Grandmaster

Always think 2 steps ahead

Or more than that

Think to tomorrow

Think to sunset and sunrise

Over and over

Think towards drought and

Bombs dropping

Have every answer ready

To every single question

Every futile and brain-dead

Point

They try to make

That way

When you get into it

You will come out

Victorious

Not as a prize fighter

Standing over your quarry

But simply a man of words

Of streetwalking sense

And universal logic

Guard up

Shield up

Always ready

but

for the sake of your drunken soul

do not succumb

Continue to hustle and slip and

Slide into the gaps and cracks

It is a shameful reality that

We should be forced

To have to live our lives

This way

But there is no other way to

Survive.

Jesus would be so disappointed

It is almost impossible these days to

Escape stupidity

The

Swarming masses are legion

Continually circling your carcass

Waiting for a bite

The tiniest strip of flesh

Where do you go to escape?

Closeted within the darkest corners

You can find some

Animal with a PhD

Scribbling on rocks

His mind so absolved of

Concrete and carbon monoxide

Screaming children

Chicken wings or death

That he barely exists

At all

Dig holes

Sweep streets

Write poetry

Build skyscrapers

Fight a war

Survey a million lives over a

Million days

And you cannot fail to

See you are surrounded

And here

Today

Now

It seems nullifying and true that

Nowhere on

God’s green earth will ever be

Free of

Them.

Three down

I have

Thus far

Lost only

Three of the living

That impacted upon me

Any discernable change

Not bad going I suppose

For one of my age

In this town

In this time

We are not called to arms as

Our grandparents were

Or locked in small rooms

Holes drilled in our skull

At the slightest mention of

A second voice in our head

And people laugh when I say

That the 3^rd body no longer present

Was a cat

But he was a beautiful thing

More so than most people

I’ve known before or since

People who so often 

Seem unable to remain silent and just

Be.