env0writes

[env0writes]

American gothic Hot topic Play to the strengths of benefits of the microscopic We drink two percent but pay ninety-eight Standing in the ballot line, told again to wait Got my city smog-checked Still allowed to smoke ten feet from the door, Empty lots and children still coughing Homes are empty, apartments too Shelters flood like broken damns God damn – but not take that name in vain What a weathervane of the state of affairs The fifty-first, but just as unrepresented And like the rest, highly resented What incestious nation Constantly in debt and on probation American(‘t) have merriment For where it went I do not know This experiment I fear it lent it’s leniency Long ago

Idle Steps Vol. 2, 3.18.25 “Ameri(ca)pitalism"

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[env0writes]

My bosses boss he talks and talks With stories long and winded Assurance had, poor man, his offer is rescinded Speak and speak, with shameful story walks Pass the torch to prideful men Who wander just as gusto How learned lords, who pity us although What offers made, returned, and then Why, oh moneyed man, do you lead with stuttered speech Unpracticed performance, poorly executed No food stamps, nor benefits, all actions muted Just words & words, I cannot eat these, leech! Sell my your spiel, your deceit of labour Waste my time, my energy even Never say yes, never say no; when– Is it us asking, you balk, poor men, assure All this effort to speak simply nothing Do you feel better for not offering a thing

Idle Steps Vol. 2, 3.17.25 “Corporate Morning Meetings"

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[env0writes]

People say that it is sad– That I have given up my pursuits That i am not motivated Yet I care little what I do So long as I can dance So long as I can sing So long as I can drink, eat, and be merry Why is this such a bad thing? A sad thing? I am full of passions Too many to hold so that I learned to juggle That I learned to never sit still So why does it matter WHAT I do So long as I am doing? So long as I am moving Any direction is forward if that is where you face Let me stride forth My line might not be straight Nor narrow But my options and abilities Are limitless While my paycheck and living Is limited By what you will

Idle Steps Vol. 2, 3.16.25 “Career Advice"

@env0writes C.Buck   Ko-Fi & Venmo: @Zenv0 Support Your Local Artists

[env0writes]

Drums call us to rise The morning, still dewy eyed But drums–drums call to us Surround us with their bass, their tremor Reaching out to us, adhan To wake and greet the overhead sun Anoint ourselves in thought and water Break: bread and fast and silence Laughter should fill these gaps Laughter is joy And joy is love And love is all there is When drums call to rise We rise; and with bowed heads and closed eyes Let laughter be the prayer

Idle Steps Vol. 2, 3.15.25 “Morning Call"

@env0writes C.Buck   Ko-Fi & Venmo: @Zenv0 Support Your Local Artists

[env0writes]

Cold – like mornings left unawoken Left bloodless, hospital-bed cold Bluer than ice Where even breath betrays Matchstruck fingers fail to light Sparking defy cold-raw Nary a passerby star Nor orbiting light might melt –like the love lost first Plunge into despair’s icebath pool Is this, morning apart?

Idle Steps Vol. 2, 3.14.25 “Early Rising"

@env0writes C.Buck   Ko-Fi & Venmo: @Zenv0 Support Your Local Artists

[env0writes]

The chain shirt i never wore is chafing How have i, of all warriors, not acquired Such heart rending loss Pierced, unadorned in chain What loss and fail, to bear no maile Weak to such serpentine kiss of love Slithering to bite me, Deaf to its baby rattled warning Yet without any protection I am suffer to infection sweet with soured dreaming Sweetly dreaming of that sandscored shirt That shirt of maile, i failed to find Wailed to bind to my raw skin Why should i venture into life unadorned Into the wild scorned by armors efficient and lithe Am I to pursue a wife, some lady to -wife to me Without so much as a gambeson, padded and protected Without any so much as a pin upon my breast Pierce me to the heart and stop Its toddering toddlering beating That is so heartenly beaten into my being Woven into fibers, links, and chained me to my goal Here i lay before love’s conquest Chafed, and bare before the pricks and needles That stitch fate and fortune Made and maddened ill with desire For a shirt made of wire And a love made for me

Idle Steps Vol. 2, 3.13.25 “Chain Mail"

@env0writes C.Buck   Ko-Fi & Venmo: @Zenv0 Support Your Local Artists

[env0writes]

This is too busy and bottom bar for how nondescript most of these middle ones are.

[env0writes]

On these cold nights in middling March Where rainfall shivers to marrowed bone When the morning's run long as tall as the larch And the spirits and I, wake up and groan These chilling morrow’s in early false spring As I rise and I fall from and for needed sleep Foretold by aching joints and bodies tinnitus ring The sky above, so joins me and begins to weep I think of warmer places, people, times When fire flickered in mine eye Where bedside, I, beside myself sometimes Lays and finds myself all the warmer; why? For in your heart you placed me tender, there to keep me safe from chill and cold affair

Idle Steps Vol. 2, 3.12.25 “Middling March"

@env0writes C.Buck   Ko-Fi & Venmo: @Zenv0 Support Your Local Artists

[env0writes]

Light radiates through the portal Flickering beacon of lightning Rippling with whirs and gigs Feeding into the vortex of sight This must lead to hell For why else does it make me linger In the darker hours of the night Gazing upon, as Tantalus must have, Objects of desire Untouchably

Idle Steps Vol. 2, 3.11.25 “Lap Top"

@env0writes C.Buck   Ko-Fi & Venmo: @Zenv0 Support Your Local Artists

[env0writes]

Hate is laborious, tedious work One that’s a poison, gripped tight in hand So sooner – or later that works begs to drink Weary minds may forget, and swallow whole It may not kill, but will rot inside Bitter taste and redden hides Drink up each potion, elixir, supreme None can release so demonic a dream How tiresome to hate, to spend days negatively When my hands bound by fists Fail to hold on to any little thing Who holds their children with balled up fingers Their loved ones, no– but their enemies linger What good is a life never holding a thing Save the hate vialed up, piled up –

Idle Steps Vol. 2, 3.10.25 “Love with a Balled Up Hand"

@env0writes C.Buck   Ko-Fi & Venmo: @Zenv0 Support Your Local Artists

[env0writes]

As a summer child I’d watch Crabapples fall from the tree Shake them loose as they came into season Surrounded by all that sweetness; wasted Grown sour – dropped far too soon Autumn & Winter rotted me And deprived me of that depravity Preserving my bittersweet ‘til Spring

Idle Steps Vol. 2, 3.9.25 “Wasted"

@env0writes C.Buck   Ko-Fi & Venmo: @Zenv0 Support Your Local Artists

[env0writes]

What i love will break me in the end This i know That I love you– And in doing so, will lose you For as the flower blooms in spring Summer flourishes, and autumn surely Dies

For pursuit of passion is perilous Disregard for oneself is paramount I love the chase Yet the dog is no hunter– What will it do when it catches the car but surely Die

What i love will break me And take me years to recover from For each stinging step sends pain Each hobby-hobbled stride, wided Rolled over ankles and wincing walks I reach out for helping hand Yet kith and kinship too decline, decay, and– Die

What i love will break me in the end And i will be all the mended for it Better tended for it Apprehended and well attended for it So when all is said and done Surrounded by spectres and spectators With a smarmy sidelong painful smile Die

Idle Steps Vol. 2, 3.8.25 “Love is a Double Edged Sword that Breaks and Takes and Wakes Me to Face the Day"

@env0writes C.Buck   Ko-Fi & Venmo: @Zenv0 Support Your Local Artists

[env0writes]

Daylight is paving road Done over twice a year Saved, and slaved over Counting precious little light Waking in the dark of morn’ Dazed, and confused Daylight is a currency– One more price for man to have to pay

Idle Steps Vol. 2, 3.7.25 “Worth Saving?"

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[env0writes]

I saw through the sea The rivers clear as could be I saw through the lake And drank all that I could take ‘Til someone had the good idea To fish and fish and fish And when they fished all could be carried In net in boat in hand They dropped their gear all overboard No more room, as they had planned I saw stones upon the riverbed And followed where they led I saw sand below the ocean waves And the coral and the caves ‘Til some foolish man with cented eyes Counted all the drops And said, “now sonny here, You’ve nothing left to fear Let me drop my working near And worry not a lick the taste is queer” And then I couldn’t see the stones, The stream, the sand, the lake, The rivers or the sea Not past the sludge, the drudge, the dreary bits That refuse to budge I don’t feel well, as well The water pulled from there ain’t clean

Idle Steps Vol. 2, 3.6.25 “And a Pot to Sell It in"

@env0writes C.Buck   Ko-Fi & Venmo: @Zenv0 Support Your Local Artists

[env0writes]

All it takes sometimes Is a word of surprise And five minutes of preparation To light up the night with that radiance I’m on my way

Idle Steps Vol. 2, 3.5.25 “Love's Gifts"

@env0writes C.Buck   Ko-Fi & Venmo: @Zenv0 Support Your Local Artists

[env0writes]

In March there is a lions kindness Lazily drifting ‘twixt over and undercast Ravenous to stake my prideful claim Lest months-end wool shear me over Blind to summers’ soon assail If that one next kindness can be reached Cradle me softly in your bygone snowbanks Losing warmer interest Have any weathered tears left to shed Rattlesnaked warnings before the fall When the flock gathers ‘round Frocked in blind fleece Let me rest in peace, softly End this marked March In grace – find the world – myself, at ease

Idle Steps Vol. 2, 3.4.25 “Of Lions and Lambs"

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[env0writes]

By the third, I’m a fourth of the way Past Robert Frosted divided highways Fatigued by the median, well meaning By now (March) should be – (What?) should I have Wintered, what lies ahead of this Whether I make it or not What will I make of this effort March, how I’ve missed you (cold) In embrace, I roll over in bed Face the wall, fearful disbelief, do not speak for me Weary is the road less traveled; all the same March may speak its mind & mood freely Unbound by the reins of convention The woods have not yet awoken Boughs most empty, snow Slow to green the bowry The year, nature, is slow to rise Frightful of the morning Is my reason to linger – shadow-eyed Reluctant to rise and greet springs’ sun Bright enough, burning, clearing snowed excuses Letting the ice slough off our hearts What else awakens in this warmth Buried body by body What (cold) lingers beyond the snowbed Onward March, I’ll meet you

Idle Steps Vol. 2, 3.3.25 “Fractured Years"

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