"god’s greatest gift"

(2012-2022)

By: Giovanni Andre Sotelo

-the air felt old from a distance a mixture of soil and shit the cows look toiled barren and dry no greenery in sight heads hung along the walkway stripped skulls wearing expressions alike all down the walkway all day and all night-

A smile skinned to its bone hides the expression once worn

Letters withhold lines forming unholy words

They preach to the lost bring the head of the accused

Let his tongue be sliced off and coated with dirt

Left to peel by this fruitful tree

Adding coat after coat i ask for the date

Killed with the swiftness of redacted phrases

As father beheads who he passively faces In search of what lies beneath a veil

Beneath the palms the sands and forbidden places

Wishing you here

Instead of swimming in memories

Determined you lived through years in weeks

And proved yourself worthy in seconds

Sprouted from old unfertilized soil

Grew a tropical white mornings glory

Brighter than any before her

And to one of many brighter and bolder

than any to come

The bottom of a shoe places me at home

Beneath the most beautiful gardener i have ever known

As if the part of my brain which reminds me to forget Lives with a limp and a back curved from regret

The screen a blink provides keeps bringing you back

To feel cold on a blistering road

Voices moaning melted warnings

Of how anything but your lap will be nothing but a seat

I prefer to stand these days

exhaustion scolding memory

Still and refusing to abandon the quarry

I'll learn to love your legs as they rust

After they whistle with each coming hill

After the day i start to carry a pair of paddles near

Until i spend my days daydreaming

More and more often driving carelessly

Id run endless miles with no decline in pace

While my shoes lost their soles and became battered lace

While skin grows like gravel oh the shine from glass shatter

Wayward eyes looking past horizons looking on as god gathers

Blessed be thou eyes to gaze through such skin

With years of wear defined in crisp tears

It sits justified while testifying to thee

Of things no machine will be able to see

If i knew my age by memories

i'd be no more than days old

Counting seconds I'm at best in two infinite repetitive holds

I've read of times we wore more blood than charismatic thorns

And realized my soul has grown past

The wave in my veins

Rehearsing which came today tomorrow n' yesterdays

My eyes break for light as my pores tell me sun is near

Looking at nature as something looks back

The shame one does feel

Does god truly hide his name in weather

Stormy nights clear blue skies

marble scarfs golden sweaters

I cannot keep trying to stay in heaven

Where you must know solid from liquid

Truth from treachery as prophecy plays with swaying words

A complex design of human synthetic kind

Might attempt to search for what was hidden from sight

As the wind makes friends the plants gossip of worms

The birds cover their sight with broken wings

As Fleas and ticks continue to bite

As righteous ones sing

Like the moon i grew drained from lonely nights

Adding melodies to my cries

Like a grasshopper confident death is afar

I sit under the shadow of a shoe

Patiently awaiting for the years to come

My stomach sits empty in the soft sand besides me

I wish her gaze was that of the moons towards the sun

Still and unbroken for as many hours

As the world with no shadows

Waited and watched for two opposites to fall in love

But all they got was a wink from the sky a blink of a light

From a shooting star which burned out before its first touch

A broken light post serves no purpose like an airplane to a stargazer

To the queens of the corner may the wrinkles in your smiles

Mark the miles your ears have been forced to endure

Bless your kindness to remember

Each paired window be they tinted or pure

The sun bleeds from sky into her eyes

Leaving marks from its lips upon the bridge of her nose

A few visit her cheek i wonder how lucky does one have to be

To hold a star so effortlessly

What is sabbath if not filled by minutes who failed to be filled by you

Who knows where i lay all i know is what is told

To know hunger is to know the taste of leather Boiled to a softness seasoned with moss

The grime and dirt washed away

Blood for the base a traditional crutch

Once we lived in trees placing babies on floors amongst leaves till the day they longed for their mothers till the night they learned to

Till those who couldn't convinced the others

Taught aging customs and weightless virtues

For witches to find those who walk with no road

Without towers to wave from

without powers to hold

They'll be ripped from the trees by the hands of the wicked

Reaching and scratching as they peel for skin

In search of malicious harboring crickets

The disappointment in their eyes mimicked mine

East to west they watch where we walk they hear what we speak

And judge what we think

My eyes meet night but air smells of day

Split seconds ahead of reflection allows one to detect deception

In each drag of breath in each paused confession

How it reeks of dried blood and sweet licorice

With new tasting dirt my feet begin speaking tongues

Wrinkles in time marking pathways of kinds

The steps that were left hidden to find

Copper to exchange tainted water rotted grain

The mark of our birth withholding a way

A toiled ship damaged, floating affray

Held by a man would lead any to wonder

Beneath an ocean is simply an ocean to any above it

I'll remain cautious and wary of tones

The speed of their watches the grace in their bones

Walking to death calmly aware of how fearful i am

Praying for relief the end might not have Convinced i don't float due to comfort in walking

The shade that was brought on by wrong rapid weather

Kept preaching of how skin came long after feathers

Sailing replaced swimming and the weak continued to breed

Splitting meat bread and wine burying neat along a line

I saw visions of invasions by fish with legs as tall as clouds

Retaught of customs we once came proud of Breathless and weak my back bore pounds

My soul sat high and watched for sounds

These walls are the magic his name a quick spell

Those angels keep dancing alongside which fell

If god were to be allergic to cotton would undressing lead to heaven

With a sphere and spear the air sitting still

Waiting masses blaming chance

Waiting tyrants start to unite hand holding as they dance

Buying everything in sight as the walls guard the right

Guards raid the gates and ensue a new age

Revolution a fight amongst two towers tombing ground jewels

Lightning overcomes vastness as exodus enters in twos

Trees speak in tongues as i float by

Warnings of troubled times vague enough to fear

So i stand alone never knowing the warmth of a shadow

Along the grass listening for changes within wind

Within the changing throttle of void-less matter Watch for roaming stars the truth will be written

The words they will write will feel empty in rhythm

Making the most with a broken language

Lastly forget what ones been told

if breath is sacred

Then one grows old

being as the tree against wind

With cold skin, blue veins, defined textured bones

As breaths aligned

The more memories i live through the less i do

The more mirrors fall unto me in attempt to convey

I run from the news

the bloody food and tainted water

They'll never know the pain of their victims

Once mountains sit clean flushed exhausted and old

Skies will mourn losses causing sky and ground alike to fold

Standing still amongst trees we forget what is old

Stars are but souls lost on their way

The voice i hear resembles mine

In a way which would lead the blind to believe

The road free from debris

Broken skies collapsing bridges roads as hills grew wicked

Standing still i refuse to see nothing ever moves without me

My permission withholds reality as fragile as a teal upon water

Shame will ferment in rainwater smell

The comfort that birth the reign of tales

Seems to be sold by them as well

The ridge might shove the tree might bend

being until one does end

The sun rises as moon forgets to set alongside the fragile rest

They've bombed countries down in search of my father

Sank floating continents for the head of my brother

Failed attempts to lure me out from under a cover

For a glimpse of how perfection withheld before blunder

Rainfall sung as many warnings as it could

All which led me farther from truth

If i could only see how far the bend might curve I'd be able to read what the wronged had wrote In the words might lay a simple shallow truth

A realization bred by loneliness and ejaculated vermouth

Like velvet her skin brought comfort

Safety from weather and violent winds

Windows turned mirrors as crowds grew wider

As commotion brought others in

A riot at the square a riot they proclaimed

The guards lined the alleys and streets looked the same

A star amongst darkness a gleam to path way

A star amongst walkways a thief of long days

Wrong the road ahead seems

groves grow thicker as trails seam

Nightfall wills much worse

a ballad of growls, decapitated birds

Notes that would keep a snoring giant awake What more might god find amusing to make

If all i have left won't go by command

What more must be held by a shaky old hand

What we know sits beneath that awaiting to be

A hand is much more than meat sitting empty

A head is much less than media makes so

The days started sprinting, watch them as they go

Missing you the way desert skies miss texture

Reminding one of death brings life to gesture

Soulless sisters fighting brothers

Drenching their lands in blood of others

Kingdoms rise conquer crumble and fall

Down by winter up by fall

broken legs fail to get far

Laughter grows louder and tendons depart

My simple life flashes a withered old smile

Two feet to a brush when inches are miles

Perhaps i lay still and luck pays a visit

A fools final bill one great intuition

A glimpse of unreal cut short by twigs snapping

Dragged back to her coven

popped vessels bones cracking

Days in a stew and yet to be tasted

She speaks of life loss the moments gone wasted

Of harmony found in oddest of places

Of how the devil does clown on the simplest of faces

The strength is too still

Forgetful the will of a simple salvation

for money I would make god regret

The touch of creation two once proudly met

Casted aside buried and hidden

A grand race to damnation

Good luck and good riddance.