Poetry With Hart

I went to the tent city
Before it was made illegal
Before dignity became a monthly expense.
I went to the tent city
Hopeless feckless bystander
To a pain I couldn’t understand
I went to the tent city
And all I gave
Was this lousy t-shirt.

_____

We tell stories of floating cities
falling from the sky,
Not realizing…
The air is getting thin up here
And none of us are born
with wings.

———

We will die
Before they run out of ways
to kill us.

We will die
Before they run out of ways
For us to kill each other.

We will die
Become fertilizer for the crops
The next generation will tend.

———

Myopic
The word of the day.
Collective consciousness declared it trending

How apropos.

How myopic of us
Now to say
This is as bad as it’s gets

How myopic of us to think
We’ve never been here before
And that it can’t get worse than this..

——–

Walking to oblivion
In our best dress
As if we were invited
Like we had dinner reservations
For one minute to midnight

——–

Clockwork orange
Except they never strapped you to the chair,
They never forced your eyes open
To watch the screens.
You walked to the chair yourself
You buckled in
And turned it on.

——–

Rot pungent, dark
Vultures circle and maggots feast

“Not yet,” they cry out
“Please sir, I want some more.”

We will die so they can live
Rich, made fat off our corpses

Decay has one skin color,
And the suffering is the point

——–

There will come a day
When the curtain falls
Stage lights fades to black.

Each time takes longer than the last
History repeats itself, rhymes
As we never learn from our past

We invent new ways to tell it.

——–

Nothing more beautiful
Than the concept of freedom

Nothing uglier
Than it’s removal.

Own your thoughts
While you still can.

——-

Hope stood upon the floor
Asking for us to fight once more

One more time in the ring of fire
The times couldn’t be more dire

Protest takes many forms
Rip apart challenge the norms

Change begins with a good story
Hope has cast the new lead

His name is Cory.

——

“Let’s get in good trouble”
And make mine a double
Protect the world from desolation
Reunite the people of our nation
To denounce the evil, you have our love…

John Lewis smiles down from above

——–

“No Visitors Entry”
Reads the sign
Water crashes against the shore
There is no line.

Lady Liberty’s pedestal stands empty
“No More” she sighs
As she packs her suitcase
Wearied by the cries

She lowers her torch
And hides her face

——-

They will never have our souls
Though they will try
For us the bell tolls
But it’s them we decry
They may rake us over the coals
But all it serves to do is amplify
Our war cry.

——–

Fascists are tasty
With a glass of Chianti
When you eat the rich

Fascists
Taste good
With ketchup
When you
Eat the rich

Fascists are tasty
With a dash of paprika
When you eat the rich

——-

Tariff the tyranny

Work will not set us free.
On every instance of cruelty
I insist, impose a fee.
For each act of misogyny
From “grab them by the pussy”
To unsolicited dick pic cuckholdery
Our patience now costs money.
For every instance of malice and bigotry
Or capitalistic idolatry
I hope you can agree
To not sit by idly
And I hope you come with me
As I loudly decree

Tarrif the tyranny

——–

Nurturing our collective future
In his small cracked hands
Standing tall for a boy
Halfway to a man

He raises his sign high
So every car sees it
As they honk and wave by
“4 years is too long”

It reads in felt pen,
I realized it then,

this is how democracy stands.

——– (double check, was submitted before)

No exceptions will be made
When they board up the windows
Nation auctioned to the highest buyer

When the crash comes on easy
Light switch flip lights out
Navigate the darkness by riot fire.

No exceptions will be made
Turn the sign to permanently closed
Add more unemployed voices to the choir

The discarded plastic ware and broken bottles
Collect humbly outside the doors
As innocence is caged in barbed wire.

No exceptions will be made
We will grow a ghost town in our hearts
As the torch of liberty expires.

——–

The man

–if you can call him a man
and not an orangutan–

possesses a durian demeanor.
The odorous nature of his speech
would result in a wide-sweeping ban

— at least, in the public
sphere of civilization —

Yet some have cut past
The spiky exterior
Of his barbed oration

–And scooped the words
Up with a spoon–

They swoon and say
“It tastes like almonds!”
Well bless your heart hun,

–so does cyanide–

———

Sadly, we defunded education long ago
Sometime before the printing press
Or the loom, or perhaps
Just after the doomsday clock
Played a midnight symphony or two

… Wait that doesn’t sound quite right.
Was it before or after the avian flu?
What was the price of eggs at the time?
Were blonde baboons hitting golf balls
Weekly, hoping to someday hit the moon?

I’m not too sure
And that’s too bad.
I wish I had stayed in school.
I wish I still had
The choice.

——–

“Right into our maws!”
     Cried the Carpenter to the Walrus
“Right into our jaws!”
     Laughed the Walrus to the Carpenter
A gleeful day was had upon the beach
     A revel, cleaning oysters from their claws.

The walk, the talk of many things
     The years had been good to them
Inventories of shoes, ships, and kings
     They had them lined upon the shore
Now swept clear of the sand by heartstrings
     Their tears a facsimile, a farce.

“Right into our maws!”
     Cried the Carpenter to the Walrus
“Right into our jaws!”
     Laughed the Walrus to the Carpenter.
Oysters lined up to the sound of applause

———

Gone and lost it
Rights ripened then rotted,
Tossed into the garbage pit.
Seram wrap what’s leftover
As SAVE has shit
In the kitchen of
our democracy.

______

Going to Hell
And I’m taking you with me.
Like a modern-day Virgil
To his Dante saying
“Hey dude, wanna see
Something really fucked up?”
Only it turns out the route
has grown far shorter
Over the centuries…

———


“By a fictional hysteria”
     Read the epitaph on the gravestone
As the long green fingers
     Tightened their grip on the handle
Of the shovel, dirt dancing down
     To cover the remainants of mankind.

“Would you believe
     That they killed each other?”
One Martian said to the other.
    “How wild!” His reply,
As more dirt danced down.
     “Indeed”, The other sighed.

“It should read Cannibalism
     of the collective consciousness!”
“Indeed!” His reply,
     “How wild, that they didn’t know
They were actually connected”
      Said the other,

As more dirt danced down.
     “Such a shame,” his reply.
“Indeed!” The other sighed
     There wasn’t a tear shed,
We were all long since dead.
     There was no one left to cry.

——–

There was only one left, hope
Flickers yet stays burning,
A candle in the window
The wax dripping on my fingers
As I place the sign there
The signal that while
I still drew breath,
I will welcome the weary 
I will safeguard the stranger
So rest now by the fire,
Dinner is almost ready.

———-

Until we see our reflection
In the eyes of our neighbors,
We will never truly be
The land of the free.

———-

Red
Scare
3.0

Remember
Their
Names.

Target 1:
Was
Mahmoud Kahlil

Remember
His
Name.

Target 2:
Was
Leqaa Kordia

Remember
Her
Name.

Target 3:
Was
Ranjani Srinivasani

Remember
Their
Names

Target 4:
Was
Josh Dubnau

Remember
Their
Names.

Target 5:
Is
Miss Rachel

Remember
Their
Names.

Target 6:
Is
Everyone else.

Remember
Your
Name.

——-

“Correct answers only
Your final grade depends on it.”
The lecturer said, watching the class
From his place of pride at the podium

“If you don’t support this, then you hate
     progress, don’t you love your country?”
“If you’re not with us, you’re against us!”
     “What about them!?”

The answers flew
Fallacy class was always packed
Don’t worry though, everyone paid for their seats
With your votes

——-


“Alright? All life
Is gacha game,
Lottery spin,
Play to win
Win to play
Begin again,
You understand?”

The half-melted
Plastic doll
With infinity’s smile
At the end of the world
Didn’t blink,
Or have anything
To say in response

——-

Wax on, wax off.
Learning thru repetition
Building muscle memory

Tariff on, tariff off.
Training us thru submission
Draining the U.S. economy

——-

Pulling out all the stops
Save the country
By saving literacy,

Hang on, I’m reading
Our future is fleeting
The past was effective
At hiding the repetition.

They say the prophet
Entered the temple
To rid God’s house
Of theives.

My prediction,
It’s time to turn over
Some tables.

——-

What pairs better
with puritan-born
neo Christo-fascists

– with a side order of
technocratic capitalists –

than a tall glass of
apartheid
to wash it down with.

——

Rebellion schism
Tear out the old, build anew,
Believe the power

Within our voices
Unity begins with faith,
I will follow you

If you follow me.
Democracy needs jumpstarted
Help me find the switch.

——-

Spotlight me
Or scratch that
Spotlight anyone
Who needs it
More than me
As I’d rather be
The whisper
behind movement
Than a carrion
to the call

———-

Love more
Hate less
Our souls
Reflect
The hearts
Of one
Another.

We all
Crave
The same
Thing
To love and
To be loved
In return.

We yearn
For safety,
For security.
We all
Are here
Just wanting
To live.

———-

Born in a garden grove
This rose has sharp thorns.
I refuse to be torn
From my family living
In the City of Angels.

The chains of society
Ties that bind me to my friends
I bear it by choice,
To whatever end.
I will lend them my voice

Climb the ladders
Of this social contract
Construct contradiction
Containing the recipe
For both liberty and tyranny

If democracy were easy
Would it be worth it?
Freedom, a rose
By any other name
would be just as sweet.

The truth is what makes
Voting booths so important,
People are dying to get in
And if we have to from within
This turbulent generation

We will fashion a new key
Take the walls down
Brick by fuckin brick
Stick it to the orangutan
Joker masquerading as president.

I know, maybe poker isn’t his game
Let’s try a spelling contest.
ICE. Idiots Capturing Everyone.
DOGE. Drunks Obliquely Gutting Economies.
TRUMP. The Dump in Charge

Not worth making acronyms for
But I wonder what will
his tombstone one day read?
How many people will
Dance upon that grave when gone?

This rose has sharp thorns
I’ll write with ink, rage
Type print on a page face
With my blood if necessary
Until I sink away and bleed out.

Until then, there’s work to do
And I’m here until it’s done.
Who’s with me?
I’ll lend you
My voice.

————

Barcode beauty babe
twilight zone faces purchased
tell me if you can,

where’s your smile from?
Soon we will mortgage our hearts
our bodies for rent,

every part of us
is a hot commodity.
Our last free muscle

is our minds.

——

A fierce battle rages
Within our streets
and in our minds.
Soon it will be impossible
to find a soul untouched
A life unmarred
by the cruelty of
Our dictator-in-cheif
every piece of art
Is in defiance
act of self reliance
In the face of tyranny.
They may call us woke
Like it’s a bad thing
but I say raise it up
Put it on our banner.
They’ll wish they misspoke
Because the monster within us
it is awake, it is hungry,
It is organized
And ready to fight.


———

Enjoy fireworks
while brewing tea,
it makes a quirky
commentary,
like playing violin
aboard a sinking ship.
We are failing our kin
freedom tastes like rosehip
brewed upon the fire,
democracy, a small pyre
as we burn it down

_____

We’re roasting
marshmallows
over America
using the labels
they would brand
our bodies
with as kindling.

I use the books
they would burn
to create a s’more,
devour the knowledge
within its pages
I eat my fill with pride.

The riot inside my gut
like sulfur shoots
when it mixes
with the charcoal
reality of resistance
and my saltpeter soul.

Weaponize my words
Stand ready for war.

——