That I Should Be

Your god says that I should be

What you want me to be

    The guy in the sky promises

    Me I'll never die

His shirts are a gleaming white

As the colors fade

Like those betrayed

    Mumbling requisite sentiments

    Saluting with stolid resentment

Languid and sullen

Unfurls the tattered fabric

In a crisp evening breeze

Waiting for Default or another assault

Been sold for Interest on the Debt

Without conscience or capacity for regret

How much less could possibly be said

To television children fed

Grains from an hourglass broken

Spilling over and washed away

Precious words unspoken

For those still willing to stay

As painful memories abide

As the indiscretions

Of former selves collide

And the guy in the sky promises, promises

Believe

Replace the face

Carve out the space

Hollow the place

Where hope resides

Slips in-between

The light you've seen

The truth so mean

'neath a spate of lies

Engage the rage

Seize the stage

Ignite the page

With livid cries

Behind the mask

A gifted past

Returns the task

To those who were last

The Modern Prometheus

Orbits in fresh decay and fatal sight

We arrived when you died

Each with a part to play

A Caste in the city of resplendent wisdom

In glittering vagaries of Capitalism

This is where the lightning strikes

Not twice but thrice, from dizzying heights

To this place on the ground, comes the sound

Tearing through sheets of rain, a speeding train

And flickering shards from a shattering pane

Down to the floor, down with the sound

Of the wind and more

Trace of an acquaintance erased

Remembrance of time and place

Mistral wind whipping the trees

Fevered smiles embraced

Lovers tossed in the leaves

These arrived when you died

And will not be denied

Reciting the spell, by the light of hell

Not twice but thrice

This is where the lightning strikes

The lightning strikes, the lightning strikes

Witness

An artist plies invective sighs

As ribbons given wrap within

And the flight of time implies

When the end lies inscribed again

Driver's burning inside

Legs broken and afraid to survive

He waves to tear closed eyes

Those jewels enkindling

A fire by blinking

Striking clear to none

That nearest an inkling

Lies truth undone

She's Married An Arab

She's married an Arab, the latest and stateless

Now in Baton Rouge, she's sweeping her cheek

With a little more rouge, to greet the street

And another sticky fate between the sheets

    Imitation and repetition, her last living rendition

    She's married an Arab

Poetic, eccentric and beautiful

Awkward, gentle and non-judgmental

Alone and inevitable

She's married the latest

    She's married an Arab, the latest and stateless

Erwin is a working fine and decorative artist, to see some of that click here.