James Kowalczyk

through amber waves of grain regime snakes slither belly-grinding the sweated wheat farmers procure for flakes of slime soaked in verbal spittle shelved by government drones consumed by the masses united debates on tv crawling blind into our living rooms baby needs new shoes what’s that? my baby needs new shoes junior miner wants black lung just like father and grandfather celebrity miracle-worker save us the drool of dollars and nonsense crumbs from your mouth and impact our invisible assets and means nothing yet shifts the populture through verses of curses insect fillet you say texas desert will consume them who will never kiss the ring or kneel in puddles of blood

Solitude

two thousand twenty one breathy pianos revive the chords knotted where screaming angels’ halos and

godless harmonies gallop a siren song eating the livers of fate numb(ers)

from dread to extinction in two thousand thirty

Refrain

as two thousand twenty breathy pianos crawl to revive a once living room we rebuke the screaming angel’ s secret shroud and escape the knotted embrace of an unholy cacophony of code blue ventilators

as green harmonies tattoo themselves upon the wreckage of a forgotten scent we awaken to candied chords and barbequed notes that peel the muffled stains of lies from our ears and eyes as our new copper urn gathers dust and unwritten letters speak to us in code we glimpse a fleeting memory across the collective hallway of our mind where if only for a moment we are alive