Poems: 2 New Writes & 1 "Lost Poem" (Thanks, Biker)

No More
***
"no more Mister Nice Guy,
no more Mister Clean . . . ."
but, sincerely,
no more.
no more of this half-ass sloppy
sentinel asleep on duty,
no more of this Dallas Police watching
everyone but Jack Ruby,
no more complacently getting by on
good behavior. this is right out
on the edge of things, my dear,
the very end, razor-sharp verge of
vertigo, so
no more of that nice, modern,
politically correct, compassionate conservative
(which renders as well backwards,
conservative compassion), non-assertive,
hey-i-already-gave-at-the-office-whaddya-want-
from-me-blood . . .
YES! just once, just to prove
that you can still bleed, that
the wheezy rusted engine of your heart
hasn't turned your blood into
coagulated sludge
from all the corporate cholesterol
and a budget you can't budge.
i'm sorry, i can't play Spin-the-Wheel psychoanalysis,
or chart the disaster with your Horoscope,
or somehow phrase this in a tasteful postmodern way
so you can crawl out from under
by claiming that i'm an "enigma,"
but there's still something in me
that chafes at the thought of sitting back
and channel-surfing
when the tsunami is getting closer. my friend,
there will come a time at which
the roaring of that wave
will refuse to fade
into the background, no matter
how much you turn up the sound with your remote,
trying to drown out the oncoming deluge,
because when doom is on your doorstep,
you won't need a television to see it, and
IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD
in your
OWN FUCKING LIVING ROOM,
brought to you by MTV, Miller Light, Joe Camel,
hell, everybody's sponsoring this damn thing, because
you paid them so well to do it,
and even then you weren't screwed enough, you
had to re-elect some of them
to do it again.
so, tell me i'm playing rough,
that i'm not playing fair,
that i have to play the game by your rules
because you OWN the Monopoly board, but
there's just one thing:
I'M NOT PLAYING. no more games.
this is for real. oh, and,
the reason i'm lowering my voice? i'm
hoping you can hear the same sound
in the background
that i do.
i hear it all the time, anymore.

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Retro-Darwinism
***
the contours of scarred geography,
land scattered with useless things,
cut loose from hands that
didn't use them all that well,
well, it's more or less
the moral or ethical irregularity
that continues to cut up chunks of Earth
and create more useless things
thereof. it sometimes frightens me
that He who created the lamb, the dove,
the waterfall, and the diamond
also created the tiger, the vampire bat,
the hurricane, and uranium, but
He did not create poaching,
the electric chair, FEMA, or the MX Missile,
which would indicate that, given
something of no intrinsic morality,
we'll come up with a way to endanger, murder,
render useless, or destroy
long before we think of anything else.
homo sapiens, a name supposedly representing
the fact that because we've advanced
to this level of walking upright
and beating the ever-loving shit out of each other,
we're more sapient, wise, intelligent, and
otherwise better equipped to survive
than other species . . .
of course, if that big nuclear brainstorm hits,
it'll be the rats and cockroaches
making jokes about the stupid two-leggers
who thought they were in control.
stupid two-leggers who still insist
on squealing "survival of the fittest"
while they're feeding from the trough, forgetting
that when the time for the slaughter comes
it's the fattest that don't survive, so,
bend over and squeal like a pig,
fuck bringing home the bacon, you ARE the bacon,
asshole, how else did you think
the wheels of the machine were being greased?
human lard. just ask the Nazis.
my question is, how is it that the bloodiest horrors
of the modern world
seem to have the by-product
of politicians, tyrants, dictators and religious fakers,
a bunch of world leaders who,
when put in the same room, behave
like monkeys, promptly flinging their own shit
in every direction
to see where it will stick. who said evolution
was a one-way street?
we're computer literate, but we can't read the signs;
we can put a missile through a bunker door, but
we can't drive a lawnmower without warning labels;
we can spend more money on a movie
that makes dinosaurs seem alive
than we're spending on all the other species
that are currently going extinct;
we can put a man on the moon,
but we still can't put one in the White House . . .
sad to say, Darwin was wrong on this one,
because survival of the fittest doesn't apply
when an animal smart enough to conquer land and sky
still can't hit the toilet on the first try.


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Invested
***
i am the dirt under a Black nation's feet.
linked by backwards DNA
to people who caused the sacrifice of
people who paid in blood for the stage i'm standing on.
i'm relying on their words to hold me up,
to look me in the eye, to tell me to shape up
or shut up, 'cuz this poetry shit ain't for wimps.
i've been helped by people society looks down on,
lived on handouts from outcasts, been adopted by Jesus-people,
been given more by street-rats than by
people who swore to stand by me,
every time i spun away,somebody was there to catch me.
i owe it to them to grab this poetry thing
and wrestle it to the mat, to have that light attack,
that savage lunge, that deadly riposte,
to look that beastie in the eye and REALLY give him hell.
my own self-worth isn't measuredby how much i am worth in wealth,
but in the wealth of words invested in me
by those who are worth the wealth of the world,
who paved the way for me in blood, sweat, and death.
you ask me how i dare to stand up here and say things out loud i've inscribed
on pages, shouted from stages and
encoded on the Internet . . .
i ask you,how dare i remain silent?