THE RAIN BURNS LIKE INCENSE

Well, they've proven that people who feel don't matter
they did tests
and nothing mattered
they just kept killing

and they've proven that you can send people to kill
and be killed
and there isn't a goddamn thing you can do about it

and they've proven
that the face of reason is ashen, perturbed, aghast

good work
really good work

Now we track the dead
in a kind of reverse new year's countdown
3, 2, 1...1, 2, 3...
too bad we can't count the living
they hide behind a fucking rhythm
and children and laundry and smoke

poetry at a funeral sucks
but funerals are poetry

the way the earth conjures itself with our atoms
the way that humans remember to decay
the way that all opinion is
beside the point to the dead
these make for colors

My president, the leader of my country
sends people to their death
for 10W40
and no one bats an eyelash
or furrows a managed brow
and we are become nags to repeat it:

we are killers
we are killed
we have killed
we are killed
we have killing
we are killed

and no one can stop it
because our president is a hanging judge
that's right
he is a hanging judge
and rope that burns is fine rope indeed
and bodies that rot need to be buried

Is any fool going to read this lament?

We are not going to stop killing Arabs
We are not going to stop killing people
We are not going to stop burning the sky
We are not going to stop
Until Jesus shows up
And the rain turns to brimstone
And the light goes dark
And every true believer gets a kewpie doll
And the rain burns like incense

Buddha, Allah, Shiva, Jesus
are terrific public speakers
(so I'm told)
but I ain't deaf
and I ain't blind
and I can still fuck
and I can taste America
and nobody can steer this thing
because assholes with lots of money are driving

and your kid has someone walking over his grave
and that someone loves your child not

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