Road Rash

We're cooking cowardice
and complacency
in a Crock Pot.

It takes all day, marinating
in the asphalt of apathy
with the Mad Hatter,
ignoring the icicle indifference
of ignorance

to pledge some patronage,
the basic bondage drowning
in bourbon, blood, and rum,
an afterthought.

Walls are warped
with whatever,
so go whisper to windows

while I drag my tongue
across the sheetrock
until it's tatted
with the tire tracks
of road rash

because my grudges
have gone grunge.

I don't need serpentine silence
trying to play nice
with my verbal violence.

When you're always in neutral,
unable to shift a stick,
stuck standing in Switzerland
amongst and abundance
of blind eyes
and can't pick a side,
try driving some dignity
into your divinity.

Warlords redact
words to serve
on silver platters,
and the mercenaries are meek,
so stay outside
the chalk outlines

and behind the caution tape
when cannibals come
pulling pork from
your penance,

the death dirtying
your precious dresses.

Forgive me Father
for wearing frayed
flannel to confession.

At least my obsessions
won't get me arrested,

roasting the crucifix
of the complicit on a spit,
conjuring cobras
from a spike strip,

doing donuts
over Ouija boards,
pushing planchettes,

steering into the skid
of your regrets,
avoiding the sinkhole
on the highroad.

This poem was originally published in Write Under the Moon on Medium.