Counterbalance Poem by Windsor Guadalupe Jr

The soldiers line up,
And the turrets are varnished
With a rusting patina.

The priests prepare homilies
While the populace feign
Solidarity –a fealty in faith.

And the women make
Peculiar nuisances
While carrying their children
Crawling in and out of bed,
In and out of life
In and out of boredom
It’s like we crawl
And writhe
From one distal point
To another
Until disillusionment
Lunges like a starved,
Rabid brute.

And the cemeteries are
Crazed with lifeless pilgrims
And the morgues are
Scented with formalin
And burnt reminiscence.
The hospitals are cloyed
By the scent of iodine
And the spews of life
Until bloodied babies usher
From orifices
And lives are saved
From cancer,
From maladies,
From death.

But what about us?
You save us from death.
I do not want this.
Save me from life.
My life wants death.
And my death wants more death.
It’s like, demise is a huge finicky hound.
Feed this hound
The hound of gluttons
And live inside his hound-skin.

And the hopeless romantics
Line up
And fill the malls,
Secluded areas,
Filthy hotels,
Carnal motels,
Carparks,
Alleys,
Only to fill the holes
Of their lasciviousness
And gratify themselves
With pseudo-bliss
And an ephemeral engagement.

And their lips wanted
More lips
And their bodies
Wanted more friction
Only to incinerate.

I do not want lips
I do not want friction.
Only tepidness.
But it’s as if
I live in a city or arsonists.

And now at night
The bedrooms fill
And the malls are empty
The hospitals are darkling
Overshadowed by the scent of death
The church porticos are now closed
And the soldiers are now back
Into resignation.

Now’s the time I open myself
To the scent of death
But nothing ever happens.
It’s like the chase has turned into
A mimicry.
Death chases over time,
And now, I end up
Chasing death time after time.