Of the People

“Crooked Politicians” by R.L. Alexander

 

legislate keys
to secret back doors
framed and fit
to the slouch
of your arrogance
cut off the
citizen rations
of vinegar wine
and stale bread
meager leavings
from those fed
too well at your
sumptuous sideboards

hide in plain sight
among statues
where duty
can’t locate you
crank up the
partisan static
in microphones
mimicking empathy
tell us you love us
then piss in our pockets
and shit on our shoes
to remind us just
how much we matter

 

 

(originally posted October 2013)

The Time Before Pain

 

“Dumb Pain” by Alexei Jawlensky

 

 

the time before pain
when fingers of birds
groped the poisonous skies
when fish walked on legs
from the fiery seas
I was man with a roar
in his thunderclap chest
a leviathan skeleton
smashing down mountains
in powerful moments
exquisite of truth

the time before pain
when the brain was
uncivilized stone
bleached by victories
tearing uprooting
huge primeval trees
used as clubs to beat
earthquakes on
cooled molten ground
sending signals creation
had proved quite sublime

the time before pain
oh so brutal and lovely
removed now by eons
too far to revivify
leaving me modern
but broken by hands
with seductive new
powers of mayhem
elite among healers
and murderers deaf to
my screams in the night

 

(originally posted January 2014)

 

Of the People

Illustration by Nancy Ohanian
From startribune.com

legislate keys
to secret back doors
framed and fit
to the slouch
of your arrogance
cut off the
citizen rations
of vinegar wine
and stale bread
meager leavings
from those fed
too well at your
sumptuous sideboards

hide in plain sight
among statues
where duty
can’t locate you
crank up the
partisan static
in microphones
mimicking empathy
tell us you love us
then piss in our pockets
and shit on our shoes
to remind us just
how much we matter

Doctor Patient

Painting by Sgt. John Scott
From yankmagazine.com

praise me or perish
you dared me
before we went at it
with Tennyson’s
red tooth and claw
all that silk in your veins
spins cocoons
from your wounds
let them mark you
reminders that
I was no pushover
you can’t just scuttle
on eight scalpel legs
back down into your
chrome and glass burrow
you can’t hide and heal
to prepare for another
predacious assault
till you earn my permission
so beg for it
tell me you’re sorry
you killed me

Almost as Good as a Jawbone

(Dedicated to the surgeon who disabled me – and got away with it)

“Samson Smiting a Philistine”
Painting by Giorgio Schiavone
From art.com

got a good granite rock in my hand
what say I smash up
your fine lettered glass
and then kick your silk ass
from right here where you left me
poisoned and broken
straight through your slick upright
Harvard caduceus
split you in two like your knife did to me
then our halves can each fight
one another for double the justice
but guess what you asshole
I grew up with Samson in biblical alleys
where fighting was living
and banging out cold retribution
was making our bones
any one of the men I knocked prone in their piss
was your better by far
because none of those men ever bullshit
an oath like you did when you promised
to first do no harm

Emblems of Deceit

Caduceus
The Staff of Mercury

paste can mimic fine jewels

but the bald face of liars

can’t mask its secretion

of prehensile bullshit

that burrows

in furrows

of bag sagging jowls

featured prominently

in the field

on the shield

below heraldic crest

where honor would normally

lozenge its chivalrous charge

giving loud

and proud

warning to those who don’t know

your caduceus serpents

are just as deceitful

pretending as healers

while hiding their trueborn

mercurial role as

protectors of liars and thieves

by the way

should anyone ask

please feel free to inform them

this new coat of arms

for a doctor who harms

was designed

by a patient you

left worse than dead

namely me