No Place for the Poet

silence is not golden
noise is king
you want me to be everyone
and to do everything
never stop
don't be still
don't let the fog clear from your mind
thumb twiddlers, vagabonds,
we'll have nothing to do with your kind
put on a show
keep dancing
let us see what you can do
'cause here there's no place for the poet
no, there's no place here for you
who just sits and lets time pass
who stares at the stars
and walks barefoot in the grass
who feels the wind
upon their face
for you, the poet, there is no place
a waste of time!
a waste of space!
a waste of time!
a waste of space!
you've got to live in the lines we've traced
for you, the poet, there is no place

The Race

Each in our own row 
We wear our colors with pride
And run in anticipation of the culmination of a lifetime of events
One team coasting with ease as if the breeze was only meant to blow behind their backs
The rest of us lag behind, as if our shoelaces were tied at birth 
At the start of it all
But we didn't fall 
We have found a way to run with our feet bound together
Closing in on the lead, but each time we come close ...a trip 
A stone....a pebble in the shoe
But all race on 
Because we are here, we must
Until the dust covers more than just our feet 
Or until the ancient sun grows weary of giving us it's heat
  
 

Work of Art

Cotton candy-tinted tens
Glitter-specked cheeks
Tresses drenched in toxic fumes
And across her lips? a plastic, painted smile

You went to the school where they taught that if you paint a pretty portrait you can call it art
But art is not the perspective lines on the paper, its the perspective that lies in the painter
Hollow, empty, without soul
No one can feel you when you've encased your body in a shroud of shellack
Oh, how you lack
The understanding of the beauty of real

Barbie queen, instead become a stripper, and strip your skin's dead layers of empty vanity
Get back the core, the woman you were before they sold you on the lie that she was not enough
When you find her once again it will be clear to you that she is lovelier than you remembered
Her mind still strong, and her heart still tender
Because even though she's been buried, with decay and death determined to destroy her
They could not touch her
She would not let them, for she knew that you would come back for her one day
When, both, youth and men went away
And you were left hanging alone in a museum of art that never did sell