Make space for the Civil and the Savage
In ways that take the fear away
In ways that inform our
Torn minds
Left brain, maintain sequential states of stasis
The basis for our hopes to cope
Right brains tuned
Wax divine
None of us inclined
To bring the fight
Inside

​

So we look out
On chaos and determine
Self to be solution
Despite our collusion
Knowing the truth is
Reflection
The question:
What are we seeing?
Who are we being?

​

Characters in the tragedy of human existence
The comedy of consciousness
Our implicit reactions
To dissatisfaction
With being
Us to them
Or Them to us
Smashing each other like mirrors
In disgust

​

And what luck
Each one gathered here
To not be who I speak of

​

More-so solutions as we seep up and out
Of our stations
To take our places
In organizations
Not so wise as to mimic biology

​

So we try to rearrange
Our state of being
Our States of being
Our status being
Seeking

​

I suppose I hope for seeing

​

How do we manage?

​

What if we studied our daughters?
Our borders?
The ends to which we’ll go to see safety
From our egos
Beneath the capes of our heroes
From the hoarders of Spirit
Wardens of the hidden hearts
That mean to bring our sleeping minds
To bear against the tyranny
Of blaring horns
Or strumming harps
Adorned in pretense
With immense contest and sequence
It seems we wrestle
With beginnings

​

Like sunrise and tides

​

And times we know we can’t stand by
And listen to the lies
That we devise
That say we must be inclined toward silence

​

Because what is war
But silence?
The muffled voices of the
Insignificant
Searching for salvation
In the downbeat
The beat-down
The hairs that shift and twist beneath
The Crown
Of ignorance

​

How do we manage all this?
Knowing we are drawn to implement order
Knowing this isn’t it

​

It’s more like water
Shifting sands of memory
Tempered, we be chaos and emergence
Quality and Conscience
Inside twisted by outer sight
Despite the truth
We can hear no critics
Don’t even teach civics in our schools
For the oppressed may come to know
That they too could rule
So we rape our muse
To keep up the rouse
That all that we manage
May just remain damaged

​

While we lack the courage
To attend our own shit
So here it is:
We manage by honoring the shift
From outward to inward seeing
Our privilege for what it is
Micro-aggressions that rule out the question
What are we fighting
If not our own fears
Of lives without office chairs
Or file drawers
Slammed on the fingers of…