If you are reading this poem on a phone, note that the integrity of the lines, a major feature of poetry, is not displayed properly. Many if not most get cut short because of the small screen.

Under Fire
Lake
with the hatred that rules society.
I’m on a mountain.
Each new tap on the shoulder crosses worlds
Snoopy rides,
but I’m into the fire
large out on the floor
from all the spiritual dawns.
You hear the spiritual advice at the Roxie?
Knock it off.
I’m a tourist information booth.

Everybody has left the United States.
We are beached on a poem.
There’s nowhere to turn.
I’ve fucked up.
I’ve called poetry in on its job.
I can’t even show you the poem.
You’d fight me for it.
Guaranteed I’d lose my job,
and I’d be homeless again.

What’s these great stakes?
Snowball,
we’d watch it rise downhill,
until my boss heard about it,
our not allow four dogs landlord.
Can I call them on it?
I can describe their preferences
that would reach the limit at this poem.
How much help they’ve given me
would end there.

What I am sayin’?
I’ve got a poem to knock your socks off,
but you don’t want to read it
if you’re a normal American fanfare,
if you reach deep in your pocketbooks
to exploit people,
if you make hell the end of the game
for non-Jesus people.

Can I get away with murder?
I have to be careful what I say.
I can’t open my mouth
in poetry.
I wanna see my dogs,
and I wanna live again.
Can you blame me
for self-censorship?
This isn’t fair.
I suffer.

I do not understand capitalism.
It won’t accept another way of life
that makes sacrifice a way of life,
sacrifice for your brother
and sister in life,
sacrifice to the better in you.
We’re beached on whale,
and even communism beaches there
and our church’s regard.

Come on Sacrifice Capitalism,
the laissez faire don’t believe in,
can we change the world there?
I have a hunch.
Before profits we ask need,
what’s best for the community,
and can we have humanity please
considered too?
Can we grand the whole world
in business decisions
so that animals matter
and the breath of our life trees,
what about for our island
Fort Myers Beach?

Sacrifice Capitalism
ladies and gentlemen.
Work out the details
school children in role play,
every business leader.
The profits take a backseat to need.
Can we get there?

Not even to a poem
I cannot show you
because you would not let me do it,
be a poet on live,
talk about the weather,
and political Christians
control the weather
that bursts apart in our minds,
and money rules the show.

I can’t spit out the juice.
I’m not exactly at fault.
Do you believe in poetry?
It’s just somethin’ to report to your superiors?
Now I need everybody to take a deep breath.
Is this paper weight?
A ninny of a poem,
a filler for time shares.
Wanna see the real thing?
Wanna see it?
You do?
Do you thirst for it?

I’m on a bank of the Lord
deliverin’ the paper.
A big decision,
and I’m not safe.
Ask you another question.
Glory did somethin’?
Whoa my poem just went in the air.
It’s gonna take some doin’
I rush this right through.
I’m 33-years-old,
givin’ out a lot of free material.
They killed him.
Damn,
you got your hands on me.
Do you get me my poetry constituents?

Fire in the yard,
I’m gonna put some poetry someplace else,
a whole nuther anthem from here.
I don’t trust you.
You’ll kick me out for poetry.
You won’t even give me a chance
to bring my dogs to town
my poetry has made you so mad.

This is the price you pay for poetry.
They take from you what you love.
They make you know you must comply
in the bowels of the truth
and keep your poem from the public mind
that would change minds.

“Faiths Are Only a Doubt”,
or whatever title it bears,
the poem I’m waiting for
to set the record straight,
is blowin’ in the wind.
Can you capitalism that?
Can capitalism show that?