dots/2

10 out of 10 men incarcerated. 10 new beginnings today.
today individuals convicted of any drug felony are not eligible for food stamps
no work + no food in a round about way = recidivism: working back on the streets in the underground economy
arrested because of the color of skin at that place and time
attempted arrest, at least, oh you're not... who we are looking for

calculations of non-white males in elementary and middle school add up to prison space estimates in 2020...

would you hire a man convicted of a felon?
would you hire a woman convicted of a felon?

working part time at mcdonalds for minimum wage after x amount of time making x amount of money in another trade
chemist, banker, broker
focused, role-oriented

the cars, the clothes, the comforts, the life from ladue to ...

i have to have hope for new beginnings and the hope feeling felt then
and that a lot of people work hard together to keep that hope alive

dots/1

don't read what i am writing
yeah, i am talking to you

it's a make you look kind of trick
like you're trying to fill up your gas tank
real quick
but suddenly you see digital numbers tick
58.49
no
followed by a series of no's

what are you going to do now?
not get in your car and drive?
not sleep in the bed you made

i suppose if someone will pick you
up
and leave your full tank
and keep your empty wallet
crying in your back pocket self
to the next place
then,
what have you got?

two riddles rattling on someone else's road
no solution just empty excuses
bail outs and misuses of time and words

shut your mouth if you cant hear the birds
chirping, singing in branches in the trees
between new green leaves

let your skin taste a new season
and exhale relief
nothing ever stays the same

how many mornings have i woken up
to furniture rearranged
empty bottles of pain laid out
in dried up puddles of yesterday
now a floor film residue and

my choice to step in it and carry
it with me more

how many days and i won't even notice
until a couple long quiet nights incite
a riot
a made you look
make you look
are you looking
in the mirror
is what you see, here, getting nearer

closer, in your face, louder

made you look.

get in the car
where to from here?

Rilke

You See I Want a Lot
by Ranier Maria Rilke


You see, I want a lot.
Maybe I want it all:
the darkness of each endless fall,
the shimmering light of each ascent.

So many are alive who don’t seem to care.
Casual, easy, they move in the world
as though untouched.

But you take pleasure in the faces
of those who know they thirst.
You cherish those
who grip you for survival.

You are not dead yet, it’s not too late
to open your depths by plunging into them
and drink in the life
that reveals itself quietly there.

untitled

i fell asleep and
walked a lamplit street of dreams
opened my mailbox and heard sirens
exhaling out
round confines of cold metal
releasing a tortured need
to the state of emergency

from sound to thought
registered wonder, ch-chings
distanced a bell rings
a man, woman, his leg, her heart?

too many unknowns
fiction write with pen and paper
not between the ears