freefall

Poems by John Lee

Foundation

A comet free-falls into the horizon

Crashes into earth as kindred kin

Living, breathing in the fumes of burden

Callously deciding the lives of those within

Factions of essential ecosystems of violence

In satchels and catch-alls of log-rolling action.

Adjudged

A victor is rewarded, that of

A young man fitting within

The confines of the people that he loves,

In the claustrophobic space within the guard of the living

And the tell-told stories of the dead,

Glad of shadows and other terrestrial beings,

No prohibitions behind their own judgement,

The only ones who could untethered to the desert floor

Leave prideful and unjudged.

Will of the People

The will of the people,

It will always be this way

On the untended floor that

Only the locals know,

There on a dark damp carpet

With geometric patterns,

Colors whirl on bloated screens,

Payday goes into a bill insert

And never comes back out,

An invisible sign everyone reads

“This machine runs on hopes and dreams,”

They don’t tell you that they don’t materialize,

Ever, and the people find more in

The circuses on the front street,

Chiding those the sin of greed

But wanting to hit the jackpot themselves,

The triple seven shining in those ivory eyes.

Young and Stupid

He still asks where you went in the end,

You can tell by his questioning glance.

He doesn’t understand but feels, in too-great quantities,

Like a sea vessel rocked by the waves of the shore,

Where Manheim reels him in by the armful, shouting.

But you know where your conclusion lies,

Within this unfinished script of words that will lead to

A discovery in the underlying cause of your departure, finally.