixed and sorted out.
I feel the lifting.
From heavy ladened,
To elevating.

I just can’t stop crying

Over the lightning bugs

One of my most favorite things,

That our species is the reason

I just can’t stop being sad

About the bees

The pollinators

How we need them

I can’t stop thinking about

People being forced off of land

That belongs to no one but

Mother Nature herself

We are the same species

I don’t even watch the news

And yet I still see tragedy

After tragedy

I just want peace

I just want true freedom

I just want the bees

And dammit,

I just want the fireflies to stay forever,

I just feel despairing

Fog tumbles through the valley and
 settles upon a town
  the road keeps winding
 cattle slowing down.

Big Sandy swells beneath me
 weathered bridges stretch and strain
  the sky hangs low and heavy
 with whispers of the rain.

Rusted rigs lie silent
 where mountaineers are always free
  graves abandoned but not forgotten
 nearby crooked trees.

Alone upon West Virginia’s valley
 the Appalachians blessed this ground
  I chase the fog like shadows
 lost, I refuse to turn around.