poet – Page 7 – Kevin Trent Boswell

Half

No point in trying, we see the impossible
Eighty percent are chopped in two
Everything we ever did was all wrong
Nothing that we were taught was true

It’s no use to refine or reach out
Nothing is left in the bin to sort
We can’t be two halves of a whole
The ball is always dragged into court

Years of digging, chasing the veins
To find the heart, a center, a core
But emptiness only weaves and bobs
Ducks out and fucks off to explore

Half of us cut in half by the clock
Cold butcher knife calendar cleave
Constantly screaming we’re wrong
We load, we chamber, and leave

where have all the lions gone?
they used to roam these parts freely
out on the plains,
sometimes in the streets

but look all around,
and you won’t find any
in the trees
or under the sheets

the lions are hiding,
but they are not afraid,
even though the gazelle
swears otherwise

zebra asks the lion
if his confidence decayed
but the lion says,
“look deep in my eyes”

look closely, you’ll notice
there’s no appetite
for there’s no game here
worth the effort to devour

so, I no longer hunt
because the taste isn’t right
the meat is all bitter
and sour

light it up
let’s go ahead and do this
there’s nothing here
but the smell of gasoline

shatter the cup
of the empty kiss
there is only fear
and they’re all this mean

empty the coffers
and raid the till
don’t tend the fire
chase butterflies

laugh at the scoffers
go in for the kill
plot and conspire
for the everyone cries

It is a waking nightmare,
This modern world
Obsessed with self,
All greed and lust

A dream, inescapable,
The curse was hurled;
A black flower bloomed,
Unwise, unjust

I tasted your harvest
Held you in the fall
I heard the strange changes
Saw no one at all

The tea leaves aren’t telling
The wax drips no words
The chords are atonal;
They’re not stacked in thirds

Hey, hey, hey
Play in the hay day
Swallow the bruises
The pain goes away

Hey, hey, hey
Today is a school day;
Just as tomorrow,
And every other day, too

Wheels will slow down,
And hammers go fall
The chains all fall off
There’s no reason to call

A mouth slams shut
For lack of a solver
Birdcage flies open
A willful revolver

Hey, hey, hey
Make rain on a sun day
All the swallows got bruises
A rose fades away

Hey, hey, hey
Today is a school day;
Just as tomorrow,
And every other day, too

I screamed at the empty
You clawed at the door
We kindled a fire
And burned out the floor

Pleading with empty
We gnawed a bit more
We ate the inferno
Lost sight of the score

There’s always more learning
What was already known
Lessons learned again
Are again to be shown

Empty-headed blood scepter
Rails on about rights and privileges

But the angel-faced baboon
Will have none of it

Garrison bone hides
Rancid jowls in its ivory jar

Circus clown juggler
Tilts at the mills of wind,
Falls of water, and the
Endless static screen

Burn all that useless crap
In the trash barrel
Out back

Reach in the candy dish
And pull out a fresh squid

This tiny line of chalk
Guides the anchor to its resting place

Cranial trauma
This, too, shall never pass

But the not-subsiding
Should subside
Within a few thousand years or so

Your head only hurts because
We’ve removed it;
Imminent domain

The lumpy piece of flesh
That used to be inside of it
Is now an air freshener
Hanging from the rear view mirror
In the Devil’s Cadillac

He says it reminds him of home

One last thing,

Please sign here:

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