Captive Audience

Hanging on to the back of The Dragon, on with
plumes of smoke, floating resonance through the mountains
inlaid with the popular neighborhoods of the birth land.
Faces smile, bellies swell with booze
and echoing laughter resounds through the air.

Watching the iron birds fly in from behind a chained link fence,
in a country where terror is just a corner away
most times all we find is smiling faces
filling the air with freedom and grace.
No wonder they want to take it away.

People come back from captivity,
the nine to five grind of the "American Dream,"
back to a reality they'd lost with "American Idol"
infused with propaganda legally rectified sealed and processed,
to smell freedom in the air puffed just a few feet away.

In the words of a drunken genius clown
who levitated 6 machetes, 3 balls, and 4 pins
up in the air for the world to see,
right on 24 and 6th, in front of the coffee shop
where the green worm makes a left turn:

"Thing I love about all of you Pereiranos is that you're rebels.
You do things the way YOU'RE gonna do them."
So he took a swig from his alcohol just as he joined
a dispersing crowd who carefully ran away
from the falling machetes, balls, and pins.

Sunsets come up every night in conversation
as the day slowly wonders into night with twilight
close behind the two, it is never sure which way to go,
covered in golden twilight splendor
memories are recorded, stored, to be later remembered.

Floating along on the back of the dragon,
plumes of smoke behind and
there she sits with her one hand in her hair
as the other passes the spliff she rolled with Prometheus–
Eris just loves to be around good company.

Postcards To Hitler (part 3)

Can you imagine what it is to finally have your chat with your Devil
only to find that all it had in mind was to undress you—
ripping each and every article of clothing, tearing at your very flesh—
a frenzied attempt to subdue, to make a fool of you, with words
slicing at your very being, because that old demon knows what to say
to make your skin crawl. Another fine specimen is presented
all it has to do is breathe in a little deeper, and it is all gone to hell.

On the coming final courtain

Grandma is marking her last knotches
On the tree of life that has flourished
Given and shared so much with her
Her graffiti paints the branches rainbow
Just as she's about to
Completing a cycle of life in this universe
Yet she regrets not having loved freely
Being sold to a man for a family name
Bold when she professed the man she wholeheartedly loved
Was never good enough for her parents
Her heart aches still, so full of regret.

Tomorrow to visit an uncle
A poet, writer, philosopher
Who has lost his health to indulgence,
A leg chopped off due to diabetes, health
Thrown the last years down the tubes
All of his artistic work
Lays in the hands of family
Who hope to cash in
To make something out of the beauty
That the old man once saw in the world

To look into a mirror can change you
To look into two will change you
Throwing the towel is no longer an option
Loving art, giving it all to make a mark
To not end up missing a leg of life
Or regretting not having lived, loved.