Revolution on Canvas, Volume 1

by Rich Balling

  Even though we sleep together we’re alone

  And I find it hard to get out of bed

  And we operate but

  I still feel alone

  And I can’t complain

  Cause she’s so beautiful

  Yes we all have made mistakes

  GABE SAPORTA

  Midtown

  Everyday the same joke

  I never think it’s funny

  Nothing’s ever what it seems

  The truth becomes a dream

  And we reach for what we’re missing in ourselves

  I fought away this desperation

  I made attempts to quell temptation

  I swear to god I tried, but we could never compromise

  You could never change me

  And we reach for what we’re missing in—

  We don’t know how to let love in

  Don’t you cry

  For me

  Because I’m already dead.

  BOBBY DARLING

  Gatsby’s American Dream

  Industry, the Age of Dinosaurs, and the End of Civilization

  they call this the badlands baby

  but it used to be bayou

  the shore of an inland sea

  and i can still hear you coming

  what foul beast stalks this way

  the night is dim

  but i catch the scent of your arrogance

  as you rear your head i can see your eyes gleaming

  catching light from the moon

  like a pair of knives

  to cut me down

  yeah there is a hole in the world

  and the light is leaking out

  spilling like water

  and i can still hear you coming

  what new devilry is this?

  i saw you rise

  and creep across the sky

  and all night as i fled

  you came behind

  eating all the stars

  we dig to find

  why the light left

  skulls and bone

  rock and stone

  whisper stories

  tales of glory

  and a tragic fall from grace

  we’re still falling

  just like the dinosaurs

  what makes you think we’ll end up any different

  JOSEPH KARAM

  The Locust

  Wet Dream War Machine

  Stop talking politics

  Rephrase, Rephrase

  Hibernating phantom friend

  Witness, Witness

  There’s a hotbed of isms around here.

  All hail the chopper,

  the blitzkrieg,

  the tank.

  Never mind the ethics involved.

  Stop talking politics.

  Calculate, Eliminate

  Witness, This mess

  Who’s got their nightmare glasses?

  It’s time to go diving.

  Prime time is

  crime time is

  nuclear might.

  All hail the chopper,

  the blitzkrieg,

  the tank.

  Never mind the ethics involved.

  SHANE TOLD

  Silverstein

  Bleeds No More

  My heart bleeds no more; now, it’s been turned to stone. Your stomach feels sick for someone else. I’ve broken both my legs falling for you. Drag me on the ground. Powerless I stand, tarnished blade, cutting through, pushed into my vein. Blood still stains my hands. Sharpening my sense of pain outside, my heart bleeds no more. Killing everything off inside. Make sense of everything you tried to hide from me. My heart bleeds no more; now, it’s been turned to stone. My stomach feels sore from cutting up. I ruined all my sanctity for you. Smash me on the ground. I wanted to convince myself there’s nothing else to do. I wanted to provide you with proof of what you put me through. I wanted to pretend that I was you.

  MIKE BURKETT

  NOFX

  Re-Gaining Unconsciousness

  First they put away the dealers, keep our kids safe and off the

  street

  Then they put away the prostitutes, keep married men

  cloistered at home

  Then they shooed away the bums, then they beat and bashed

  the queers

  Turned away asylum seekers, fed us suspicions and fears

  We didn’t raise our voice, we didn’t make a fuss

  It’s funny there was no one left to notice when they came for

  us

  Looks like witches are in season, you better fly your flag and

  be aware

  Of anyone who might fit the description, diversity is now our

  biggest fear

  Now with our conversations tapped and our differences

  exposed

  How ya supposed to love your neighbor, without minds and

  curtains closed

  We used to worry about big brother, now we got a big father

  and an even bigger mother

  And you still believe, this aristocracy gives a fuck about you

  They put the mock, in demockracy and you swallowed every

  hook

  The sad truth is you would rather follow the school into the

  net

  Cuz swimming alone at sea is not the kind of freedom you

  actually want

  So go back to your crib and suck on a tit and go bask in the

  warmth of your diaper

  You’re sitting in shit and piss while sucking a huge pacifier a

  country of adult infants

  A legion of mental midgets a country of adult infants a

  country of adult infants

  All re-gaining their unconsciousness

  MIKE BURKETT

  NOFX

  Idiots Are Taking Over

  It’s not the right time to be sober now the idiots are taking

  over

  Spreading like a social cancer is there an answer

  Mensa membership conceding, tell me why (And how) are all

  the stupid people breeding

  Watson, it’s really elementary, the industrial revolution has

  flipped a bitch on evolution

  The benevolent and wise are being thwarted, ostracized, what

  a bummer

  The world keeps getting dumber insensitivity is standard, and

  faith is being fancied over reason

  Darwin’s rolling over in his coffin, cuz the fittest are

  surviving much less often

  Now everything seems to be reversing, and it’s worsening

  Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool

  Now angry mob mentality is no longer the exception, it’s the

  rule

  And I’m starting to feel a lot like Charlton Heston, stranded

  on a primate planet

  Apes and orangutans that ran it to the ground, were generals

  and the armies who obeyed them

  Followers following fables, philosophies that enable them to

  rule without regard

  It sounds all too familiar

  There’s no point for democracy when ignorance is celebrated

  Political scientists get the same one vote as some Arkansas

  inbred

  Majority rule don’t work in the mental institutions

  Sometimes the smallest, softest voice carries the grand

  biggest solutions

  So what are we left with? a nation of god fearing pregnant

  nationalists

  Who feel it’s their duty to populate their homeland

  Pass on traditions, how to get ahead religions and prosperity

  via simpleton culture

  The idiots are taking over.

  VINCENT REYES

  Friends In The Mountains

  St. Anthony

  I’m sure the mist of an invisible spring

  must have invaded the young Ascetic’s mind.


  FORNICATION,

  The last temptation carrying secret baskets

  filled with the miniature gardens of Persian kings.

  How was it that the painter Hieronymous Bosch

  kept his hands still to paint that Dutch mistress

  hiding half of her flesh behind a corroded tree trunk.

  This royal lady of unchastity,

  promising nurture and sweetness

  to all of her loyal subjects.

  I’ve crowned her queen fornication of North Africa.

  The woman who roams the World putting plastic

  Lilies behind the ears of lonely men.

  Saint Anthony must have heard her soft seductive sound

  in the desert.

  Fornication’s silk mantle blowing in the dry wind.

  That savoring sound of pleasure

  Then the voice:

  “Do not deny what is good for you, stupid Egyptian.

  Do not deny what is natural.”

  I imagine the young Saint closing his eyes and trying

  to transform his racing heart of blood and body

  into an illumined Lily that would fill his entire

  being with a living scent.

  VINCENT REYES

  Friends In The Mountains

  Watching Traffic from the Navel of a Golden Lotus

  “If one speaks or acts with wicked mind, because of that, pain pursues him, even as a wheel follows the hoof of the draught ox.“

  —The Dhammapada

  A lady crying in traffic gave the day the eternity it was looking for.

  The steering wheel,

  rusted under her tears,

  became the sun.

  A miracle or alchemy?

  An armillary sphere

  Like the Buddhist wheel of truth I had seen

  in some museum’s private collection,

  placed behind glass and an alarm system.

  I remember the back of her head,

  Mother of this family whose eyes are always

  Moving,

  Left,

  Right,

  but mainly towards the direction of light.

  RUSS RANKIN

  Good Riddance

  Only Crime

  Blank Pages

  When I stop living

  When I am dead

  When I no longer walk, talk,

  Or breathe

  When my insides stop working

  Will I leave anything substantial?

  Will anything I’ve done, said,

  Or erected

  During my brief tour here

  Empower, enlighten,

  Or endure

  When I happen to pause

  In the course of an average day

  And think these thoughts

  It’s as if Time itself hits me

  On it’s way to wherever

  It is going

  In such a hurry

  Why am I?

  There are no answers for me

  In this life

  Only these long days

  And blank pages to fill

  RUSS RANKIN

  Good Riddance

  Only Crime

  The Final Act

  He balls up both fists

  With a single, fluid movement

  He knocks himself out

  Forever

  The pain and bitterness

  Like a rabid dog at his heels

  All these years

  Are gone in an instant

  Now the real peace

  The final act

  In a ballet of despair

  No longer will he be forced

  To interact with his fellow

  Useless husks of skin

  Their trite, mundane little dramas

  The soap opera that never ends

  Until now

  No more vain attempts

  To attract a woman

  Leaving him humiliated

  The butt of a cruel,

  Biological hoax

  The uneasiness lifted

  The infirmities of his species

  A distant memory

  To rot away with the worms

  To finally escape

  He closes his eyes and,

  For the first time in years,

  He smiles

  RUSS RANKIN

  Good Riddance

  Only Crime

  Busy?

  The barricade is up

  And the light techs are busy with the lights

  And the sound men

  Are working on the sound

  And yet I’m still here

  On a weathered concrete bench

  Inside a musty disco basement

  In a crowded Italian city

  And the smell is effusive

  And the day simply refuses to end

  RUSS RANKIN

  Good Riddance

  Only Crime

  Bad Graffiti

  Two young girls in winter coats

  Squatting head to head

  Near a crumbling cinder wall

  Held together by layers of bad graffiti

  With bright blue plastic shovels

  They till the fecund soil

  And discuss things of worldly import

  To a German girl of five

  They dig and talk

  Talk and dig

  On an otherwise barren,

  Windswept street

  RUSS RANKIN

  Good Riddance

  Only Crime

  There Are the Dogs

  The rare northern sun

  Sends a scattered shadow

  Across the dew specked grass floor

  Of the open air venue

  Squatters huddle and smoke

  Listening to Discharge

  Yes, there are the dogs

  The ever present familiars

  Of the dedicated anti-socialites

  With their pink dreads

  And Conflict shirts

  Tonight strains of empowerment

  Will ring off the graffiti-caked walls

  Of this ex-slaughterhouse

  While outside you can buy

  French fries and cigarettes

  AARON BARRETT

  Reel Big Fish

  Untitled Wave

  Tree tops spin

  Like elbow water dog balloons

  Full figured fandango

  I spit into the future and

  a cherry flavored dump truck

  sits at the opening to the

  cave of my misery

  What do I see?

  The third letter of The

  Alphabet

  EVAN JEWETT

  Maida

  Earnest Psychotics/Parasitic Idiotics

  it is high time for the cutting of ropes

  in backwards movies I saw my mistakes

  but my heart does not agree with the logically sound

  sycophantic ploys to gain entry

  into my complicated machinery

  while I was caught up in chivalry

  you were becoming my circuitry

  EVAN JEWETT

  Maida

  Be Kind

  it’s always a careless new skirt

  and I’m always second best to your visits with sand

  a dime for each burden and i’d buy you the answers

  fall asleep with your bad habit

  breathe it in and hold it

  you will never be cold again

  i’ve kept my eyes down

  and I’ve kept my heart shut

  but I never forgot

  to forget

  eject and escape

  rewind and erase

  eject and escape

  rewind and erase

  I am choking on your dust

  DEREK KIESGEN

  Bear vs. Shark

  To the credit of the remake

  that was a good Dracula

  cruel oiled hair

  dangerous teeth

 
fine diction

  his strut like rooster

  his minion bitches dark sexy

  grand two hours

  to be the time to leave

  to walk down the avenue

  with Harker in mind

  jealous coward

  great gang bowie knife conclusion

  retame her

  dry up the wet moisture from the lap of the monster luster

  fail to see beyond your union and the possibility of a brighter

  Harker loose in the pants got his fun

  laying tight with the vampire vixens

  boobies and inner thigh bites

  good job

  I hope the marriage to your property lasts forever.

  DEREK KIESGEN

  Bear vs. Shark

  I lust Watched XXX and It Was Awesome

  he jumped barns

  he jumped avalanches

  he jumped jumps

  I kept throwing up and crying because it was so awesome

  too awesome

  I feel empty now

  I feel like dying

  I can’t ride dirtbikes like him

  I can’t do that cool sideways thing over a gully

  he is an asshole

  I am an asshole

  there is no reason here

  only illusions

  DEREK KIESGEN

  Bear vs. Shark

  They have no tear ducts

  just light weight durable alloys

  and mysterious gray skin

  I would like to four wheel with them someday

  trade stories

  DEREK KIESGEN

  Bear vs. Shark

  Benedict Arnold Middle School

  Mr. Gregorian