This rising dough scabs
When it bakes,
I will be allowed
To enjoy the heels
The rest
Feeds
What bleeds me

Working with fastidious care
To find cracks in bark
And strip the inside bare

A pride in industry
In what needs to be done
And the harmony
Of necessity

There is a warmth near
A million times bigger
And a snarl that claims no fear
But paws that move
Toward the rear

A brown ocean
Takes a pride in demolition
With soft, mollasses motion
Ignoring commotion

Working with fastidious care
To make cracks in the flesh
And strip the inside bare

This bronze statue holds the crown
But it will never rest on his head
It’s probably not a statue of Prince Charles
But it could be

What phenomena have been born,
consumed,
and died
in my lifetime?
After I’m born,
consumed,
and die,
how many times will that cycle repeat?

Political book burning
is political violence.
The problem with both
is that you’re not killing the idea,
just pushing it aside
so it can secretly fester.
After all, if the symptoms don’t display
how can you possibly be sick?

You can’t swing a dead cat on a stock photo site without hitting a picture of a sunset and/or a couple holding hands.
I put as much effort into these lines as whoever decided to take another one of these pictures did in the concept of the photo.

“Why do you choose
what dies for your food?
What gives you the right?”

Dance around it,
but plants scream too.
Just not in a way
that we understand.
They tell their neighbors
that a storm is coming,
to board up the windows.
And they do.

Greetings to all in attendence
My discoveries are simply stupendous
These next moments will be momentous
And my contributions to medicine? Tremendous

Please wheel out the test subject
She’s making a sacrifice out of respect
Ignore the screams and fighting the restraint
And remember the savages don’t feel pain

This one’s named Anarcha, in labor for days
Her rickets disfigured her pelvis and legs
When I delivered the child and gave it away
She was found to have two fistulae

Her insides are close enough to human
To reduce any confusion when I loosen the skin
To suture and create a fusion within
And remember, ignore the screaming herein

I open her body a little less than once a month
The wound’s barely heal, so there’s a nice lump
Of swelling and infection that I can examine
Open and close up with barely more damage

Do I use anesthetic? No, my good sir
Why would I waste a fine ether on her?
Women are known to complain in hysterics
And she’s not even human, she hasn’t the merit

Then why is she screaming so often and loud?
I told you to ignore them. Shall I block the mouth?
With tatters or rags or stips strapped in tight?
Because I won’t use the ether to silence her lies

Stop with the screaming, you don’t feel a thing!
Goddamnit Anarcha, I’ll cut you again!
I’ll be the best surgeon come Hell or high water
They’ll make statues of me. For you, they won’t bother

Because I chopped and stabbed, got blood on my hands
What did you do? You can’t even tend to the land
I improved your babies while you were sprawled
I pried at their skulls with a shoemaker’s awl

So what they all died? They were just animals
The savage brain is better? Laughable.
They would be violent, barbaric, and ignorant
I’ll now clean my body of your blood and my ears of your insolance

I’m sorry to those in attendence
You had to hear the lies of this wench
Let’s just convince ourselves they’re not human, as they seem
And remember, most importantly, to ignore all the screams