New Draft, week 13

Belief

Sniffing like padres for a sin,

I caught your hate in the air.

Citation-armed and tongue taut,

you were so prepared.

A locomotive transplant,

I ducked passages of mayhem,

reading from your book of god.

Your conviction narrowed your eyes,

seeking to know a newfound stranger,

as I challenged and sought to know

you, too.

A miscreant from down under,

I heard the canopies of forever come down,

the wrath of the Old Testament.

You asked,

“Who art thou that crept from a four leaf clover

in the dawn of sibilance?

The grace of the almighty saves you

and you hold a cacophony over holy water?

I shalt not know the nonbeliever

that ushers a whinny

afore stomping the ashes of her

dead brethren. Don’t you know you’ll go to hell?”

Poem Draft, Week 12

Seeking Protection

Only eleven and already we build armored torsos

to prevent viruses disguised as handshakes.

We try all the keys,

yet they are foreign like orbits.

Where is your hand sanitizer?

Yearning for acceptance,

our nerves tickle inside pockets,

cell phone vibrates even though

it’s not there.

While mothers cook outstanding pasta dishes

and fathers mullets tarry their culture,

we nip at cacti for nourishment.

We are Supermen, however,

if only in magazines.

Saving memories only

of our parental victories.

They will always run circles around us.

Our parents were softer than theirs

and we're softer than our parents.

Questions bellow by us-

What do you want to be?

Do you have what it takes?

Inferior as they are, these inquiries are liquid

and we are bone dry for other geniuses

to tell us what to do.

We attack altars, sifting clues,

locating origins of our hostility, not accepting

answers shot upon us like numb lasers.

Ambiguity scoffs at the pews like squid

inking their terrain.

Insignias reign, the pious viruses

cling to our doubts and impulses,

thicken tongues, shrink minds,

scare hearts.