Reclaiming “Soldier”
yeah, I’m a fucking soldier
I will bombard you with my love
and my hugs.
this is a war to Free Your Mind
cuz’ a mind is worth saving
worth a fight
a battle you risk dying for.
to be reborn
death must come
and YOU must do the killing
with awareness of that which must be killed
in the same breath as that which must be saved.
fostered in the womb
nurtured from thought to action
real fucking action
not some misguided attempt at expressing your own anxieties.
so yeah, I’m a fucking soldier
I will bombard you with my words
and my blur
of what you’ve been calling ‘real,’
cuz’ ‘real’ ain’t shit unless it can be proven wrong
and believe me when I say
EVERYTHING
can be proven wrong.
‘real’ is a theory
to be hypothesized
philosophized
enterprized
and commercialized.
sold in glitter and sparkles
diverting your short-attention-span eyesight
into dropping dollars
and swiping rectangular pieces of plastic
as this big government turned big business
wipes its ass with your false sophistication.
soldier: one who serves in an army.
army: a large group of people organized for a specific cause.
yes, I am a fucking soldier
and my army is humanity.
what bigger ‘group of people’ is there?
what greater ‘cause‘?
* * *
I use this pen like a weapon
type these words in waves of concentration
thinking
I have something to say
knowing
I am a hypocrite.
there is a revolution going on inside me
and I’m half asleep
half awake
half fucking blind
fully ashamed
fully aware
that I am nothing.
I am all talk
all words
with no push
no burning drive towards acting outside myself.
I say
I’m waiting to be swept up
but fear of being swept away
keeps my feet outside the sea.
tide rises
moves up the sandy slope
pulsing.
this is not a robotic movement.
this is a violent bend of fluid
arching outside known dimension
known perception
turning my right to wrong
and my wrong to real.
* * *
yeah, I guess I’m a soldier then
in a fight for my own fucking life
marching up and down the rocky shore of my soul
on defense
under attack
and looking for the embrace of a bay,
the encompassing curve of land
defending sight of a horizon too vast.
beyond the bay lies the rapture of passion
of love beyond the size and shape of my heart
of walking my way across the face of the sun
knowing its burn.
I still got this pen in my hand
sometimes
it spits fire
pours passions mirage
spills accidental truths.
sometimes
I grip it like a knife
blade in palm
the blood lets me know I'm holding too tight.
sometimes
it takes pain to know I can feel.
and I still got this pen in my hand
like
the tip of a wooden match
where fire awakens.
strike too fast and ignition is over before it starts
strike too slow and smoke is the disappointment.
this requires a timed flick of the wrist
controlled movement
knowledge from past mistakes.
striving for perfection is a futile drill in self-hatred.
it goes like this:
failure
failure
failure.
perfection is not completion
not exactness
not two parallel lines that never find each other.
perfection is symmetry in a world always leaning.
* * *
I am a soldier
my bullets are my words
neatly pressed into their clips.
this
this is the one in the chamber.
I got this pen in my hand
taking aim
my pens first kiss on paper
a muzzle flash from the barrel.
spark
spark
fire.
July 2005