The crunch

Too much too little

Too fat
Too thin
Or nobody

Laughter or
Tears

Haters
Lovers

Strangers with faces like
The backs of
Thumb tacks

Armies running through
Streets of blood
Waving winebottles
Bayoneting and fucking
Virgins

An old guy in a cheap room
With a photograph of M. Monroe

There is a loneliness in this world so great
That you can see it in the slow movement of
The hands of a clock

People so tired
Mutilated
Either by love or no love

People just are not good to each other
One on one

The rich are not good to the rich
The poor are not good to the poor

We are afraid

Our educational system tells us
That we can all be
Big-ass winners

It hasn't told us
About the gutters
Or the suicides

Or the terror of one person
Aching in one place
Alone

Untouched
Unspoken to

Watering a plant

People are not good to each other
People are not good to each other
People are not good to each other

I suppose they never will be
I don't ask them to be

But sometimes I think about
It

The beads will swing
The clouds will cloud
And the killer will behead the child
Like taking a bite out of an ice cream cone

Too much
Too little

Too fat
Too thin
Or nobody

More haters than lovers

People are not good to each other
Perhaps if they were
Our deaths would not be so sad

Meanwhile I look at young girls
Stems
Flowers of chance

There must be a way

Surely there must be a way that we have not yet
Thought of

Who put this brain inside of me?

It cries
It demands
It says that there is a chance

It will not say
"no."