through the ember

now that the solace of the pencil tip
is all bored into
by the times
i close up
embracing the warmth of the back of my eye's lids
washing aways the footprints
the stomp of dirty shoes
on my pharisaic dormant
doormatt
temperament

but the lids are embers also
that know moving on
means maybe
moving on

and i've seen growth
once i saw past the smoke
rising
from the cinders of my ravages

i saw hope
in a younger brothers beautiful song
hope through inspecting so much history
that grandmothers
and grandfathers closest brothers
never heard
while walking in their earthy skins
but then
with newly fashioned ear canals
which knew no more of lamentations
and heard it all
and wept
because it is okay to love those still running
or pacing
while awaiting
a survival

strafing toward the east i peer
and hope with a boneless neck
atop shoulders bent boyish yet
as death-tolls and nuclear statistics
are all i can get my hands on

were i
numb on suffering overseas
less callous about real injustice
were i
seriously
forced to own the facts
that sign the dotted line of ignorant contracts

(citizenship)
i'd have no choice
but to take a machetti turned sideways
and drag it across my western swaggering
think-tank mind
and move one inch
closer to the real divides
the swinging alaskan noonday tides
while peeking through an ember
locked away from and by this skeleton