People Put Away

New Release

This is the real time 

Of which they never speak 

When first they tie the knots 

About your slippery wrists 

And tell you that 

At best

It will be tedious and deep sea silent.

Animal and Cage

After all, you know right from wrong 

As you must not have before 

they say, their faces wide and moonlit 

As shadow puppets leaping from the flame,

and if your brain 

Still warm and gelatinous 

behind your black, black eyes

betrays the better angels

We have brought before you

Is it not a fault of your bare-toothed nature

best kept behind these shifting bars?

After all is said for you on paper,

There is little left to mold

of your brown flesh between

their bleached blue fingers

They say

“children do not bring darkness

and so you, must not be

A child after all.” 

Here, you will repent

Your sandbox sins and careless words 

that we might feel at ease 

When once again

You cast your shadow out 

Unto the world. 

They do not ask you

Why you burn 

Your blackness into blank pages

Ink betraying glowing hate 

for the blinding pallor that betrays you 

Each day that you spent walking 

Through the mire they called freedom

Which for you was  nothing more 

Than wider pastures bound by gates 

And built on shallow graves 

Of other children who like you 

Have forsaken the gift 

of life beneath the sword.

After all, you are mistaken

For you, we wished nothing more 

Than a simple life, unbound, unshaken

Behind the lock, the key, the door.