Tears (a poem)

Wednesday, March 26, 2025

Title: Tears Witness ID: 031426-T
Artifact Code: B0T-05
Date Logged: 2025.03.26

The breath,
the rest,
the gap—
listen.
That’s the Lord,
and a jacked-up 350 Ford
revving through the bones of Sunday.
Mud-flung psalms on rusted chrome,
divine static in the tailpipe cough.

No honor.
These aren’t leaders.
This is a clown car turned nightmare,
sputtering policy like exhaust—
thick with grease
and false prophecy.

They preach in reverse,
mirrors cracked,
horns honking hieroglyphs of hell
while the citizens choke
on ticker tape parades of denial.
Knees bleeding
on asphalt altars,
painted red, white, and blurred.

Their kingdom?
A traffic jam in the hyper state.
Gridlocked souls
trading tears
for gasoline.

Blah blah,
boppity boo—
a spoonful of sugar
and three tones of fent
laced into the communion,
anesthetic gospel
for the sleepless.

The infrastructure?
Collapsed veins.
Steel girders echo with sirens
as arteries once mapped for hope
turn alleyway,
turn overdose,
turn chalk outline on the blueprint.

The fire and fist
flown with the flag—
this isn’t profound,
it’s a dirge.
And we should all be
crying
out
loud.

Toxins in the chalice.
Disrespect in the doctrine.
Cold and calculating,
they trade mercy for markets—
auction off empathy
by the pound.

Prophecies of doom
wrapped in fiscal reports,
a waning economy
that feeds on fear
and coughs up coins.

This isn’t holding up too well.
Cracks in the kingdom,
and still they patch it
with prayer emojis
and expired epipens.

The state of agency, a freedom, nurse-nurse please, the IV is dry.
The drip was cut
by the same hands
that blessed it—
the same hands that,
same hands that
built,
broke,
bagged us,
bowing us down to greed.

Bone dry,
this valley.

But nobody
is getting up
this time, Ezekiel.