I had a second chance at heaven
And I threw it all away.
I once again felt my happiness
Sour into hate.
On this page are the words
That exemplify my rage.
I once was great
But now I'm lost,
To this misery and pain.
My path: a fog, through trodden dirt
To a cemetery gate.
For what dark fate
Does this soul
So very anxiously await?

My boots are caked with mud.
The smell of iron permeates,
Along with moss, the smell of dirt,
And most certainly decay.
Never mind my mortal soul...
What kind of demon lies awake
In the midst of human fruit,
Over-ripened in the day?

The splitting corpses seem to beg me,
"Stay away, stay away!"
Burgeoned fruit spills forth,
As the rinds peel away.

The tortures yet continue,
Testing will and sanity.
Stumbling forth into the mixes,
Pestilences use the meat:
Fruits of flies spill their guts
Under muddied, weary feet,
And in the soup, in the gore,
Coagulation races feast:
Clots of blood battle vermin;
Scabs crunch like autumn leaves.
To this yet, there is more
On this journey I have seen:
Fire burns, and humans ****,
And mix the ashes in the breeze.
What soulless cur,
What kind of beast
Inhales with pleasure
When he breathes?

Smoke and fire burn the horizon.
There is nothing left of peace.
To the camps I was swept,
In the tide of the deceased.

Hard at work in heat,
Tattered and flayed meat
Toils in agony,
Swinging hammers in defeat.
Blood-slickened handles
Slip from fingers weak:
Wood and metal sings
At worn and weary feet.

Rusted chains sling,
Slicing through the heat,
Slicing through the smoke,
Slicing through the meat.
In the distant, murky background,
Drums of war greet,
As flesh and bone and flame
Dance to the beat.

Chastened bones respond,
Breaking stones in the beyond.
The work of hell waits
For no man very long.
Gangs of chains tag along,
Making quite the fiendish song,
As the billions in the lakes
Add their agonies to the throng.
The shrieks of charred lungs,
And throats ruined long,
Build the thickness of the air:
An anguished plague of smog.
Keep the fires burning;
Add another human log.
Respite is just a word,
An idea like winter frost:
Once before, it had purpose,
But now, its meaning, lost.

Abandon hope, is what they say...
But not for very long.
In the fire, in the rock,
They find their words are gone.
... Long forgotten, but for the lyrics
Of the Devil's favorite song:
A timeless tune, that my soul
Had been singing all along.

I am a laborer just by birth
And will die in the same way
I know my duties in a hearth
Hope doesn't come near to say

I am also one of humans
And not a donkey just to drag
But I do ask some questions
Who being champions always brag

By shouting slogans for my rights
Deliver speeches and forget
Till next year when shine lights
With my blood they will let

The Entire world again to know
My contributions in my prime
About my martyrdom in Chicago
Where my excellence became sublime

Col Muhammad Khalid Khan
Copyright 2017 Golden Glow

I hope that the
Bread
Tastes good,
Because I’ve left my
Bones
In “it.”

I’ve left the bones born
Man
And bones born
Woman,
Bones once a baby
And bones now broken,
Bones bitter,
Bones bled,
And soon bits baked
Only by dust,
In “it.”

I hope that it
All
Tastes great,
Because we’ve all chained our
Souls
To “it;”

And “it” will continue to feast,
Come the hours we’d ‘ever starve,
“It” will continue to oppress
And until we say “no!”
So say, "NO!"

A breakfast
blend grind
will holt
his next
break and
morning again
has his
slate or
upload of
embodiment with
defiance to
penetrate now
bestow status
that restore
peace not
grief to
achieve sawtooth!

They gathered by Williamson Road at sun-up
      from neighboring spreads across the Tioga valley.
They came with carts laden with lumber stacks -
      with saws, adzes, hammers and sundry tools.

They gathered with the homesteaders bond.
      to co-build their neighbor's' dreams.

Sweet music of community echoed off the hills.
     Chisels clanged into rock, shaping the foundation,
saws sang into boards to frame a timbered skeleton.
     The staccato syncopation of hammers fastened walls
that soon would shelter plowshares, stock and grain.
      A smithy leaned over his fire and forge -
chiming iron into sturdy latches and hinges.

     Children scurried about mixing squeals and laughter
with exuberant fetching and lifting whenever called.
    
In two short passings of the sun the deed was done
      and a handsome new barn, decked out in a wash of red
was silhouetted tall and proud against the fading light.

Homesteaders gathered at a celebration table
      to share a hearty meal adorned by the music
of fiddles, grateful smiles and easy laughter.
  
Then one by one they steered their wagons home
      gazing back at what their labors had wrought -
knowing to the depth of their communal souls
      that we are more together than we are apart

Listen up, America!  This is the music of community.
      We are more together than we are apart.

*© 2016 by Robert Charles Howard

but fools only relish!
the psyche in which we perish!
hatred buried so!
and burned within merry lore!

for are they not,
the sane within the in?
and the in amongst the sane?
and the in of the sane--
which in here will truly reign!

like this, there, and, that?
and which, where, and what?
and spit, spat, and sput,
through here, hear, and hat?

brothers and sisters of spitting scholars!
we sing in two, to, and too!
with be, bee, and bat!
to this, there, and that!

easy to know--surely so, surely so!
the sane within the in--in the inn iconoclast's igloo!
"for what if the in shared the inn amongst the sane?"
"and the sane melted and blurred tongues within the in?"

what troubles your mind? what minds your troubles?
did you not know we live in the inn within this, there, and that?
and the which, where, and what all share one lobe!
for this is for the truly sane within the in,
and in inn of sane!

it shakes us!
like nails bitten in two, to, and too!
and mends us!
like dresses, treading thru, threw, and through!

might, in greatness, we rest, in base
eating bass--knocking bass!
for it is one-- nice and tight!
as the sane dances with--within the in!
in the inn of linen and tin,
for there is nothing greater, than the knowing labor!

and the world spins,
in and of the inn,
of the sane within the my,
and the in of the sane,
in which noose you and I tie,
and lie,
and die,
to again yearn for the sane within the I.

Sewer stained,
The street, the pavement an so to
Soak the shoes
Born torment twice and a recurring
Tap upon back;
This slipper, a signature
Succumbed suicide,
Slaughter,
An only sorrow
But lash shared millions,
To tread paths beyond barbed
And a sooner return to my
Land, or its maker –
Wards and shop,
Sweat under, sweat atop
And browed, be the animosity
As I swagger my way through
Haizhu's faceless crowd.

This is the assumption of Arcadia.

Or so she’s said and she’s right
As I witness the
Hunched backs, sea pearls
Stained-bowl rice, bow-legged dreams,
The denizens
And if only to stagger,
Come 12 more hours to shelter,
Simply shelter
And a dread named, “day,” come ‘morrow.
It’s real, as real as the sun’s rising,
As real the sun’s sweating
And as real as the sun’s setting.
So onward they go, meager and dollar
Driven, under whip and promised avarice
So that as guilty as I may be;
I’ll still buy, you will too,
He will too and she will too;
We’ll buy and assume our “Arcadia.”

There I stood,
a grown man, (or at least I like to think of myself as one)
shaking her hand,
her hands; dry, rough, hard,
and my hands had never felt so soft as during that moment;  so sheltered as when I touched your mother’s hands,
her hardened thenar, those callused fingers, flooded me with warmth in the midst of a December night,
I could feel her love,
those hands that laboured all your life for you,
those hands  that have toiled for you,
your mother’s hands,
the hands of love.

they sentenced anarchy to death in 1887.
in the wake of the Haymarket Affair,
they tried in vain to hang a fifth figure
on a chilly November day,
attempted to fit a noose
on an idea that's bullet-proof.

solidarity.
liberty.
equality.

a refrain that remains in remembrance
of Engel, Fischer, Parsons, Spies,
and every man, woman, and child
whose life was robbed by the State
before his or her time.

a mantra celebrating the universal
qualities capable of unifying humanity
even in the face of an apparatus arraigned
to divide
and segregate.

we march in Chicago and Seattle,
in Toronto and NYC,
continuing the fight they began
for dignity and a living wage—
our burning rage growing to a conflagration
as we wave black flags and reclaim
the city streets from killer cops
and corporate oligarchs.

authority an illusion we will shed  
in the tides of black and red, united
against injustice.