Words,

Words being screamed at you,

Shouted-sung-rapped-thrown at you,

Dreamt at you--

Building castles in the air,

Ones that flare up

And stare up at you

Like an animal caged

Pent up with rage

Penned in a rage

In a book that has seen better days.

But the words keep swirling,

Worlds keep swirling while minds keep turning,

Hanging by a thread,

Millions dead and even more dying,

Already crying from the pain

Because the duct tape closing out mouths

Is the only thing that’s clothing us now.

The sheep lead other sheep into

The very maws of the beast,

Claws of the beast

Tearing us apart when we were never together

(Never better)

Because this bitter world we’re living in

Is inevitably crumbling in

On top of our heads, on top of the houses,

On top of the spouses and the good old

God-fearing atheists

Making up their Christmas lists.

And the nay-sayers, the hate-speakers,

Are all up there implicating the teachers

Who try to show us love and truth

(Though that’s the failing of our youth,

Learning other people’s truths

Instead of burning paths to our own).

The leaves are torn, the grass is mown,

But the hearts wrenched by a moan

Because of the unspoken laws

Already too-broken laws

Telling us to follow our fate

Though it’s already too late.

We’re following Dorothy’s road

Trees and flowers already sowed

In military constructions

Coming with instructions

(Step-by-step).

Don’t miss a step

Or you’ll fall right back to the start of it all

Where no paint-by-numbers

Or telephone numbers

Can raise you from the pit you’re in

And people push you down again.

So you wear your badge of shame

Your very name a scarlet letter,

Or even better:

Neon lights, see-through tights,

See-through eyes up in the skies.

Big Brother’s watching, so you’d better give him a show

With Lucifer’s angels staring up from below--

All the misfits and “screw it”s wearing clothing that’s

Too dark, too bright,

Too loose, too tight,

Tight like the straitjackets they say we’ll wear

(Matched with blood and dye in our hair.)

But that ghostlike “they” can never foretell

That they will one day wear straitjackets as well.

They’ll try to deny it,

But they’ll never fly with the wax melting off their feathers,

Learning how to suffer together

Instead of accepting

That a guy can rock a nose ring

That a girl can step into the ring and be the ringleader,

Leading other people to lead rings onto their fingers.

These are the real thinkers,

People who instagram their Starbucks cups

And are always ready to fuck shit up

On those newfangled instruments

Of peace and power,

Wars and flowers,

Ready to devour the next book

Or get the next look

At the injustices, discrepancies,

That that “they” can’t see.

The power of words, the power of good,

The power of Chrome and wood

Elucidating, not hating this new generation

As they generate a culture in

The binary underlying our flesh

As we lie through our teeth to preserve

And serve this war we’re waging against ourselves,

Filling our shelves with pages torn from the past.

And at last 1984 becomes 2013

While LMNOP turns to LGBTQ*.

And the clothes are ripped off

Like the duct tape is ripped off of our speaking mouths

Words finally written down

In a book that will see better days.

When the sheep picks up a cane and becomes the shepherd

And the tick-tocking turns into clip-clopping of

High heels on the ground, singing like birds--

That is the power of our words.