Inscape    number 25 in the 2River Chapbook Series January 2019
 
 

Robert Pierce
 

Bio Call

Where am I
when the shit hits?
Bio hazard get your wagon
and drag your ass off to clean up
in the defiled corridor
of some dumbass 
steel door warrior,
kicking like hell and screaming.
I guess he didn’t get his own way
so he’ll slay himself this day.
Whatever!
Fuck him I say,
Attention seeking son of a B,
pile of piss, wasting the air I breathe.
Good rewards for bad behavior.
What a bunch of crap, literally.
wasting my time with shit like this.
The cement walls, smothered in red
or brown fecal matter, don’t matter!
Arterial artwork from some jerk
who can’t control his emotions.
Another mess, bloody hell smells of
OC spray in this god forsaken place.
Riot control spray in a six by ten.
Choke the disorderly into conformity I say.
Who cares if he can’t fucking breathe.
Don’t worry,
I’ll soon have it smelling like poison again.
Bleach and bottle X for sure
will kill all the creepy crawlies,
in this nasty little shithole
in the wall. Hope it was worth
all the coddling he
could swallow today.
 

I am

I am from dysfunction,
a token of broken wills.

I am from chaos in forms
of guilt and anger,

I am built on pain
and hunger,
thrashed for the masses,

trashed for the laugh of it.

I am from jealousy
and envy,

alone

I survived the mind fucks
and manipulations,
frustrations and uncertainties,

surely I grew up the minority.

Mental illness
like anxiety and depression,
that messed with me more
than the rest of it.

I am from the back woods
of society,
the riots I survived
within
the perimeter of the family.

I am strong inside
from the refinery,
of the fires that left the child in me
dead,

resurrected on a miracle.
Disassociation played a role in it.

I am the mistakes I’ve made
throughout my ages,

I am the struggles that I face
on a daily basis.
What I do today is the legacy I leave
tomorrow.
 
And sorrow
no longer labels me.
 

Strawberry Picking
  
Red rubbed shirts
sweet with smells
raw from the strawberry patch.
Pickers stripped the rows
With working hands
and smiles stained
with fruits of labor.
No better day than
buckets and bellies both
filled to the brim.
And pickings piled high
In tiny wooden baskets.
 

Robert Pierce is an accomplished regional artist and writer and Vermont native. After completing a business course through the University of Vermont in 1993, he started and ran a successful business for sixteen years. He also served as a Vermont-certified Firefighter for six years and was a nationally-certified emergency medical technician for five years. In 2018, he graduated from the Community High School of Vermont.

 
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