You, my charlatan, have so much to learn.

Seething,


Teething,



Breathing this air,
my lungs are filled with

soot and dust and rust and you don’t care that your flesh, your blood will breathe it too.
The smoke [like bats] will fill the sky.
It’ll rise and writhe

and pry from us any chance we have of being clean.
So once the water is risen,

and rainbow and black,


explain to your children why it was good for them.
Your money means nothing in a concrete world for it cannot buy you life and it cannot buy you death and it cannot buy you back the forests you cut for “the good of a growing people”.

Those cancer sticks you so desperately needed

to coat your lungs in tar like a blanket in case they’re cold…
While your child cries because she IS cold, but
“Nah.. she can just wait one minute, cause mommy needs her time too.”
So you pray to God

and you cry and you say
“Oh father forgive me,

Oh righteous All Mighty,


oh predetermined stereotype of all things good and holy.
For I know that I have sinned
and I have wronged many rights
and I have spent many nights
with the bottle to my mouth
and my head to the bowl
as all my shortcomings flow out through my teeth
and my insecurities are all that is left of me…

and I don’t know who I am anymore.


For I was once lovelust heartlost

head over heels for the highest heights


and the free-est flights



and the taste so tangible of tenacious trees.
So God, if you are there, bring us out of this place.

With the sun so red

and the life so dead

and so little left to say.
But now I admit as my last bid or plea,
I have taken for granted everything surrounding me…
and I’m sorry, but I can’t change things now.”