Mike Falconer

Jesus Saves

Jesus saves
Jesus saves

Everything must go
20% off all sale items
Value for money and fresh for everyone

Jesus saves
Jesus saves

Self checkout memberships
Curbside pick up
And online ordering

Jesus saves
Jesus saves

No overnight parking
Press for an associate
Buy three for the price of two

Jesus saves
Jesus saves

Baked fresh today
Membership rewards
You saved $3.26

Jesus saves
Jesus saves

We care and thank you for shopping with us
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If alarm sounds wait for a member of staff

Jesus saves
Jesus saves

Instructions for food stamps
Minimum wage
Zero hour contracts

Jesus saves
Jesus saves

We are but the instrument of oppression
Capital and shareholder value
Tax free by avoidance and acts of Congress

Jesus saves
Jesus saves

Method in our madness
Disciples in the checkout lane
Everyday low prices at Jesus Saves.

_{Image by Pete Linforth}

Machine Food

A better, brighter, future
The next big thing
A solution to all the worlds problems
In plastic, software, and analytic manipulation

We are machine food
An oligarchy of bright and shiny things
Grist for the mill
A wave of the future
From the hollowed-out dreams of the past

Feeding lies of freedom and enrichment
While stealing food from the mouths of babes
Chewing on the bodies of the dispossessed
And swallowing the corpses of the undeserving

A fortune cookie at the end of the world
“An unexpected path to wealth is just ahead” reads the message
And a fucking QR code to an online poker site is on the other side
Selling souls to cover the price of a fortune cookie

We are machine food
“Soylent Green is people.”

_{Image by Akbar Nemati from Pixabay}

Simple Obsessions

Whispers from another strangers road
Scratchings in the margins of a Gideon bible
Passages imprinted on the last pages of a hotel note pad
A scribbled addition to the room service menu

A simple obsession
Communicating with unseen past travelers
In the secret places we share
The people who we would never meet
Meeting through the detritus of leavings

Someone else’s boarding pass
Used as a bookmark in a book exchanged
The fantasies in origami gifts
Hidden at the back of a drawer
A scrap of paper in the battery compartment of a TV Remote

The places that belong to a traveler
And survive the decontamination of people making minimum wage
Gifts for the very skilled
Or extremely lucky

Human connection from those that abhor it at every other turn
The places that don’t belong to locals
The stranger reading a book at the bar
There for food, alcohol, and little else

Connection without connecting
In a world that prefers home to anywhere else
What to do when home is not an option?
Not the horror of homelessness
But the despair of less than a home

So allow me this obsession
The intersection of past and present
A tap into an unseen world
The breadcrumbs of lifted vails
The secrets we hold and only tell to strangers

And maybe to ourselves
Alone in the dark
Of somewhere that’s not home.

_{Image by Ilja Ketschik}

Perfume and Roses

I give you perfume
and roses
Like I bring
the specter
of divorce
Kisses that make
you tremble
And words
to give you
goosebumps

We fell into
whatever
this was
These snatched moments
in elevators and museums
The scandalizing
of room service waiters
Selfies from a different life
taken just for me

I’m not excusing
my moral failings
Just like I don’t care
about yours
But in my defense
You seemed miserable
and lonely
And I made you
happy

I’m not the one
that got between you
and him
You guys did that
all by yourselves
But you decided
to bring him back
between us
Wrecking
my
world
Choosing status quo
and cowardice

But bitterness
is unbecoming
Replaced by silent
sadness
Memory of connection
and reciprocating selflessness
The love story lies
of books and movies

The sin of
lovers
The Freedom to
dream
While looking at
each others eyes
Through bars of
a self made
Prison

A language of
the unsaid
Results of listening
to offhand remarks
Proof of listening
to someone who
is not listened too
My gifts of
perfume and roses
Monuments
to folly and failure

Measured in
memory
Treasured by
one
exiled to
another life
by
another.

_{Image based on an image by Fabien Raquidel}

The Greater Fool

A life as a lie
Dedicated to self-aggrandizing falsehood
Ideas withered and dying on vines of wrath
Like the shelter of a decaying tin roof

A choice
To throw it all away in a fit of despair
Or to continue on
Parading a shell of self-parody

There is no meridian where here there lies dragons
Of course, I’m the asshole
The greater fool
Overvaluing things that others consider worthless
Tilting at windmills

Being eviscerated by those one wants to be most valued by
That Don Quixote moment
The incompatibility of the practical and the aesthetic

But if that is fate
Then manifest away
The greater fool I’ll be
And proud of it.

_{Image by Virgo Gemini from Pixabay}

Talisman Alone

“You are here” the sign says
Unwilling to settle
Knowing the destructive place
Punishing someone for not being someone else
For I have known perfection
And I have been rejected by it

A fate accepted if not all together tolerated
A bridge long burned
It’s pylons collapsed and at the bottom of the darkest of rivers
But a pain still flammable
Kept candles framed by the prison of patterns

Time like flood channels
But still trapped
I don’t believe in angels
But the demons believe in me
Clinging to politeness and kindness
Like a talisman
Alone

The stream of other lives
A rock in the flow
Covered in the algae slime of envy
Madness of those on the fringes of acceptability
Sarcophagi of self immolation

You can’t die in your dreams
But you can dream

The nightmares say so

_{Image by CDD20 from Pixabay}

Aliens Bearing Gifts

Independence day was the day the earth stood still
Their flying saucers hovering over the most recognizable of major cities
The ones with landmarks that look good on TV
With their death rays and plans for invasion
Prepared to steal our water, snatch our bodies, and protect ourselves from ourselves
Mars attacks and the war of the worlds
It was the day that a UFO landed on the Whitehouse lawn
Because it’s traditional
Little green men walking down a ramp saying “take me to you leader”

…and then they ran away
Flew away as fast as the laws of movie physics would allow
With a new appreciation for the dark forest theorem

But it was not because of our military might
or tenacity
Or Wells’ microbes
or being quiet
or a song by Slim Whitman

What ET found was a people in need of universal healthcare and the ability to go to the dentist
Whole nations in need of hope for the future and a promise of things getting better
Or just food and clean water
Consumers wanting refuge from predatory capitalism or just to not to be only considered consumers
A world being burned down around its inhabitants in the name of GDP and the disputing of climate change consensus
A life supporting environment poisoned by those who need it most

Humanity did not want to fight back, to resist
Humanity wanted to be taken away
Not just a willing alien abduction, but a demanded one
This was no longer an invasion
It was more like a rescue mission

The other world life forms wanted no part of this tragedy
Even xenomorphs have standards
And they left saying “don’t flatter yourselves”
So we were to be forever alone in the universe
Because we could not get our shit together.

_{Image courtesy of Pixabay}

@wordoutlet
A reading of my poem “Aliens Bearing Gifts” at Doomed Poetry at Red Dwarf held by Avantpopbooks in Las Vegas on 9/9/24. #poetry #poem #poetrytok #poetrylover #poetrystatus #spokenpoetry #poet #poems #poemsoftiktok #poemstok #poemstoktok #spokenpoem #beautifulpoems #poemreadaloud
♬ original sound – Mike Falconer

Try that in a Big City

People will be murdered by police because of the color of their skin
People will be murdered by police because they went to wrong house
People will be murdered by police because it’s Tuesday
But..
Try that in a big city
There will be consequences
Not enough
And certainly not justice
But there will be video
There will be outrage
There will be protests
There will be awareness that a crime has taken place

People will be pushed into despair, drug abuse, and homelessness
A system that can’t do the math of prevention vs. punishment
People will be forgotten because society does not seem to care
But try that in a big city
There will be services
There will be those who care
While options are rarely perfect
And there is a long way to go
Mental health problems are recognized as just that – mental health problems
The criminalization of existence edges back from the abyss

Trans kids die because of bullying, a lack of acceptance, and not being able to be the person they are
The denial of care in the name of protecting children by people who could not care less about children
Try that in a big city
Gender affirming care has a better long term success rate than knee surgery or hip replacement
Pronouns, rainbows, and understanding are the norm for the urban and suburban

A woman’s right to choose is under attack
A rolling back of civil rights unthinkable a few short years ago
Children forced to leave their state because religion is more important than their life
But try that in a big city
Abortion is matter between a woman and her doctor
Not her doctor, their lawyer, their congressman – it’s always a man – and their preacher

A country music singer runs from the stage during a mass shooting
Taking his microphone and platform without warnings or help for those left in the line of fire
Try that in a big city
And there will be understanding and a lack of judgement
Because they were the victim of a crime
An atrocity
And the macho bullshit spouted on courthouse steps and music videos is not the same as a response to fear

Fuck your small town.

_{Image by Vlad Min}

A Shadow in the Distance

The first time I saved your life
You were sitting on a couch
A razor blade in your hand
Plans interrupted by a knock at the door

It was over a girl of course
Out of options, and a future
Humiliated in your own mind
Friend zoned to within an inch of your life

The second time I saved your life
It was coming home too soon
A drink of bitter liquid death
Chased by pills, alcohol, and a knot of despair

Work and anxiety was the culprit this time
Unable to see the wood for the trees
The story for the story in one’s head
The end of a way of life to protect a life

The third time I saved your life
It was a noose around your neck
Talking you out of upsetting the chair
Loosening ropes against changing of your mind

Surprise surprise, a girl again
Run around and no time this time around
Fear of being forever alone
A lack of compatibility with the human race

And so here we are
A future neither of us could have foreseen
Who knew that age would stymie the rage
Disappointment is now just that –
Disappointment
The alternatives almost welcome

Of course it’s always a companion
A reminder of a dark path not taken
A shadow in the distance
But not today, no not today

_{Image by Baggeb from Pixabay}

Pain

Mum said the pain was bad this week

Scared to know how to ask for help
Mortality beginning to dawn on this 92-year-old woman who has been a constant in my life
“Bury us all” is beginning to look like tempting fate
I’m wondering how long our weekly transatlantic phone calls will continue
The “I love you sign off” that only happens when one of us is scared

That fucking programmed British reserve rearing its ugly head yet again.

So of course I question my life choices
The decision to get as far away as possible as quickly as possible from what feels parochial and provincial
Knowing she would kick my ass for changing a thing
But I still chose to leave and stay away

The guilt is as real as the justifications

How can I not look at futures end?
The singularly after which everything changes
Death is an ugly truth somehow made mundane

I can’t believe I’ve leveraging this moment in a poem

But isn’t this my truth?
How else to deal with it?

_{Image by Sergio Cerrato}