My first piece of poetry for 2022. The artwork is a photo collage of several images. Enjoy!

TuT! TuT!

There is a theme to be found in the hollow cheeks of children with their wide vacant eyes. Their gaze fixed on concrete with only the occasional stare as you walk past, curious, and ever certain of the sins of the last age.

Their tear ducts are empty from an era of dispossession, obsession.

Tut tut

Their dreams are the broken glass you walk on with bare feet.  

---

I traverse hulking skeletons along their spine. In hidden highways I stride past the corridors of indifference. Saturated with knowing.

The markets make gamblers of us, casting bones in cups, with aged, choked knuckles, that align our lots with one unblinking eye.

Tut tut

Nerves splice open and raw, and in the light, only exposure

---

There was failure there in the corner, passing for a human, with arms outstretched in asking, looking for any reason to find two solid feet to stand on.

His teeth were clean but his thoughts were of days when the fix was fresh. When color nourished every pour. He is poorer for it.

Tut tut

I turn my head, not wanting to see a possible future.

---

You don’t hear the children play anymore between these concrete monsters, it is the commerce, the smell of flat wages, caffeinated mornings, and empty bottles in the evening, that drive us to wanting

And any hope of fresh air rots in our complacent cowardice

Tut tut

My stomach aches, the pill caused a hemorrhage again

---

There is a trembling in my pocket, and as I slide my hand against it, to quiet it’s nagging, I realized I’ve lost all the silence and stillness, maybe forever.  

I cannot adjourn from this court of chaos. There is no detachment, just desire.

Tut Tut

The engines scream in my ears as the gears grind for another cycle. My anger is but a thumbprint away.

---

What should you feel as you pace through passageway of the damned? All the sulfur stinging your eyes in between rows of unkind smiles, glaring at you like idiot passengers on a doomed train car.

Drink it in, for the fountain must not overflow and everyone’s stomach must be distended before the sun kisses the earth.

Tut Tut

The screams always die before my throat can catch them.

---

Grass, fields, pasture lay ahead, the eye of the storm. With shouting, rasping, chuckling fervor, I pass through the gates.

There are ducks lolling just out of the reach of so many unleashed hounds, and people pampered in concrete corners.

Tut Tut

Their grief has no knowledge here.

---

Sitting, I wait for the fall, for a stall, for anything. But I am left waiting and wasting, sitting in the center of the eye and staring at the hulks on my periphery. Knowing they are watching every minute of rest. Flailing me with their guilt.

They are always looming, day or night, they block out stars and dreams

Tut Tut

They were built with rage in mind, and a coffin around the corner.  

---

I hear it. A close, friendly conspiracy. Shoulders pressed together and whispers of the young for an honest days work. They stand, run, in search for sign in splashing creeks. They hunger for the chase of minnows between toes, with plastic cup in hand.

Dunking, wishing, smiles, even in the mistakes. In folly they fly past the skeletons, and into the forest to where they always belonged.

Caring not, to Tut Tut.

Yearning to breathe free, I breathe with them.

I stand.

I join them.

My hand will be my cup.

And it will fill with joy.