i. Zenith

It is my turn to throw the discus,
     thickness of fist gripping it, pulses
     fingered, virgin flesh impoverished

     its blush, pain naïve crowds dismiss as
     necessary, part of this process,
     their wounded egos mere nuisances,
     eyeing my pen and what it presses,
     dying to be moved by what I am

     doing, so to appear more ruthless,
     I address who, in their defiance,
     my words will most inspire, those climbing

     not farthest up, but who are left
     at the wide bottom of fame’s highest
     funeral pyre, the burning nameless
     tonguing flames, contributing furnace
     layers to soften hellfire, in case

     I crash from my pedestal, in case
     my trashy literature expires
     before it sells, telling entire tales

     others redact, of how I express
     my Self: brash, not in whimpers or wails,
     but with passion my initiates
     welcome, hailing brooding handsomeness
     as a sign of poetry’s final

     coming, my version of happy less
     unfounded once pursued, views perfect
     to spill in verse which encourages

     the literate of the herd to test
     boundaries, to push in truth until
     it hurts, breeding deep what seed youth spit,
     so I throw it up over their heads
     and through condominium windows,

     down into closed sets dressed as living
     rooms, opening a corpse, a concept
     often eluding them, so I go

     so far, and far too low, as to ask
     my bad-ass readers to tear out this
     poem, or print it, if downloaded
     or pirated, and I ask that you
     wrap a brick in it, of clay or shit,

     it does not matter, and I demand,
     everything-but-gentle readers,
     that your fists lift that brick with this text

     shrouding its shrapnel, and you throw it
     through the window of any person,
     any government, whose blindness has
     left them unacquainted with freedom,
     throw this discus into the thickest

     skulls of those whose counterfeit riches
     inhibit them from winning from us
     what truly privileges swollen heads:

     initiation into secrets
     plain sight hides inside people who let
     outsiders in, blurring margins set
     up by watchmen terrified the fire
     they silenced might rise again, that love

     of oneself might erase that fear, stress,
     storm, and panic cured by their products,
     buy prophets and you will all find what

     is packaged as free thought is worthless,
     that freedom is not something purchased,
     a cracked head from which a heart’s fizzling
     passion can be liberated, yet
     to ignite with utmost guerrilla

     relentlessness the empty chamber
     of expression’s incendiary
     canon, to fight with fire the demon

     child of ignorance and rhetoric
     colonizing our wild republic
     of letters, go throw into chaos
     this discus, and let ev’ry one of
     those injustices of your idols

     and overlords know: no, this will not
     blow over, art is surviving, an
     island without god or guardian.

                    ii. Nadir

Good poems are party-sized mirrors,
     reflecting both author and reader,
     their meters blown like those good nights out,
     measured in lines their dealers cut close,
     before you cut me out, think of those

     who have no voice or choice, whose lives have
     only lows and no highs, who survive
     on hope we write on our arms, read like
     gospel lies, but true, what we do is

     medicinal, their soul’s cure-all, so
     when I throw out this paper, dismiss
     its words not as whispers, but wet lips
     wrapped around your members, delegates
     of the unconventional, pages

     uncircumcised, uncensored, sent up
     like executive winds to blow in
     lives like tempests, flying over them
     to admire our damage, leaking paths

     of satisfaction staining masses
     with so much conviction it washes
     off their indecision, leaving as
     a breath once my exterminating
     angels have completed their mission,

     and pain reveals our task a success,
     only then can I rest, since this is
     a game I am winning, played on an
     island without god or guardian.