Fred Aiken Writing

world on fire

gas prices skyrocketing, house bubble, mortgage trouble, interest rate hiking the trail of tears

spelled miles apart,

ripped asunder and kids dying and old folks dead without knowing

and guitars, bleak in the summer heat, being bent over background

as the fires rage and engulf and consume the sky, dirt, sea, and stars,

spent miles apart and yet everything’s contracting

and coming back

as stock tickers decimate capital as riots churn through the streets,

but don’t say that word,

or that word,

or think that thought,

or that ideology,

or that religion,

or that feeling,

dress up as a socialist while rehearsing Macbeth in Korean in

the middle of Times Square to warn everyone of the impending doom, gloom, and broom

coming to sweep through the land

the fire

the glistening kiln to get just the right glisten as the thoughts peel back

and fumble through broken muscle trying to trudge through peaks in valleys

plateauing to the last remnant of ink, paper, word,

dig it