Tristan Robert Lange
Labeled
What’s in a word,
A dirty word?
What power lies in beds
Made by translucent schemes.
Dreams.
They lie on the floor
Bleeding in scabby pools
That betray one’s trust.
Dreams.
Crushed into shards…
Little icy crystals…
Form a chrysalis tomb.
Dreams.
Nightmares fill the mind
Of the innocent child
Hidden inside the feeble
Façade of maturity.
Obscurity.
The reasons are obscure;
Yet, that word…
That dirty, dirty word
Manifests like a birdsong
Screeching forth from hell.
Labeled.
To, in a sense, be tabled.
To be rendered disabled
In the minds of those
Who always fail to care.
Labeled.
Storied, stretched, and fabled
As if truth’s being stabled.
Lies cry forth from
The entombed shrine.
So, what’s in a word,
A dirty, dirty, dirty, word?
What “word”?
Does the word matter
When the voice of the wolf
Has been set to crow?
The “word” now wounds
Those it intends to heal.
Can one feel
The pain in the hollow night?
The future, not so bright,
Lies undaunted in its misery.
The “word” follows endlessly.
There’s no detachment.
It is the specter that haunts
The dead and their cursed memory.
The “word” is a vile thing.
Detestable as it grips tight,
Choking out any light
From the eyes of the beholder.
The “word” is a cold shoulder.
What “word”?
It could be “faggot”.
It might be “maggot”.
It hasn’t been “queerbait”,
At least not as of late.
It has definitely been “crazy”
And followed up with “lazy”.
“Hazy”?
Maybe even “dazy”.
The word was once “freak”,
And the ever-classy “geek”.
If you’d like another peek,
Perhaps it’s this you seek:
The bottle’s shadow
From a long-gone watery land,
Places its message in hand.
Like pictures in the sand.
Labeled.
To enable
The ability to table
A being for a fable.
To render one disabled.
Labeled.
As bucolic
As “alcoholic”.
It’s never symbolic.
Labeled.
The vultures are elated
When they win.
The carrion prize
Carries on in mouths
Fit for the grave.
The “word” is their
Victory over the powerless.
Labeled.