Black smoke rises In a February field Looms on the horizon Like it’s Bethlehem steel The Senate holds a hearing, they’re not hearing your appeal But Alan Shaw is counting thralls and oozing class appeal He says “don’t pick your blisters, it’s just best to let ‘em peel” as he has his culpability repealed I Felt the lightning, Waited on the thunder, Never heard the peal Turns out it was buried under Fog that’s dense enough to FEEL Fog that lowers down Like Alan’s crown When he secretes his shpeel & Donates City Council each a couple thou to stop their squeals I’m for having Mr. Shaw divided like the seven seals Scattered round the globe Painstakingly concealed He and every other walking clot of greed, congealed, and the corporate machinery Of which, he’s but a wheel Strip it down to parts and keep it safely under heel Otherwise, we’ll never heal. Otherwise we forfeit every blossom For its toxins will not yield. Otherwise, we’re helpless, watching, all we’ll hear is muffled sobbing overlaid across the gentle whir of the projector reel Were I any saner by their standards I’d be glad to hang the banners, as it stands, I spurn the flag and shun the standard, I defiantly reject the real. I reject the will of Federal terrorists who throw the word ‘Democracy’ around like it’s the holiest protector’s shield standing quietly while we allow society to wrap itself in piety, when half cannot afford a meal We are minnows wielding class-action lawsuits searching for some justice in the court of eels Heard the portcullis lock heard the jury lick its chops Heard the suit was dropped. Heard the minnows reached a deal. They’re Happy Ever After In a February Field details of the settlement were not revealed. Now, if you ask Alan Shaw, that’s a comeback story Where he rises from the ashes in the afterbirth of corporate glory One in which the residents of Palestine who leave are coming back to see the rainbow sheen that sits atop the creek disguises something gory Dead fish in the riverbed, like boulders in a quarry Dead deer in the forest glen but they are far from Norfolk’s quarry We are what they’re seeking to reduce, all too eager to reuse, and then recycle once we’re forty We supply a labor force that law forbids aborting That’s if all should go according If you hold a politician’s hand, It’s fascism you’re courting And that’s the fight that gets me out of bed to keep recording That’s the fight that opens up my eyes every morning. To Chloride on the sunrise, & CNN reporting that it’s safe to drink the water if you don’t know what’s been forming That it’s best to trust the experts, who ignore the blatant warnings Disregard the evidence you’re currently absorbing Norfolk’s awfully sorry, and their profit’s fucking SOARING It is silent in a field On a February morning And that’s where we begin our story

100,000 pounds of Vinyl chloride Burned into the air and in the water, with your fluoride Today, we’ll demonstrate the role that profit plays in cost-benefit-analysis to find the worth of YOUR lives. Mind you, We’ll be grading on a curve That traces dead fish on the shoreline Today the town of East Palestine will know the skies of wartime, wear the shoes of Palestine, and know the smell of war crimes. Their pets and livestock will be corpses for the war shrine. This is how you sanction all your farmland in the Fourth Reich. I’m honestly surprised that Pete addressed it in a fortnight Praised the first responders, but ignored the looming morgue line, like: “Focus on the cavalry, Ignore that every horse died!” “Never mind there’s not a single cricket, bird, or horsefly, just triclops in the triage tent, who expedite the four-eyed.” Norfolk taking pages out the Northwoods North side Add a dash of NORAD, plant a row of soil mines, give them lots of black skies, water bright with oil shine, and you can propagate the kind of crop that Gates will normalize. Save your time, and give up ever going back to ‘Normal Life’ Norfolk cut its costs and now this nation pays the morbid price. Norfolk weighed the loss as purely human, so they rolled the dice knowing Biden had their backs when workers tried to unionize. Knowing all their lobbyists assured they won’t be scrutinized. Knowing that the tiny little fine they might be hit with is a part of doing business when your business is to euthanize. To salt the earth, Liquidate the brutalized, Drench the plains in acid rain and blame it all on rural minds. Tell them that’s just what they get for voting red and old Team Blue will fall in step and shake their heads and disconnect from humankind They’re never looking up, their fingers point to you and I Thanks to years of being trained to frame the little guy They’ve seen the film enough to tell you where the blame should lie; The poorest families’ EBT card was the mastermind! Those little houses won’t concern the liberal passerby They had their dose of NPR, The Passive-voice will Cast aside Your raspy breath, and swollen eyes, Your burning cough that won’t subside, Your cat that didn’t last the night, That pall of death, That blackened sky. The harvest faced in ten years’ time that reaps the waste of wealthy crimes. A million-gallon-deep decline Through supersites and party lines, through hurried graves and leaded pipes, past poisoned slaves, and slaughtered tribes, past forgotten treaties that we authored, then we compromised. Past our moral fabric ever brittle, gray, and fossilized. Past the mass of plastic trash that‘s just this side of ossified. And if you find one root that thrives, The living proof of fruitful vines, Just hold it close, take in the sight, Don’t plant a host for parasites who, in the name of corporate gains, see all that murder justified. We’re such a waste of insect paste, and SO much cheaper crucified! We’re Children of the Fuselage! Ghosts of all the food-deprived! Echoes of the working-class whose Kristallnacht was supersized! Out in Ohio, birds are drowning where they stand. Their eyes reflect a world event that devastates the land. It’s a tale of regulations disemboweled by profit’s hand & Their viscera, that soaks, like so much chloride, in the sand.

I’ll take a couple minutes, if you think that you can spare a few I’ll try to mask my bitterness Like wild Berry theraflu Sometimes I find things bearable, I really do Sometimes I’m marigolds and baby blue Sometimes I make it twenty minutes Without thinking to myself how Those who chose to starve you Will not take the time to stay and bury you No chariots will carry you To Arlington or Xanadu Or lay you in the vacant space that’s 6 beneath your panic room This one’s for the native graves on which we laid some tanning booths That closed within a year, and changed to Mom & Pop Italian Food that got pushed out for Pizza Hut, which got shut down for safety codes, and, in the end, the building was demolished for the danger posed Now there’s just an empty field, where little vegetation grows, where, now and then, you’ll think you hear the wind, when there’s no wind that blows Maybe it’s the echo of the laughter of the Natives, When they see how we can’t feed ourselves, or fashion our own winter clothes Watching us, like human moths, all drawn where e’er the ember goes With all the sea a garbage heap, and mountains stripped like centerfolds Down beyond the crater, where the river flows, Polyfluoroalkyl Trout are mating in the witches grove Each are casting dirty glances Third eyes, courtesy Monsanto, Glaring at the only trout with two who dared to interlope Maybe that was truly thunder, Humming through the stone below, or native spirits laughing with a cackle like a thunder bolt That rendered, in one brilliant flash, to shattered glass, this sundered gloam, or maybe it’s the rumble of a humbling karmic undertow Maybe we’ve been swept away by titan waves, with plastic foam So, every day, we gasp and writhe, our hopes alight with phosphorus glow Gods, what awful prospect to restore this nation’s monstrous soul And yet, the concept is a constant threat of promise kept to bait the polls and then they take the votes as far from all us nosey proles as they can coast on half the worlds reserves of coal Take the rest to go and try to overdose before they hit poles Crashed a global market, Broke a couple bones Made a couple buddies, Faked a dozen loans Torched a lotta farms, I bet you never heard Cops were being cops, They said a couple words Over in the vacant lot on 23rd, Someone traced the pizza hut from memory in the ash and dirt As I stood and stared, I heard the wind, and yet, no wind had stirred, Still, I found myself concerned that I might see the sketch disturbed I sat within a booth outlined upon the vacant earth as one might touch the only stone still standing in their place of birth Sick for dumb nostalgia which the truly branded yearn Then I heard their voices rushing past: “You’ll NEVER learn.” “You’ll NEVER learn.”

I saw Nina Turner with a roller dipped in ocean blue Spreading life-like water in a painted pool She smoothed the surface out, and made a little wave or two A few convincing ripples and reflections ripe for hazing you and every other vacant fool who saw her build a cage for you Who STILL returned to “Ahh” & “Ooh” and walked right past the toxic plume to witness Nina’s masterpiece, Her grand charade, Her painted pool. The hints of light that trick your eyes. The trap inside the lapis jewel. The half-imagined voice that tries to lavish you with platitudes and lure you in the baited waters, hook and sinker, absolute. I know you’ve thought about just diving in it, haven’t you? Now that Nina’s got you feeling like you’re splatter-proof Progressivism ain’t a pipeline to the blue side, Baby, it’s a waiting room, and it leads you to a pool with zero wading room. And every lemming diving in that painted pool today will not be swayed, and can’t be saved. I know, I tried to save a few. But, I ultimately watched them eat the pavement. Those who get less leisure time than peasants in the Middle Ages Those for whom a dozen fucking eggs are worth an hour of their wages Heaven’s not a place on earth, and hell is what you make it and, look at us, we made it. America. Degraded. Diving in a painted, fake oasis on the basis of a break in their enslavement Lined up at the diving board, excited and impatient Pointing fingers halfway round the world to cry ‘Invasion!’ Turning backs on human rights at home, cause the location doesn’t fit with our narration You’ll never spot the sanctions if you still deny the occupations The End came and went, I guess you missed the high note Like we’re gonna miss the last white rhino The Harbinger of End Times was floating in the sky, But nobody saw the message past the clouds above Ohio Where Blackrock is demonstrating “Sell High, Buy Low” A toxic Mass-Eviction in the Heartland Suddenly your cityspan’s a 15-minute Biodome Cops on every corner, every blink of yours, reported, every word that’s out of order is summarily recorded When information’s valuable, your privacy’s as malleable as safety in a school, or your right to an abortion. But we know the face of every thief who came to take our portions, auctioned off our pensions, built a hundred bloody warships And I bet you didn’t know you were a donor for it Bet you didn’t know we still do no-knock warrants Who could have guessed that if unnecessary force is left to officer discretion, the result is something morbid. And inhuman And abhorrent All of which is in your feed, and whirling in the torrent All of which is coursing through the current All our fate, like Julian’s, is hinging on American Assurance Which history has proved to be as honest as me telling you it’s raining while I’m drenching you with urine Then telling you the urine’s really liquid fucking mustard gas Then ditch it in the pastureland like “best of luck”, and light the match Then telling you to disregard that pestilence that billows past And all from in the comforts of my safety hatch Down in the bunker, there’s a massive empty pool that Nina Turner, patiently, is painting ocean blue. Its depth is deathly shallow, but deception swears it true, and she draws the drooling willing Two by Two.

It isn’t rare for me to witness One of propaganda’s victims Spitting back the facts they’re given I’ve learned it’s better not to listen, lest I find myself compelled to try and help them grasp the greater picture I walk away, Contented not to bother But That’s harder when the victim is your father When it’s a man who saw beyond the feeble reasons we were offered to go occupy Iraq, til, after 20 years of slaughter, the democracy we came to spread Does not extend a centimeter farther than the army bases stocked with our marauders This isn’t foreign land, But, Dad, I beg you, PLEASE don’t drink the water Please don’t view the news as something other than a transcript of the sheriffs office blotter There aren’t any officers worth half their salt I can’t recall a decent cop, the brush with which I paint is something broader The brush with which I paint conveys the shade of beaten daughters Of officers who trafficked children shielded by the guise of honor Shielded by a culture that uplifts them to such high regard it overlooks the powder mark that always was their calling card Now we’re told to fall apart at Biden’s feet and make a plea that he can find it somewhere in his hollow heart to call off all his oligarchs and LEO’s in army garb With army tanks and lethal arms and carve a path to peace between these monumental prison bars It isn’t hard to listen to the rabble spout the script They memorized it from the instant it departed Clinton’s lips But once you’re standing, stunned, and hearing state department clips from a voice that taught you right from wrong, you’re loathe to come to grips You’ll start slowing to a crawl Until you’re low enough to limp You’ll be pulled between just holding back, or giving Dad a glimpse Of every hospital they’ve bombed or each civilian that they hit, and posed to take a couple pictures and say “look what Russia did!” We’re cooking all the history books from now, until Berlin But we’re not the fucking heroes here, We’re Nazis counting limbs We lied about Gaddafi, and Saddam, and Ho Chi Minh We’re the Fourth Reich, Shining little city on a hill of sins We got a taste for war, and ain’t been civil since We will show up at your doors and you will let us in We will colonize your pores, commodify your skin You’ll consent to this and more if you’re not vigilant Or, Jesus, even outright militant How many citizens could hope to glimpse the light again If they’ve signed on the dotted line to sacrifice the wiring out their filament? and, Mind you, winter’s imminent What could you expect from those you’ve trained to know they’re only worth donations they can make to those a half a world away, who daily writhe in NATO’s throes, on top of years of Nazi occupation We’re so used to being bled, so, what’s another leech, or ten, cause, once your blood is not your own, it matters not, the destination Be it on the altar stone of capital, or in the River Be it in the streets cause the police saw you were moments from committing free speech, and so, justice was delivered Or Be it in a glass for Bill Clinton, so he lives to see another Winter. This is Cattle-Syndrome, if you need a raw descriptor Passive pasture victims Slurping CIA scriptures out the cistern Only change the water every midterm Democratic progress via inchworm, Tethered to a twig While Harris breaks it down to kid terms Watch me lock a full-body cringe Like a pinched nerve Watch me try to stop the clip, fist-first Watch me spend a half an hour staring out the window til the first verse, fifth verse, and all that’s all in the middle hits my fingers with a ripple on the richter Suited more for those who see the war, than the unwilling listener Who block out all the bombs along with native whispers That drift along the wind with a familiar whistle Or plummet from the sky like hellfire missiles The sun observes it all, the leaves that fall on thistle, the truth that’s underneath the skin, betwixt the gristle The truth that leaves your lips, and brings your swift dismissal The sun withholds his speech, it seems the only words he knows are those that sew division The sun can see the truth, as from the windows of a prison The sun can see the dawn before it’s even risen The sun can see it all though he may wish he didn’t.

I dreamed, last night, of lifeless skies, of hands that blocked the Sun Of rain at dawn that burned my eyes, and made the colors run Where I stumbled down a hillside in a deep-scored, titan rut I breathed in deep, I smelled the fuel, And Then, The Sky Slammed Shut ~ Today I watched a line of clouds hang, sickly, in the haze As They stood before the towering blaze, imploring us to stay Then something made me look above, I couldn’t tell you what. I saw a writhing, falling Dove, And, Then, The Sky Slammed Shut ~ Today, I watched the hand that feeds condemn us to our homes. I watched them curse the very air, and leave us there, alone Today, I watched the hand that feeds Dig scraps out from my gut Pour chloride on each sprouted seed, And Then, The Sky Slammed Shut ~ I felt some massive pressure pull me prone upon the ground So That, in my very marrow, I was conscious of the sound I heard the groan of twisting tracks I heard each snapping strut I felt the roar go up my back And Then, The Sky Slammed Shut ~ And in that morbid instant how the soil seemed to cry, how the very dirt formed violent words, that pried open my eyes I saw our faults, that ran so deep that left the cleanest cuts I felt the quivering earth beneath, And Then, The Sky Slammed Shut