America has no soul, only symbols
it’s the people here,that got the goods
sitting at the kitchen table
not able to eat anything
except what I write
and it doesn’t really matter
what I write as long as
the rivers of words are full
of blood and underpinnings
most days I write about the Goddess
and all the ways Her spirit body
conceals itself in the congeal of
elements woven to human behavior
until there is just one instance
one portal blink She reveals
She’s already inside me
and I smile and turn my pen
to bullets instead
like the ones trading holes
for lifelessness in the bodies
of women and children asleep in Afghanistan
or the ones fired to chase
and stop this fear
of a young black hoodied male
to bullets instead
being just causes for judgment
of death by steel hail
that boy in Florida
I suspect was just part
of this epidemic
that’s thriving everywhere else
in America too
because everywhere else
it seems in this world
America, wants it too
these bullets have been
clocking time
with our Holy skin
and watch hands
in the ground
spinning slag
to get in
hundreds of years
here in the foundries
of America
this is God’s dog and pony show
didn’t you know this already
we grow in the rust
of copper wired hearts
green,the thinnest oil-sheen
walking on water
for the color of money
and what’s in between
the uplifted spirit
and the chains still worn
as welfare checks
for example
given to maternity
willing to go it alone sometimes
with shameful molds of bread
and the symphonies
of disconnecting being born
into each of life’s melodies
as we ghost present-abilities
as preludes to the sonnets
of laundering skin
generation after
generation, death rattles
its clever ways
to be the same begin
our souls here in America
have always been free
where all we got to do
is fluff and fold time
until we get old
while praying
we are buried
without any more
holes in our skin
EJR ©
