Drips for the Dry

I cannot help but firmly stand

when my generation is being murdered in the sand.

Small arms fire and shrapnel through the head

are fed to the teeth of neck-tied death jackets.

The word is afire again,

melting marvelously into molds shaped by passion.

Times of sleep are indeed times of war,

those bits of fragmented distraction.

Luring schools of hungry survivors

is really not as hard as you might think.

Try even half as hard,

save a few bombs, a couple of helmets, and a bit of life

and still, the words funnel great numbers of Technicolor screen dwellers

blindly into humble, hellish intentions.

We are golden genius, we are psychonautic sarcasm,

directing our attention down through the networks of our own conduit,

this teardrop generation,

staring into the soul-sucking eyes of imagination.

Our research is red-eyed, we fly when we please in the face of blue lies

in an effort to navigate cloud forests.

We do not frown on outer space, running class, and squeezing out our visions

into actualities as we hunt the elusive truth on a hunch.

We smile when patronized, but feel its needlish sting.

When we try to throw it off our backs, we are scolded,

and quietly jump back down the rabbit hole from which we emerged.

We do not know if the military time on the wrist watch of our consciousness is fast or slow;

it's 20:07.

Morning? Afternoon? Evening?

The word is afire again.

We bristle when our elders hear our cry and cringe,

looking to that suspended squeal in the sky.

Has the eagle lost its mind?

His cry is now a caw,

his claws blunt without stab,

his beak begging as a scavenger's, and why?

Stretch out, you dripping drop era.

Keep on with your depth-ward ascent,

because bending and breaking is only intended for a life of urban wormdom.

Do not step aboard the burning ship.

Do not sniff your master's hand sleep-walkingly silent.

Do not pilot a kamikaze concept, just for another chance to consume your neighbor's cache of twenty-nine-ninety-nine.

Those outside the play yard are whispering:

"The word is afire again."

It drips into each teardrop mind,

freezes as a frosty flood,

and melts to quench the thirst of our bloodied,

our tired generation in the sand,

now paddling ferociously homeward.