New Poem: The Wrong Side of the Rainbow

The Wrong Side of the Rainbow
***
crash landed, stranded, here on
the wrong side of the rainbow
where i live,
and this twister
ain't your magic bus
to the Emerald City
wallpapered in your favorite shade of green;
those greenbacks you're backing
have backed you against the wall,
and won't even stand you the price of a ticket,
so keep punching that clock
and i'll punch your ticket
and kick you around the block.
you don't want to go
over any rainbow
where you can't buy indigo
and put a down payment on purple;
this one'll sure pull you down
to the underground, the wrong side of town,
show you around the Slum of Oz
where the munchkins have fangs
of chromium steel, and still
look more human than you do;
they'll punch a hole in your soul
and see if you can bleed for real
when you've bartered your last swindle
for a half-decent meal
and there's nothing left for you to steel
because everyone's a broke as you . . .
you know, everyone goes through hell,
some people just have to stay,
and that ticket you bought is just one-way,
and you'll punch a clock THERE too, sucker,
but don't hold your breath for a payday,
because everything adds up to paybacks,
and you know what THEY are.
that tribe that lived on the backside of your rainbow--
the ones you refused to lend, give, or rent to--
won't be building tracks
for your runaway train now more.
hock your ruby slippers and blue suede shoes,
no matter who wins at the game you played, you lose.
they'll fold the monopoly board up around you;
no Emerald City, here . . . maybe,
if you're lucky,
they'll leave a tenement on Baltic for you . . .
all the graffiti artists who bombed and tagged
back on the block
have gone away, and
there won't be anyone to paint a rainbow
on your walls of leaden gray.

Okay, Let Me Explain it THIS Way . . . .

Wise Fool
***
God has installed
some pretty effective
equipment in me.
He encoded some things into my DNA
that are perfectly suited
for one who likes to ride the edge
in this realm of poetry . . .you see, bipolar disorder and poetry
come together in me
like this: when i'm manic, i can crank out the poetry.
once i wrote 7 in the space of 3 hours,posted them online, and received
much praise! and, given such an ego boost, i
start to strut a little, and then . . .just when i'm feeling full of myself
. . .CRASH! here comes the depression, the
other side of the hyphen i've come
to know and dread so well,
and now i know what Rimbaud meant
when he talked about a season in Hell.
and people get disappointed with me,
and . . . i . . . get disappointed with me,
and so i drag my scaly hide into my cave
and hide out for a while.
then, manic's back like Rocky Balboa,
ready to step into that ring again!
and, it feels so good to be back, that
the level of my poetic attack
rises each time manic has my back.
so, you see, this thing that provides
the emotional energy and creativity in me,
is also my greatest limitation. and, that inspires humility.
God created me
to walk a razor edge, and He knew
what He was doing, even though,
looking at me, some people would think
God is crazy (and, sometimes, i wonder
about that too)--but, if crazy is the tool
God needs to do this job . . . here am i,
send me . . . i will be God's wise fool.