ROOTED

It's not so easy to <||up and leave||>
I wanted to get out of this hostile place
go to Portland, Oregon
live close to forests and mountains
breathe fresh air

but as I try to lift my legs west I find them ~||rooted|\~ in Brooklyn
ties not easily broken
I feel like a seed that blew into the city from a far away place
caught in some crack in the concrete
and with time sprouted
reached for the sun and grew tall
trying to escape the fissure I fell into
unaware that as I branched upwards and outwards I extended down and through
below the surface of this desolate circus
now unable to move
<<<‡>>>
but the summer sun is so good to me
and I sway in the salty atlantic breezes
just another weed in this jun≈g|l|/|≈|≈/≈|e

seduced to stay - still, I cannot say

New York City is wooing me in a summer seduction: feathers, flesh and diamonds dripping from the lips of her godless city grin. Bamboozled and boozed and suckered by material moves - these whores are good at what they do! with her fetid perfumes rising from the scorched sidewalks she talks in tongues that only eyes can walk across, twisting once, twice, around and through, I lost my soul over a drink with you - came crawling back in the middle of the night, howling unrest in lust and breast, tooth and time could buy me a line down her streets and underneath sheets only to wake in the morning heat. Again! Again! the thrill is so cheap, when the sun goes down you can buy me some drinks, make my head spin and sway in defiant electric daze. Brooklyn buzzing in my ears so sweet, sipped the nectar and swept off my feet.

hope is an island

hope is an island

crashing against the waves of adversity

overcome by a rising sea

conquered and colonized by the civilized

clearcut and fucked up by men with dreams

OH ISLAND CITY YOUR TOWERS REVERED

by hollow breasts that beat with time

sink in your streets and suffer your crimes

while the rivers on your sides all drown in sludge

from the lands you've raped and people you loved

SHE IS THE DESTROYER

riding headless and hopeless on dark muscular fear

trampling all under the sharp hooves of desperation

her salvation forsaken

her fists in the air

still gripping the reigns as if they'd lead her somewhere

THERE'S AN ISLAND IN YOU & THERE'S AN ISLAND IN ME

separated by the corpse of the sea

from atop my mountain and the tallest tree

I gaze out towards you as far as I can see

over the waves of refuse and decay

upon your shores there are children at play

and beyond them stretch a few streets of gold

into the city of a fist that you hold

up rise your towers, the beacons of fear

that scan and devour the horizon

looking for an island

to take at your will