The Day After Greed
walking the greying streets,
between the broken down
and vacant buildings....
through the alleyways..
concrete graveyards...
the hint of smoke hangs
in the air.... the stain of soot,
the taste of death... lingers....
i closed my eyes and saw
the bodies... strewn in the street
like trash blown against a fence...
eyes wild, faces contorted, ...
death, and it's brothers and sisters...
storefronts dark and ominous,
gas pumps stand alone like angry
sores, oozing into the emptiness.
great black birds fly, casting shadows
that search for tiny particles of light....
stray dogs roam in packs,
hungry for flesh!
only the sound of the great
oil rigs pumping in the distance....
an old tattered flag blown
by a cold infidel wind!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Praying For Emptiness!
walking barefoot down the streets
of the holy city...
listening to the sounds,
the whimper, the cry, and the roar...
praying for emptiness....
the clock beats in rhythm
with the sidewalks and the walls.
the smell of burnt flesh
hangs in the air....
'Jesus Saves' painted on a fence....
oil rigs and chemical sprays,
fields filled with unmarked graves.
windows broken, doors sway, rusted hinges,
cars abandoned, vacant buildings,
dead bodies, eyes lost stare!
the spirits of the children
sing haunting and low...
words pierce like nails,
the birds hear and weep....
a hand gun, a needle, half pack of smokes....
nobody saves the night from the dawn!
praying for emptiness...
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Always Walking, Never Alone!
always walking, never alone...
be it the wind,
whose voice has comforted me
for longer than i can remember.
be it darkness,
my lover, passion unfolding.
be it the lights in unknown houses,
signaling life to the traveller.
be it the whisper of stone,
and wood aging and holding.
be it the cry of emptiness,
vacant buildings, desolate streets.
be it the smells of food cooking,
of woodsmoke, of flesh on flesh.
be it the taste of rain,
the cold touch of falling snow.
be it the stillness of graves,
row upon row, life upon life.
my god walks with me,
naked in the night.
we listen for the whimper of babies,
the meow of stray cats.
for the sound of the shot,
and the body falling.
for the key turning the lock,
and the creaking of the swing.
for the perfume of the pines,
for the man picking up the trash.
for the heart moaning
low and gutteral in need.
for the sound of the man weeping,
having given up,
and the woman that holds him.
for the prayers of small children,
and the echoes of longing...
always walking, never alone!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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I Can Feel..... (The Change Coming)
i can feel the change coming,
the dark swell of the clouds.
the rumble that shakes the streets,
i can smell buildings on fire.
can hear the planes,
the sound the bombs make falling,
the pulsing hate of the oil rigs,
the shuffle of money behind closed doors.
the wail of prayers in desperate churches,
the street dealer selling a loaf of bread.
the metallic sound of shovels digging graves,
the ignorant drone of great leaders.
the sound of boots on pavement,
breath shuddering through broken windows.
the silent stare of the angry and hungry,
the thunderous clenching of fists.
the haunted sound of chains and cell doors,
and riot squad bullhorns.
the tongues of truth cut from bodies,
the last cigarette lit.
the pounding hearts of the common,
black and white joined.
coming in waves, determined as one.
and the cries of the children...
always the cries...
held in the hearts as a beacon,
the reason to live and die!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Guillotine
the guillotine stands
alone in the square,
the pinnacle of pulse....
that drains the heartbeats....
traffic heavy, horns honking,
hurrying, hurrying....
trucks and buses puffing clouds
of death into the air....
neon signs keeping score.
billboards selling the dream,
street preachers selling Jesus....
corner whores selling themselves....
in sterile rooms atop the skyscrapers,
far from the stink, far from
trash strewn in the alleyways
like tiny lives forgotten,
gum stuck to the shoes.....
they gamble with futures,
trading hungry mouths without faces;
never looking back.... vultures
in black suits and ties...
winning, winning, or losing it all.
while the homeless and the addicts
walk the streets below....
looking for something they cant remember....
light dancing on the razor-like blade.....
heads from bodies, hearts from souls......
profit from the last heartbeat!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Epilogue (Part Three)
shivering nails,
black and white coffins whisper.
bodies without heads,
strewn in the sand.
the taste of gunpowder
on my lips.
i bow, but cannot pray!
the sound of the oil rigs,
the coarse rhythm of greed.
take and destroy, take and fulfill!
the cry of sea life,
the gurgling choke,
soon to be the children
of flaccid men.
buildings like bodies,
stripped empty and bare.
the memories smell
of life that once was.
empty, and pulsing,
with the want of need,
no one hears the ghosts within.
hunger and homelessness,
heroin and Jesus.
the shelves are bare,
the mother's eyes are bleeding.
the nameless and unwanted,
cast aside in the storm,
while ghouls walk amid
the rubble of the lie.
sing for me, pray for me,
take my hand, take my hand...
even when i close my eyes,
i still hear, still feel,
the faces of the wind!
and god, if there be,
in each and every tear!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Canines in Love
Two dogs in the rain
Stray down midnight boulevards
Hungry beside trash cans,
But looking both ways
Before they cross the street,
You have to watch out for each other
In this cruel world of broken homes,
Any moment you might be penniless and alone,
Hold onto your pirate’s sleeves,
You’ll need each other
When you encounter angry seas,
Love is all you have
When your hopes and resources
Have become tattered rags.
poem by Uriah Hamilton
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Survival By Instinct!
police sirens wail,
echoing off empty buildings,
down empty streets...
streets marked by angry blood.
from mouth to fist,
feet never stop moving...
going nowhere,
determined and furious.
the crush of bones
beneath pipe on pavement...
the taste of flesh,
charred and stale.
cities become graveyards,
marker by marker.
no time for names,
only the strong!
and hunger becomes anger
of the darkest kind.
do it for a couple dollars,
and a gallon of gas.
faces contorted,
demons or worse!
survival by instinct,
so close you can smell it!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Day Is Done
nuclear fission, sins of omission,
hide your eyes, buy the lies!
hearts gone numb, minds struck dumb,
the flesh dies, stink and flies.
roll down the window, just past tomorrow,
trading souls, fighting for control.
politicians kiss and tell, on the road to hell,
the fire gone cold, nothing left to hold.
broken down, running on empty.
packs of wolves roam the cities.
children's bodies down in the alleys,
nowhere to run, day is done!
nowhere to run, day is done!
the curse of invasion, profitable occasions.
fly the flag, drums and bodybags.
different shades and colors, forgotten brothers,
it's easier to kill, than it is to feel!
the cries and the voices, ghosts of our choices,
rome burns, with every turn!
poverty's needle, almost inconceivable,
blood on the hands, blood on the hands.
broken down, running on empty.
packs of wolves roam your cities.
children's bodies down in the alleys,
nowhere to run, day is done!
nowhere to run, day is done!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Black Thunder
black thunder/ broken pieces, tired eyes.
church bells silent ringing, crow feet scarred pillows.
small children walking, without tongues praying,
wagon wheels bogged down in sand.
black thunder/ second hand lives, worn out lies.
dead soldiers mournful singing, borrowed tomorrows.
blind mouths moving, talking without saying,
unlit rooms forged by fugitive hands.
black thunder/ pregnant women without faces.
waves lapping orphan feet, ships lost in the storm.
refugee stars lost in unmarked skies,
an old tree dying rotting on the ground.
black thunder/ families disappearing without traces.
trash blown deserted streets, old men waiting to be born.
molded crucifixes, covered with flies,
clouds chant scriptures without a sound.
(guns silent weeping,
angels prayerful sweeping.
dreams born dying, dreams unfolding,
looking without seeing, touching without holding.)
black thunder/ hungry barefoot ghosts whisper.
priests covered in blood, empty windows open.
tiny infinities wrapped in colored matchsticks,
nowhere standing lost by the road.
black thunder/ brothers burying virgin sisters.
dialogue without talking, homeless heroes smoking.
ants' prophecies well hidden, time worn bricks,
strangers huddled against the cold.
black thunder/ salvation starved borrowed clothes.
smoke charred walls, forever dripping to the floor.
flesh tokens paid, lifetimes yet unforgiven,
candles dressed in cemetery suits.
black thunder/ nobody cares, nobody knows.
horses stomping stalls, doors open to doors.
while the dead barter for the living,
with bayonets and religious boots....
black thunder!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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You get angry
You get angry
thats what death does
A light
A warmth on my face
The breeze through my hair
I smell the trees
You get angry
thats what death does
A heartbeat
A silent scream
Sinking
A coldness creeps in
Shadows dance in your eyes
You get angry
thats what death does
Not a death of the flesh
A death of the heart
The funeral of love
The welcoming of silence
Where you used to whisper...
I love you
poem by Lynzi Berner
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Grey Windows...
grey windows, grey buildings,
grey streets, grey skies...
grey figures staring,
grey deals are done!
manipulate gas prices,
manipulate food...
manipulate the economy,
manipulate the election.
right and wrong,
never thought of.
hungry mouths and desperation.
win the war,
never raise a gun,
bodies strewn everywhere!
money makes gods,
without conscience or morals.
human lives just tokens,
that buy trinkets for demons!
flag draped caskets,
the stink of money overwhelms.
while patriots dig graves,
for their mothers and sisters.
right and wrong,
never thought of.
hungry mouths and desperation.
pick a President,
who'll stand silent,
as birds of prey pick the bodies!
grey windows...
poem by Eric Cockrell
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On Lillian Way
night
cold gray against greenish black
street lamp globes against
rectangle buildings
sitting in a parked car
along the deserted alleyways
off santa monica boulevard
car windows fogged
the cold green street lights
filtered through the prism
of a broken windshield
delicate spiderwebs of
white light diffusion
only in L.A.
a prostitute stands
against the bare wall
under a street light
with traffic going by
on the sidewalk
across the street
cocaine sellers asking
“what do you want? ”
“what do you need? ”
beside the building
a bottle and can collector
inspects a long low
excuse for a trash barrel
the prostitute
draws a lot of attention
cars pull to the curb
windows unwind
in the car adjacent
derelicts are fixing dope
shooting up in the
luminous twilight
now the whore has a trick
a car door slams
and tires spin away
much like a river
the wind has stirred up the palm leaves
and palmetto shadows
extra currents for a
3 a.m. late night traffic flow
much like my soft core
more than usually hard core
translucent shadows
on the concave street
vertical street signs
body schisms
poem by Theresa Haffner
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The House Of Dust: Part 03: 08: Coffins: Interlude
Wind blows. Snow falls. The great clock in its tower
Ticks with reverberant coil and tolls the hour:
At the deep sudden stroke the pigeons fly . . .
The fine snow flutes the cracks between the flagstones.
We close our coats, and hurry, and search the sky.
We are like music, each voice of it pursuing
A golden separate dream, remote, persistent,
Climbing to fire, receding to hoarse despair.
What do you whisper, brother? What do you tell me? . . .
We pass each other, are lost, and do not care.
One mounts up to beauty, serenely singing,
Forgetful of the steps that cry behind him;
One drifts slowly down from a waking dream.
One, foreseeing, lingers forever unmoving . . .
Upward and downward, past him there, we stream.
One has death in his eyes: and walks more slowly.
Death, among jonquils, told him a freezing secret.
A cloud blows over his eyes, he ponders earth.
He sees in the world a forest of sunlit jonquils:
A slow black poison huddles beneath that mirth.
Death, from street to alley, from door to window,
Cries out his news,—of unplumbed worlds approaching,
Of a cloud of darkness soon to destroy the tower.
But why comes death,—he asks,—in a world so perfect?
Or why the minute's grey in the golden hour?
Music, a sudden glissando, sinister, troubled,
A drift of wind-torn petals, before him passes
Down jangled streets, and dies.
The bodies of old and young, of maimed and lovely,
Are slowly borne to earth, with a dirge of cries.
Down cobbled streets they come; down huddled stairways;
Through silent halls; through carven golden doorways;
From freezing rooms as bare as rock.
The curtains are closed across deserted windows.
Earth streams out of the shovel; the pebbles knock.
Mary, whose hands rejoiced to move in sunlight;
Silent Elaine; grave Anne, who sang so clearly;
Fugitive Helen, who loved and walked alone;
Miriam too soon dead, darkly remembered;
Childless Ruth, who sorrowed, but could not atone;
Jean, whose laughter flashed over depths of terror,
And Eloise, who desired to love but dared not;
Doris, who turned alone to the dark and cried,—
They are blown away like windflung chords of music,
They drift away; the sudden music has died.
And one, with death in his eyes, comes walking slowly
And sees the shadow of death in many faces,
And thinks the world is strange.
He desires immortal music and spring forever,
And beauty that knows no change.
poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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Half Drunk In Jesus Town
church bells ringing
down by the mission
walking these streets again
down by the old feed store,
and the row of empty buildings,
listening to the ghosts of the past.
the railroad tracks stand silent,
that old train dont run anymore.
here and there people walking,
aint nobody talking,
stray dogs and broken bottles,
stopped to light one last cigarette.
i can still hear my mother calling,
can still see my daddy's tired eyes,
can still hear the preacher, and
them old songs
but you cant take me down
to the water anymore.
old signs falling in the wind
take one last draw from the bottle
cant bring back what you never had
half drunk in Jesus town.
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Have Mercy!
Have Mercy!
with final thoughts
i walk these streets,
past vacant buildings hallowed.
in silent mourning,
my heartbeat joining,
the concrete scarred by living.
passing strangers hurrying,
as if they had a life to return to.
while the shouts and cursing of working men,
rings inside the empty walls!
past tenemant buildings,
and unemployed stoops,
and eyes staring from windows.
dogs too hungry to bark,
squad cars passing slow,
tis the funeral of poverty.
while meth lab food stamp children,
sharpen knives against the curb.
and everything's grey, even the sounds,
the air is drunk with anger.
i caught a ride
with a trucker wired,
who mumbled slamming gears.
out into the country
once green and rich...
now brown and deserted.
fields not worked,
farm's foreclosed,
houses left to ghosts and memories.
tractors rusting in the sun,
the air is drunk with anger.
back into town,
past libraries closed,
and churches that ache with empty.
i can hear the sound
of the distant bells...
be it freedom or infinity.
past hospitals full,
and graveyards that move
with shadows in the night.
back to the small room
where i cant sleep...
where god weeps in the stillness.
America, America...
the air is drunk with anger!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Dead Poets... In The Night
dead poets visit me in the night....
we walk the darkened hollow streets.
talking softly, or not at all....
listening to the sounds of darkness.
doors closed, curtains pulled;
those who can, sleep....
and lovers wrapped inside each other
talk in a language known only by gods.
while the broken ones stumble by,
the sound of their weeping heavy,
and cold as the night....
clouds race across the moon
leaving scars on the homeless and hungry.
young women cry out giving birth
to the screech of the owl....
churches stand empty and sterile.
the suicides and the penitents
go about their business quickly.
we stand on the corner of doubt and hope,
brothers and sisters in arms.
raise the last bottle, light a smoke....
and wait, shivering, for the endless dawn!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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What Celia Saw in the Back of a Spoon
Celia looked at her reflection
In the back of the spoon;
Her face was blown outward
As if captured on some balloon.
It almost made her laugh;
The memory of it;
How she and her sister Sassy
Would do that as kids,
Before the dark days,
Before her death in a bath.
That drowning, that sad death.
Sassy's husband had beaten her
Black and blue and green
And she'd hide herself away
So as not to be seen.
But she'd seen her,
Seen the bruises
Like smudged tattoos,
The closed eyes,
The swollen lips,
The hardly able to talk words
Pushing through the mouth
To say: he says he loves me still.
Celia stared at her reflection,
The way her own mouth was distorted,
Her lips blown up, her eyes enlarged,
Out of proportion.
She almost laughed,
But something about Sassy's sad death
Made her stifle any guffaw
That may have broken free
From her distorted reflected jaw.
There was the time she'd seen her
Undressing for bed when she stayed
Because Sassy's husband (the weird freak)
Was off on business, some big deal,
Needing to be pulled off,
And she saw the black and blueness
With tinges of green
Along her naked flesh,
The buttocks welted
Where he had belted.
Sassy had said nothing,
Had not noticed Celia looking,
Had not thought it unusual
To be unclothed as such
Away from other's peering eyes.
Now Sassy was dead;
Found in the bath;
Drugged out, wrists slit,
Having drowned recorded.
But he had driven her over the edge;
He had bullied and beaten
Like some spoilt cruel child
An unwanted toy.
Celia turned the spoon over
And put it down.
No more desire to laugh,
Just fond memories of Sassy
Before her death in the bath.
poem by Terry Collett
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Address Unknown
morning coffee;
a touch of the news,
goes down bitter....
shoe leather, and trash
blown across the horizon,
pregnant gas pumps heaving....
another napalm morning,
gunpowder and grease,
tiny bodies in flower gardens,
unattended.
sunday school teahers
with bayonets and cell phones,
small childrens fingers curled
around stones and broken limbs.
ring the register, take off
your hat, close your eyes.
put your lives away
in cardboard boxes
wrapped up in duct tape.
address unknown...
.........address unknown!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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In A Cold Wind
In a cold wind
in a night wind,
under a yellow street-light,
its paleness and the dark night.
Leaves blown past,
down the wind, cast
onto the silent roadway,
or in heaps, on the footway.
The houses that rise
into grey skies,
windows with drawn curtains,
facing onto pale gardens.
Slow in the sky,
the clouds moving by;
on the ground, the shadows blurred,
the whistling wind heard.
And the wind that blows
comes not, nor goes.
In this night, its sound
wraps all around.
Not here alone,
its long low drone,
along endless fences and hedges,
insidiously edges.
Now is the hour,
now is the closing of the flower,
an end to approaching and retreating,
to losing and defeating,
in a cold wind,
in a night wind,
on a corner of a cold street,
where all directions meet.
poem by Rory Hudson
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As If... (You Never Owned A Thing!)
if you listen at night,
the trash in the alleys comes alive.
there is a whispering
that fills the cardboard boxes.
the cans and bottles play
an unearthly music.
and vacant houses talk to god,
or perhaps the demons of poverty.
the wind stops blowing,
and the stink hangs like a cloud...
the evidence of blind excess!
the bodies of the nameless ones,
rise from the filth of forgotten.
the rats join ranks with stray dogs,
and testify against your indulgence!
soon, probably sooner than you think,
your eyes will be covered with dirt.
and the worms will take what you have hoarded,
as if you never owned a thing!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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