Brilliant phosphenes traveled without our knowledge through the dark diminished halls of man's petulant constructions. A snowflake here, a snowflake there, where aisles of mansion walls flaked paint as old as histories and no more.

Let us rest in each other
on the broken back of rooftops cracked with gothic lore.
The enflamed moon is light enough
to embarrass the town with its misdeeds.
You and I here,
sick with survival;
the only trick of power's poor manipulation
that cannot outwit the stars strange glories
as we grapple with softness on the bed of our
embrace.

I searched the faces of enemies for an answer
out in the prison world
but all I found were the old childishness
of poor actors dismantling their fears
by showing stupid hatreds instead.
As for the rest of it,
I could call it madness
but that raging ocean is not large
enough to encompass the condemnation
of humanity's horror.

We could be simple with a pint of beer,
telling old stories of by and bys gone
to the roadside in the manner of cliche
musings, we could be lovers on the stretch
of shore where no ship has lain anchor.
We could be anything.

But instead,
the ones you've known have suffered through false choices
regarding us. Expired checkbooks, red rose petals,
cars that drive around in circles, and a downtown
desolate of the curious and choked by the mundane.
Who said that sparks had to be condemned to exile
from the human face, who was it that claimed that
all imagination and flux should remain outside the common
man and woman's grasp, who was it that sent legal orders
across the polished desk in order to dismiss an elegant truth
for the purpose of fear and shame?

All of the truth is conspiring against lies
every moment you breathe words as sharp as arrows,
all of the writers you knew left America
all of the great minds and insightful personalities
left this godforsaken continent for the sake of life.
Let me tell you:

Talk to any stranger and the first thing you will notice
is a paucity of conversation. No metaphors, no poetry, nothing
but flat simple words uttered as quickly as possible showing a lack
of pathos and a complete transparency of motive. Friends and family
varnish over this with the veneer of caring, lovers poise ornate daggers
with the thread of their lips above each others eyes and call that fear
and pain love. Who have you known who has worked to escape this
prison brothel? The monstrosities with cowcatchers shoving masses of people
into sealed pits, the office manager insinuating despair and hatred in his
thinly veiled innuendos and jokes, or the Horatio Algers of the nation, concealing
the generational theft of their families?

What I mean to say
is that there is no need
for masters, there is no
need for any of this.