"Fatigue"

"Fatigue"

Saw Wesley with the squadron
ready to snipe
like vipers ready to strike 
flying across assumption..
The gullible guards with gumption
performing like slaves
in front of master's furnace.
Selfless service
doing cartwheels
for this car dealed away for cheap
complete with C4 furnished
to plow through towers of insurgents
but they earn the right of discernment
concerned with me
sitting next to my brother
Who knelt with me and my helmet.
I guess I'm going to hell with
the patriot too consumed by fear
to lend his ear
and clear his eyes.
Eye have not the dye
Eye has seen dysfunction.
Eye wished not to function.
I am not the one, then.

Was drafted genuinely
to lead a high life
without the champagne,
banquet
or the rocky mountains.
I'll serve as fountain
for those in need of cleansing
but rinsing
won't make the soul less black.
We hold these facts
while attacked by the media
deployed in contort
and
employed to report
on our minimal importance
to their life and times.
Find me stabbed with
the knife that was planted
so far after the fact
that the entire city knows
of that horrific video.
Cuffed me while he held me down.
Knees mashed into crackling ground.
Blade to neck.
I'm smiling now
and you know John is smiling down
or up from beneath us.
You decide when you need us.
We bear the fruit
and you still execute
worse than those who kill as believers.

Peruse, Pitiful Perceiver
before you get back to me:
Who else wants to label me criminal?
Not the average peaceful piece
so understand if my speech is cynical.
Time was of the essence.
Now,
it's much more than critical.
Days before funeral service,
you deepen your voice
and call us hypocritical.
I was mad enough for the movement.
I was mad enough for improvement
but it's hard not to question purpose
when there is such disservice
from the nervous to be seen
and lurkers on the scene
who strain the hurt in front of screens
who retweet
and post
and meme
then wait for the next new thing.
I knew things were going south
and still struggled with the high road.
I rode the silence through violence
and strategic persecution.
A dilution well deserved
for he who maintains reserve
to the point of conservatism.
I am not exempt.
Criticism holds no allegiance
So we lean with the lane
whether sane or in.
Was often near the pane
peering in at the outer world
where we are hurled into iniquity.
This life don't owe shit to me.
This life won't get shit from me.
To live this life....
....is to kill me.

Written By: Devin Joseph Metz

"(K)new Better"

"(K)new Better"
 
If you ask me,
it was always too soon.
Soul portioned between two rooms ...
like cells without padding
so gladly explain how this prevents
one from telling the other
to go to sleep
while the former weeps beneath sheets.
Savant of long speech
to beseech the savage mind
to take more time than offered.
Hopefully that will end the slaughter.
Father drinks
and
Mother thinks
when
son and daughter never make it home.
You would make it known
but what's the point?
You wonder?
Were you not pulled under
by that fear
of who would disappear
before you got the chance to free them?
Fuck that Carpe Diem
and Magna Carta.
This life is harder.
You say today:
"We need to pray"
but you want praying partners.
Concept of self
left on the shelf
gave up on being cleaned.
Cobwebs and dust
distort your vision
until true religion.
Forsake your genes and
a mean fee for jeans
and sneak diss in line for sneakers.
She found my size
but I don't need her.
Would rather use my greed to plead
for the parents that still grieve.
Give father one more night
for bedtime stories.
Can mother have less worry
and more affection
for her child that lacks direction
but won't close the map?
You sing old hymms and clap
and then nap on the action.
My reaction wasn't like this.
My reaction was polite,
shit,
I might be my own indictment.
I'll admit that I don't like this
so close the door to both rooms.
Late tears won't provoke moons
to urge sunlight to come soon.
No time for light.
It's too soon.

I'd extend my sadness
past the porch and grass
when I see what cash did
after they recorded the blast
like it really mattered much in court.
Your retort the idiotic patriotic
simple similarity while somewhat symbiotic
with the stance of
"that's just how it is."
No frills is the result
when the chill of feeling fault
no longer slows the choices made.
I treat this world like one’s grave
and I’m not ready to die.
Not like this.
Struggled trying to write this
without looking like my wrists are healing.
The appealing feeling of concealing a truth
that looms over like low hanging fruit
is the precursor to my confusion and stupor.
Threw your judgment and conviction
at one tired man’s decision
not to contradict his value.
Has disgust not earned its value
compared to what was endured?
So sure in your stance
that you won’t glance my way
until I sit
or kneel
or lay
instead of standing as you say.
Sing of my oppression
at the next congressional.
Belt it out like a years anticipated
visit to the confessional.
Peel off the professional
and embrace what is real.
You can stand still
and refuse to feel
but contempt will fill the room
for delaying your guilt
like it’s too soon…

Written By: Devin Joseph Metz