Birth

I reworked a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, The Steadfast Tin Soldier for class.. here is the first part of what I wrote.

Twenty five brave souls
Cast from the rib of a tin spoon
Complete with weapons of destruction
In Americas red and blue
Sprung from their Eden
With a ferocious “Tin Soldiers!”
Shoulder to shoulder
Hip to hip
Though a black sheep
Out of step
Stood on one leg, steadfast
So proud

54

our 50's lingo has me wrapped in a personal tango
fathers ties and sisters matchbooks
strike free zones and garters patrol
enforcing a strict no relatives policy
with an embargo on happiness
the real world has a collective of collectors
ready to convey a crisis to criminals and civilians.

the 60's disappearance from history has the world in a hippy dippy daze
where is conformity and why is the suicide rate so high
we were not wrong being born the air is free
oxygen is a disease, a crutch for a weak species to hobble on
lock fingers, close fists, fire rifles to bring about the baby
boomerangs rinse and repeat as they swoop to clean sweep skulls from torso's

i call my friends pumpkin in the fall
and smooch them under mislabeled mistletoe in winter
rain on their parades in spring
and burn their dainty flesh in summer.

It's back. It's back was black with sin. It's back from the grave. It's back was red with regret.

Redux

Hunters and gatherers
Fetching food for their offspring
Powerful beings rift tides
Lords command nations
Fate leaves you to natural selection
~
Not ever have I brought you
To attention
Gun slung, in salute
An about face
With no definite direction
~
In pools of bile
Puddles of blood
40 ounces and 40 proof
A heat mirage
You,
The father I never knew
And you haven’t a clue
~
It’s true
I’ve needed to get away
Taken the 5am
Straight through Tokyo
Sat amongst ruin
Hiroshima,
Words like sins relived and scorn reborn
~
Mimicking abandonment
Under unwed sheets
I beat my own wench
In heat
Her enormous stench
Of regret
Spilling through my throne
~
I’m thankful
The void within me won’t harbor you
Dock regret in your grave
A cavern fit for a pawn
Used and reused
Nothing to offer royalty
~
A hack in King Arthurs court
Rusted coat of arms
One of those pilgrims
Pillaging children’s dreams
Like Indian soil
~
This is my crusade
I’m full of hope
A future so bright
I don’t need anything to cope
I’m more man
Then you’ll ever be

53

Cash cow In browned white spots
Form from fiction from franchise
That’s the job of the devil
Worship with 666 boxes
Empty of belongings
Full of skin
Sea

Pulled flesh from cubic zirconium
Shimmer in seven sins, sloth
Defibrillation countryside
Paralyzed crowns
kings crawling
stateside
sea

Kraken

Divet
Demanding
Immediate attention
Absence and abscess triumph
Mercury drip, top hats stiff, off to you.

52

pounds of feathers
and plumes of bricks
establish the scent of your voice.
heard the movements today
of cleaning the rust
a dark high-noon red's rejoice
there's a choral reef somewhere
far below Poseidon's rain
the damned cry out from their rack's
to fall on deaf ears.
'Father Maximilien,
forgive me my ways
brutality the horse you rode in
corrupts thy soul
like my own'
Terror will rain
in blades of silver
the dance of the dead