DON'T TOUCH THE RED BUTTON

They're not crazy because their colorful discourse
can be balanced like any chemical equation;
trim the adjectives, adverbs, and advertisements
and what do you have left? Birdsong.

You have to have a head full of nuts
to even try to communicate a thought
in the first place. No one knows what
crazy is. Only relayed messages exist.

It stands to reason that why should we worry
if the sands of reason blow away in a hurry
we keep stacking our grains up into a keep
and occupying our brains so at night we creep.

If we're asleep in our dream not knowing
we're sleeping are we awake in our lives,
unaware we're alive? Don't touch the red
button unless you know the difference.

Between dreaming and living it ends up
becoming our parent's advice.  In this metaphor
what does the red button stand for besides
the reset of complete annihilation?

COLUMBIA

In the land of the craven
short sighted vision
breeds blindness 

and by degrees 
you'll find us

in the weeds strangled
by the debris of our
own lies receding 

as far back as the sea
stretches over the miles

back in time to the dawn
of our lives when innocence 
remembered the combination 

entered was trust in 
our lady of the sand 

for that which we carried 
our last reprimand 

was in the talons 
of freedom's wings
which beat a retreat

across the bloody beach
of history, and each

single one of those
sanctified lies becomes
etched in the lines

of unblinking eyes
that must stare in

the mirror of its own
hijacked self where
lessons like that

are not taught
from a shelf