Have you met my needs?

Have you met my needs?

I was there in line and bad voice spoke to me

I’d order the extra bacon even though it meant  

shaving minutes off of my life

and the planet’s 

I couldn’t care less at that moment

it was the only pleasure available 

before I had met you 

and now we spend our days and nights

in all sorts of blister and tetra packs

in my apartment in your underwear

and we rub each other fast enough 

to erase any memories of happier

times when we were younger 

and we never had second thoughts

about looking beyond our desires

To Joy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqZ6c0aIJqM&feature=youtu.be

Plans "A", "B", & "Z"

Plans “A”, “B”, & “Z”

You’ll be very successful 

We’ll live on Park Avenue

Our children will have famous friends

We’ll become rich helping others

I’ll work as a waiter; you're a social worker

We sometimes see our kids

Even the one in trouble

Our parents will help us out

You’ll hit him with the rock 

I’ll stab him with the spear

We’ll have enough meat for the winter

His skin will make us gloves 

Kindness of Strangers

we rely on friends
to be family

and then
after they leave

we're left
with only

the kindness
of strangers 

despite everything
behind our eyes

in a split second
we realize

you're a part of me
I'm some of you 

before the fear
 split us in two

we make a gesture
we remember 

the kindness
of strangers

the body
next to me

the one
across the way

the crowd
in front of me

ones
on display

you and me
full of pain

and the ecstasy
that awaits

as strangeness
comes into view

Maricopia

It's one-sixteen out

the cars are starting to melt

people walk into the supermarket

AC takes you down by a power of ten

there's nothing to be said about

the wealth of goods on the shelf

hunter gatherers  couldn't imagine how

four corners of the world could get so bent

coffee from Colombia 

beef from Japan

paper towel from the Amazon 

corn from the heartland 

all go into the cart

of people very well-fed

living inside of luxury boxes

behind iron fences

I get their animal natures 

I see how they're scared

making political choices from 

reptile parts of their brains

drugugly

drugugly

got this little habit 

it won't quit 

addicted to my roof

food and bed

nothing against homelessness 

I envy it 

one day

I'll kick this habit

straight in the head

it's that middle class feeling

clinging to my clothes 

sense of privilege and some

childhood photos

middle class feeling

won't let go 

despite evidence to the contrary

that it never was

drop bombs over there

weather's never been the same 

friends have all changed 

faces and names 

you've got plenty of news 

none of it good 

yet you still refuse 

to blow up the world

that middle class feeling

clogging your pores

clinging to ambitions

it's no good 

middle class feeling

tickling your nose 

in all those ads 

in your friends' photos

Airports

Airports  

All the love ambition 

Prejudice and hurt

Everything processed through 

What we've seen felt done and heard

All the imagination

Incarceration and rebirth

We carry the history

In our unspoken attitudes 

Body language assumptions

And sense of rectitude

We're never above it

It's never far away, I'm sure

Each time I'm in public 

I'm reminded of this dependency

The needs of the many

The rights of a few

All are required to be processed

Through an eight-year old's point of view