wyrdwind

Reporting for Duty

When you’re of a certain heritage

and demographic, those signs

you be havin’ is called

shamans in the bloodline.

Canary in a coal mine.

Girls especially can’t confide

or show weakness. Not in this place.

Fix your face. Watch your tone.

Grandpa drove heavy freight through war zones,

when I told daddy ’bout my visitor, behold,

it was him as a young man in uniform, said

he’d be with me until

I didn’t need him anymore.

Marching Orders

If you didn’t catch heat

for refusin’ the pledge of allegiance,

you don’t know America. One nation

under God, hand over heart.

Even worse, your school’s a church.

What to expect when you’re dirt poor.

Only one way you’ll ever afford

college or a doctor.

Become a butcher

or your future’s a slumlord’s trailer.

Is it any wonder,

thumb that yearbook,

pregnant, pregnant, dead, and shot

by his own father. Our class clown.

Caps when we say Made it Out.

Walk a wakin’ ghost town,

every season is just pale brown,

differentiate the sound

of gunshots, fireworks, and sonic booms.

School colors are red, white, and blue.

Don’t forget,

you gotta genuflect, show respect,

I won’t say “thank you for your service,”

you have my condolences.

Formation

What’s a girl to do?

Shoutin’ rhymes can be singin’ too.

Nothin’ else new, top of the class

in boot camp, disciplined youth.

Can’t even call it waste, no taste

for what remained: meth teeth,

heroin chic, or fancy cocaine.

I’d rather have steak. Sushi.

Ice cream. Fuck it,

all three. Anyway, they made

us draw our lives as rivers

and streams. Me bein’ me

said piss off,

I’m drawin’ a massive tree.

Real Time Strategy

They arrested a local woman

for feedin’ the homeless

in public, out in the open.

Called it bad optics,

didn’t wanna sour the Californians,

salivatin’ over their tax dollars,

gods know we ain’t got none.

Lion’s share goes to law enforcement,

who needs shelters or coolin’ centers

when our finest need paramilitary gear?

To be fair, sometimes they bust a pedophile—

oh wait, that’s the FBI. Whatever,

go ninety miles an hour, that’ll make us safer.

Pop strugglin’ people hundreds or more

for squeakin’ by on yellow. Catch’um

some criminals.

Our educated betters clutchin’ pearls

when their situation gets slightly worse,

remind everyone to vote. Be civil.

Such civility. Heat deaths every day. Classic,

stars ‘n’ bars on every street. Chapels on every corner,

help for your addiction, your sickness, oh but

keep those babies comin’,

everybody’s gotta do their part.

Compartmentalization

Adverse conditions. Distress or talent

merit no response. Not a glance. Ain’t gotta tell you

what that does to a developin’ mind.

They just watch TV, no Ctrl + Alt + Delete,

no heart of gold comin’ to save me. Disappear

if you can’t leave. Start fires

because they’re pretty.

Every friend I ever made

looked icy, awkward, or dead in the face,

showed love a different kinda way,

struggled to say or make plain.

Flames erupt once they feel safe,

there’s no better place without room to break,

I’ve never been afraid

of change. So what we’re never the same

again? I said what I meant. No regrets.

This pasture or the next,

I’m on the freaks like cows

on salt licks.

Six Wheel Drive

I will say this:

The Brave Little Toaster fucked me up big.

Abandoned appliances wonderin’

where their boys went.

Toaster sacrifices himself

to save his friends from the trash compactor.

That’s OG horror. Works out in the end.

But for me it didn’t. An audience

unintended. That said,

I picture a GMC CCKW

’cause that’s my roots. Pull up in a two

and a half ton, friend shaped

steel monstrosity. Next best to a train.

It’s not fuel efficient, fuel deficient,

been nursin’ what I love miles gone,

but this is my last stop. I’ll pick you up,

strap your spooky ass and all else

to the hull of this, my morbid

gorgeous hood ornament, put the rest

beneath the axles. Long haul

through hell, gotta have guns

to keep hold this steerin’ wheel,

I’ll get us out. Home

is wherever I hang my gremlin bell.

Fall in Line

No paternity test necessary,

she bemoans the curse

of hot blooded men in our family,

spare you the gory deets,

that surname banks on the Ing.

Expect two things:

they fuck and they sing.

Sadly it don’t seem

the gods made more’n one of me,

didn’t throw an Aengus

to my Caer Ibormeith,

and that’s a lonely place to be.

Times are tough out here on Lake Mead,

ain’t squat for a mean ol’ swan to eat,

he’s like a little boy fightin’ sleep,

forgets what language he speak,

misfires at the ceilin’ and gets a migraine,

I suppose it’s flattery,

with his eyes askin’ please,

every last drop or every last breath beseech,

cradled in palm or knife in his breast.

No satisfaction, miss

me with that mess:

these girls lettin’ pups

use their bodies like toilets.

Nothin’ less

than unconditional surrender

is an acceptable mode of address.

If he can’t ride,

can’t know me or touch me

the way I like,

then the best thing a man can do

is die.