Prophets for Profit

One commonality I’ve noticed

Is that, people love to tell others

Not to subscribe to another’s bullshit

But watch, and listen to their own.

Another commonality I’ve noticed

Is that, these same people

No matter how delusional

Will acquire followers like sheep to a Shepard.

And they do it warmly, and with a smile.

And they’ll agree with you entirely.

They’ll make you feel safe.

They’ll tell you what to see and how to see it,

Treating you like their own personal parlor trick.

Their greatest illusion will be their acceptance.

While the bullshit they feed

In return for a profit—they’ll make themselves

The prophet—which they need to feel sound.

One commonality I’ve noticed

Is that, people who can’t be alone

Will do everything it takes not to be alone

Even when that means taking you with them.

They will win your will, with or without your consent.

They will make it feel like your own choice

To gain your trust, and dissolve you of fear.

Though fear isn’t always a negative—

Often it’s a tell tale sign—so

These commonalties I’ve noticed

Are geared to my liking, but at least

I’ve got the peasants fortune to tell you

That, prophets for profit will always be cunning.

And though wolves wear many clothes,

So do Shepards.

Being silly on my Soap Box Tree, Jan. 2021

Patience and Surrender

Most things can’t be unsaid,

though in my heart—

under the mess I’ve made—they

can be understood, in time

with patience and surrender.

I’ll always surrender.

I just haven’t got the skin,

I just haven’t got the heart

not to know better.

November 28 2020

a silent mass

I never wrote a word, not until

I’d said my peace,

misconstrued and gnawed on,

beaten to a pulp,

dead as embers—burnt black on arrival

to a silent mass, ready

and aching to be heard.

Therapy Circle

Listening in

on a socially

distant therapy

circle, I hear strange

certainty fading

with each spilled sip

of coffee, squandered

on psychosocial thoughts

in alignment with

the universe

always.

Los Angeles, Westwood

In my neighborhood

Every muffler

Firework

SNAP-CRACKLE-POP

people assume is a gun shot.

I know why they imagine this

but I just can’t believe it myself, because

the men and women I see,

whose culture, features, religion

may differ from my own,

are hard working families.

And where I’ve still got fingers,

they’ve only bone.

Winnetka California 2020

What those lost do not say.

Remember me tomorrow

For who I was today

And understand my sorrow

Was never yours to save —

For everyone has reasons

The grieving call them brave

Who fought too many seasons

To end up in this grave

Still don’t mistake this sorrow

I’ve borrowed mine today —

Yet listen for tomorrow

What those lost do not say.

Nobody sleeps.

Nobody

sleeps. We

just break our feet

and walk again.

And again.

And again.

Then awake as if

from a dream

in a rented room

which smells of

antiseptic soap.

And like a child

waiting to be fed

we struggle

struggle to breathe

struggle to see

struggle to hear

we struggle to be

like we wish we had been

all those years

we couldn’t sleep.