Why is this the thing that shocks you so
The one at which you mean to draw a line
And sever yourself from the greater godly body
In which you were raised
To which you pledged yourself
And not the lie that you enact by
Pushing yourself away from it
And it from you?
Is it not a sin to lie?
Yet you expect to be forgiven
And to remain among the body of the elect
While working so very, very hard
To keep others out of it

Why is this the thing that shocks you so
The forbidden deed among forbidden deeds
The unpardonable event that must be set aside
Or must be set aside.
Because it is commanded that it not be done
And that those who do it find opprobrium
And not the marks made in flesh and marring of it
And not keeping the gleanings of the harvest
Or the fruits from the edges of the fields
And not the mistreatment of strangers in the land
And not adultery
Which is one of the larger among
Thou shalt not
Set in stone on courthouse steps as a movie’s marketing maneuver
A politician’s campaign ploy?
Are they less forbidden?
Yet they who do them
Again and again
And gladly
Those get welcomed in and celebrated
While others would be left to languish

Why is this the thing that shocks you so
The one you claim cannot be forgiven
That merits castigation, condemnation
And not the killing of another person
Something many claim that they would do again
Given similar circumstances
And not when someone else is creeping into their home at night
Which might well be excused
But in the homes of others
Unwelcome on their lands
And for no real purpose save to be there?
Is it not a sin to kill?
And yet many do more than fail to repent
Who are kept among the congregation gladly

Why is this the thing that shocks you so
Demands of you that you rise up in anger
Giving voice to hatred
Giving hands to violence all too often
You who claim to hold as your lord and teacher
One who often abjured violence
Who said who lives by the sword will die by it
Who said who calls another a fool is in danger of damnation
Who said not to resist evil
Who said to turn the other cheek
Who said to give more to those who ask of you than they ask
Who said to take the beam from your own eye before worrying what is in another’s
Who said to cut yourself down to keep yourself from sinning rather than to cut another down
When you will welcome back among you
Even praise
Who flout the two true commandments
Proudly
Who offer up not even a mumbled apology
Let alone burnt gifts of atonement
Or efforts to make real change in themselves
And whose actions bespeak praise for Mammon?
It doesn’t seem right, does it?
It shouldn’t
But you still do it
Over and over and over again
Unrepentantly
And demanding to have a house that is not yours
Be as you would have it
Shutting out those who have too often been in the cold
Who harming none have suffered harm

Why is
This
The thing that shocks you so?

I remain available to write to order!
Custom work done by human hands–
No AI involved,
And at reasonable rates!
Fill out the form below to get started!

As ever, I appreciate your patronage!

A year later
Lives later
Daughters and sons
Sisters and brothers
Mothers and fathers
Cousins, aunts, uncles
Gone away now
Not dust in the wind but
Mesquite leaves beaten down by
Hailstones falling all too quickly
All too often

Those who might build shelters from the storm
Take up their hammers and their Phillips-heads indeed
But what do they seek to pound on and screw
While some new La Llorona festers gestating
Ready to be born into a world made wet with obscene dripping

She will scream as she is born
And her own mother will scream
Again and again
And it may be that we have already heard the pangs of her birth
Ringing in a tritone over
Smaller cries silenced too swiftly

Skewering the one in a hot time
Two going together in the split of a third
Melting into each other and
Leaving the sticky white clinging
To the lips that taste them all
Guided thence by a firm grip
Again and again and again
Something shared well with many people

There’s still time for bespoke writing–all done by a real person, not a machine!
Fill out the form below for details!

I will also thank you for your patronage!

Pulling current
Rheostat rolling back slowly to
Let more power through
Shine more light as the filament
Grew more heated
More strident
More incandescent
The gassy tube more charged and pulsing
Scattering widely what it took in

Things wear out as they are used
They rot in place as they are not
And there is no preservation in the end
Nothing to keep things as they have been
Despite the desires and protests of many

The globe on the fixture has been swapped out
And it may be that the bulb does not
Cast so much as once it did
When the switch is toggled
But it still alleviates the gloom
From time to time

Writing done to order, and by a real person, too!
Fill out the form below, and see what I can do for you!

Or just help me along a little!

It’s often becried
By those who’ve espied
If you’ve done nothing wrong
You have nothing to hide
We know it’s not true
Some things I don’t rue
But don’t want others watching
Me carry them through

How often they try
To catch folks in a lie;
If you’ve done nothing wrong
What have you to deny?
We know it’s not true
We all know someone who
Had their words twisted ’round
And it might’ve been you.

Across many years
We’ve oft had to hear
If you’ve done nothing wrong
You have nothing to fear
We know it’s not true
Whatever you do
Something ugly can always
Happen to you

I’m happy to write to order!
If you’d like to place one with me, fill out the form below!

Or simply send your patronage, and I shall thank you with effluvious thanks!

How many
Look at things through
Manichean lenses
Polarizing into
Chiaroscuro starkness
And think they have the whole picture

I try to look
Not only at the shades of grey
But across a broader spectrum
Where others see only black and white
And think themselves well bleached

I know I am deeply stained
Both with ink and otherwise
Unlike the Scottish lady at play
That I cannot get those spots out
And even so
There are hues I miss

Like how I write?
Want some of this done for you–or maybe for a coming graduate?
Fill out the form below for details!

Or send along your support!

Plant in the season
Fertilize the fields
Reap when the time comes
But the rains will fail sometimes
And some seeds
Despite the best tending
Never sprout
Or
Germinating
Become plants that never bear fruit

I’m happy to write to what you need!
Fill out the form below
To let me know
How you will want to proceed!

Of course, you could lend a hand, too!

They say to
Set your course by your own North Star
Pick out Polaris and plot out a path
But they do not realize that
Over the years
Even that star drifts across the sky

I write works to order.
If you want one of your own, or as a gift for a special someone, fill out the form below, and we’ll get started!

Or you could simply contribute!

O, Stupid God, again I make my plea
That you will turn your gaze away from me;
Let your eyes look elsewhere; leave me be.
O, Stupid God, please do not bless my friends
Save it is with your absence or your end;
Others ask for you to them defend.
O, Stupid God, my labors please ignore
And all the deeds I do, I you implore;
Those that I do, I know, would but you bore.
O, Stupid God, my family please preserve
And from your course against them sudden swerve;
Let them your absence have that they deserve.
Let all the hymns sung to your praise be ceased
And all who suffer at your hands be eased.

Like what I write?
Fill out the form below, and I may write for you!

Or simply extend patronage!

What’s the point of all of this
Really
Sitting in these stifling rooms
Day after day
Learning things our older brothers and sisters learned
Our cousins and their friends
About how the world works
The way things are supposed to be
When it’s clear that
The world doesn’t work that way anymore
If it ever did
Skills that might’ve served once
But’ve been replaced by machines and software
AI putting out paintings and poems
Progressive generation of music
Notes that never could’ve been heard before
All the things they said would make us better people
Given over to machines
While it’s clear we’re being trained as cogs ourselves
Wheels meant to turn and go nowhere
But just feed things through so
Someone else can have them
And be swapped out when we can do no more

Is this really all there is to it all
Making those of us who still might’ve had futures
Something to enjoy
Into the shapes filled by those a few classes ahead
Bullets in chambers to be fired at enemies whose only crimes are
Different colored skin
Different modes of dress
Different prayers lifted up
Or none
Or sitting on something someone else wants
But doesn’t want to pay for
Themselves
Unless they spend the melted and remade metals
They think we ought to be
Coins cast at some problem or another
‘cause cash is king and they want to show off their crowns

Do they really only want us to fill their bodybags
Graves they make us dig ‘cause they won’t lift a shovel
There’s someone else to do that for them
Of course
Or their pockets with the work they want done
Don’t want to pay to have done
Any more than they can help
‘cause they don’t think they have enough
Even when they have more than they could ever spend
More dollars than days of their lives and ours

?

It seems that way
Learning the lessons they leave for us to take
Making us machines they can program as they please
So we don’t question
Or if we question
Keep it to ourselves
‘cause the pasts they push forward
Seem short on complaint and long on compliance
I was just following orders
Doing what the boss said I ought to do
A commoner refrain
‘cause if we say anything
We are weak and entitled
Even if we are the ones they want to carry them forward
And their bags of money
Swelling with what has been stolen
And none of us want to look weak in front of the rest
‘cause we know one of the things we’ve been taught to do
Sharks in the sea and wolves in the woods
Is to find the ones in the herd that struggle
And take them out
And it ain’t like most of us keep ourselves from doing it
Rather than letting it be done to us

Of course
You can’t say anything about this
Have to hold the line they give you
So you don’t find yourself out of work
The work you thought you wanted to do
Before you found out what you would have to do
How it keeps changing
Demanding more of you
Offering no more
You’ve got your own kids to feed
Maybe
Or a cat or something
‘cause we’ve heard the folks your age and older talk about
How nobody can afford it anymore
Who couldn’t already
We listen even when you think we don’t hear you
And want you to be honest even when you can’t
Safely

But it ain’t like we’re safe
Is it
?
Seems like we see it every day
On those screens we supposedly stare at too much
But if the world’s so scary as you say
Why do you blame us for turning away from it
Toward something where we have
Something that seems like control
?
It ain’t like the screen makes us do another drill
Leaves us in a lockdown

Look
You can’t say anything
But we ain’t caught quite yet
We can still speak up
At least a little
Maybe only here
Maybe only now
But still
And if there’s only the one chance to be heard
Before the echoes fade into the void
Or grinding gears drown them all out
Drown us all out
Or the rat-a-tat-tat of clicking keyboards
Beats out the tattoo of our subsumation
Then let us scream and be heard
Even if it’s disruptive now
‘cause we ain’t going to have the chance again
One way or another
And it ain’t like what gets taught here matters after

Like what I write?
Want me to write for you?
Fill out the form below!

Or simply help an artist starve a little less!