race

from a couch, you don’t own the alphabet or our fabric

Posted on by andrewsmeyer

chanting three letters

draped-cloth racism

a lot like our flag

not the one i wave

hijacked mud-flaps

which one?

bars or stripes?

nuts or calvin?

your choices, representative past

you elected to pass, on education

teachers, waited

still do

perspectives lost to echos bouncing from khaki rubbed legs, mythic walls, holy grills, torches, and white skin

freedom, runs contrary to every dim-lit corner of your mind where excuses cast shadows

everyone else?

that’s your defense?

fingers fly out of your hands

“Party of four for Responsibility. Responsibility? Party of four?”

you didn’t come to eat with us, you sat outside, glass-pressed-flat faced

taking a knee

pointing up

it’s a big difference

to you

when someone else looks down

from the same position

winter precipitation falling, you can’t handle the cold, individual geometric beauty scares you to your car

safely wrapped in AM dial voices

inside, we discuss frost, and mending walls, a question befalls us all, how tall?

never mind

it’s already built, metaphorics

you’re keeping yourself out

pounding your head to the resounding, rebounding of three letters you said

strapped to a bed, feeding the thread you used to weave a fabric of lies

disguised

as something we all share

it’s not yours

or mine

zeroes and ones hide you, from me, and me, from you

this isn’t us, a three letter chant, we can all join in, if those three letters, are understood, and i realize

you could have written this about me

from a couch, cynicism’s promise

Posted on by andrewsmeyer

cynicism is no excuse nor accident

it slowly seeped into our daily strolls down public sidewalks when we habitually asked ourselves “who belongs?”

atheists skipping over cracks, struggling to explain what’s and why’s to children not embarrassed that they’ll die with these questions, without the veil of ghost voices standing over them saying ‘because i said so’ fear flavored with fake sugar promises of gates we can’t all pass through

it’s just a phase

“they’ll” find god

gay lovers holding hands at ages younger than “they” think can understand what it means to be attracted to something you own, our procreation practice promise is superior

it’s just a phase

“they’re” just trying to shock us

black men clad in cumbersome pants hustling through frantic streets side-stepping their glance, a missed chance, averted eyes dig trenches, the ‘others’ ocular lens looking for a restaurant, that’s “worth the trip”

it’s just a phase

“we’ll” stay safe

mexican children running through fence lines, making good neighbors, how’d they get here? don’t you dare take what’s ‘ours’, scared and alone disheveled streets, scarred fields chemical laden waiting to be consumed, doing what no one wants

it’s just a phase

“we” need the help

continually asking, is this the ‘see something’ they said we should ‘say something’ about?

fear: separating migrant children from families

fear: separating mom and dad with alcohol and opioids to soften the blow of fear

fear: separating you to false god forgiveness for fear acted upon with a sneer

fear: separating you from me during sun-glow walks under orange and purple skies, seventy degrees, with a slight breeze, we could be gathering and discussing the tease ignorant assholes in alley way corners are trying to trick us with, and laugh them into the shadows with optimism’s promise, that we’re all in this

together

without fear

from bed, crossing property lines puts you in cages

Posted on by andrewsmeyer

kids in cages for crossing property lines

stay off his lawn, if you cross this figment of their imagination it threatens an insecurity born out of their disturbed, dirty, dead-soul mind-frame, and Gogol isn’t here to hold the mirror to the flaws you absorbed from enemies past

one time monsters are now what you hope to be

morph

are you afraid?

afraid, brown people will spill over to overthrow this overture to a symphony sewing discord, redirecting our friendship glances another distracted direction, wagner would be proud

waiting for your ovation

glimpses into the ebb and flow, of dots and nature’s boundary, needs you have down below, who am i to judge?

we froze the friends above, they used to be unthawed

so polite

i’m done listening, trying to understand

you don’t deserve the second hand that is heard clapping in forests alone where you’ve yet to tap natural nutrients to buy and sell for a single cell, there’s a cell in hell waiting to capture your lifeless soul you bought and sold for no more than the price of gold

they’re digging it up for you

stand still

wait here

we’ll come to you

from a chair, inhaling the last of your stare

Posted on by andrewsmeyer

drenched in her tears i stepped into the hallway shared by all the other fourth floor door dwellers stinking of fried chicken, body fetor, and incense

none of which were winning the odor war, an amalgamation of whiffs running wildly through our rooms

all but tuna

tuna sat in the corner waiting for the stench to reach its threshold

then, without hesitation, he’d zoom center stage through draft ways and air vents

nobody welcomed him

he wafted alone through bed sheets and hanging drapes, living in garbage bin tossed tin can creases

festering in mouth corners

absorbed in crumbly crusts left on plates for tomorrow’s cleaning

blasting our senses, giving way to other impressions

biding time

for the next unleashing

resting on your breathe

before the door shut, i turned around and took my final look

sorry for the last time

if i could click my heels i’d be back with her

the her before her, that’s right before you

for years i penetrated the aura swirling around

thinking i could make a new sound pound from the ground you stood on and around

i’ve learned

nothing’s wasted

if we walk away with something

it’s my turn

i’ll dry my shoulders

lift off your weight

make my way down the hall

it’s never too late

to inhale the sweet smell of something new

from bed, go back to then

Posted on by andrewsmeyer

“…a tree falling…”

i couldn’t hear the last part

creative cashing-in

beveled blades that transfer wealth

i crept beside her

listening to the steam rise from forest floors

casual benefits

blithering

shrugged silence

broken trials

treaties

denials

retreating

we couldn’t keep up

halted

still life

left listless in language-less hallways

advances

echoing dance steps stranded in anxieties alien shoes

technology

bring me back home

under her draped past

arms that welcomed

a few million

others came under her dress

around a breast

out of reach

couldn’t spare her breath

pass a test

one in four

chances

they watched you erect her

defilement

i’ll believe you when you say it happened

i can’t hear their words

if i’m not in the room

from bed, your yellow bird

Posted on by andrewsmeyer

he couldn’t find his way through the textural maze of self-doubt and criticisms sang to him before bed

there were still bars surrounding him

cries to stay alive barely realized all he could surmise is those legs better bend and rise to help him climb up to the only group big enough to feel like he belonged

homo erectus

homo connectus

they couldn’t exclude him

they’d try

running through fields of cigarette butts and self serving pin pricks, random stray dog licks, and get out of here boot kicks he found the porch

there, his eyes, unable to stay as still as his blessed heart laid fresh to his yellow bird.

a peculiar feathered friend who found a perch nestled where the pole met light, well, half-light as it struggled to illuminate the lives left behind by economic rewind and prepared paychecks to keep in-line the ones who had to make it to the end of the row

a distant connection undefined, interspecies, yellow bird stared straight, their eyes catching

he fumbled a tweet sound from lips left without water, yellow bird cocked her head and riffle fired a ‘good morning’

he replied, in english, he figure she’d have to learn to discern the chopped sounds stumbling as pleasantries were exchanged

‘will you be my…’ barely met oxygen when she swooped close and led him down blocks built for ‘others’, this was new

gliding freely, from corner store to school door they followed nothing and found no floor his heels hardly hitting a ground where lines were found, outlined cousins and sisters bound, street names and histor-ies to protect and divide, relied on boundaries and lies that trap and bind our senses

there’s no mystery

it’s the songs we hear when nights are blistery, do they keep us calm or awake, waiting to take this piece of cake promised to us once a year

she led him back to the porch

not a spark, a roaring torch kept him warm and would help inform the decisions left to lead him through the dim lit days

she’ll come back

from a couch, pulled from the past relevant for the future, our present

Posted on by andrewsmeyer

**Cleaning up some ideas, i wanted to get this on this site to go back to.

Bonus, enjoy.

Written July 9, 2016:

To the death

Cities dead

Our children learning geography through humans eating humans blaming humans assuming humans racist humans scared humans.

Red

No, we can’t go there, children were shot, Mickey left the castle believe it or not, a new town marred and sandy hook scarred. Eiffel tower? and now the lonestar? St. Paul, New York, wait, let me stop.

It’s everywhere, where I’m not.

Oh, it’s here.

Less bullets more minds.

Why does it take death to realize

It’s racing through you when you first rub thighs

Inhaled between your infant cries

I can only surmise, you’ll act surprised when I say I see it deep set in those eyes.

Blue

The ones who kill others they haven’t met, willing to take a chance on a half baked bet

Fed through the tv set.

Aspersions cast

The stars of this show.

We are taught not to regret.

It’s in the mirror

A faint windex smear, I thought I scrubbed hard enough to make it clear.

The filthy ignorance of generations passed.

God damn Mississippi can we at least get past the spread of color on a gay mans mast or hue of human skin, please, at last!

Green

What were you told when you were young?

Face your fears and they’ll be overcome.

Face them with confidence, poise and grace

Not the end of a gun or scowl on your face.

My team, your team, the team that won.

We lost

A stain on cities, the cost?

Do you see your place in history?

Understand you matter?

Is this even reality?

Orange

Struggle to know that we are killing one another, killing one another, a child has a mother and you are killing my brother. Assumptions, gumption and praised ignorance

Come together!

This doesn’t make sense.

I don’t believe things are this bad, it’s illuminated by this new fad. Pop culture stupidity, video game invincibility.

Yellow

That’s a child, your neighbor, police officer – you can name them.

Black

So what now?

We can keep collecting cities, looking at kitties and all shapes of titties. Or, we can galvanize, open our eyes, stare in surprise about the reality that came from lies.

White

We don’t hate one another.

We’re Afraid.

from a couch, a shorty

Posted on by andrewsmeyer

stranded in a city made for me

the pilot who brought me here was sure i’d have a key to unlock the mystery buried in the sea of starlit sunshine that sunk our treasure it’s glowing beauty is all i remember in passionate riptides it was pulled out further and further and further and i gave up watching and decided to leave

**A draft that didn’t see light, not sure of date:

i wake up half baked and the world gives me time to add and equate the benefit of doubt due to the color of my skin a lapse of reason a few minutes to begin good intention seekers nicely imprisoned for laundering our whites, not the socks in the duffel, yet an equally angry vet wondering where the rules went with an ever changing board designed to adapt to rent its slipping away and the fear and intimidation that still sit silent in alien suburbs where they don’t see torches as necessary defense i’m the lucky one spewed out washing my skin duty delivered and i’m stuck within clambering to the next of kin where do i go? i want to help. i’m not one of “them” the great forgetting wasn’t lost on me i’m decidedly pretending i haven’t added to this. the start? polish and Italian joke books in 2nd grade, mocking street slang, defining identities by the size of their nose all the while being told ‘but you’re not one of those’ i wasn’t overtly taught to be racist, so i supposed, its who we are under the clothes that i wore in an effort to avoid confrontation i didn’t know why you couldn’t eat bacon. i should have asked. but when you’re born with privilege that you don’t even know math equation symmetry is all that’ll show.

adjust our lenses

feel the flow

all are one toe to toe