I feel like the man in the hole

unable to jump my way out,
having convinced everybody that I could.
I've dug myself a hole
and there's no escaping
no denying
no defying
my situation
there's no running away
from the truth

Once upon a time

there was a man who told tall tales.
He stood at the edge of the village
and would tell his stories to anyone who would listen
he'd tell them tall
he'd tell them wild
and the people laughed
as he boasted and bragged
as he bragged and he boasted they'd laugh.
one day he claimed:
I can jump higher than any man can
higher than the rabbits or the fish
I can jump higher than the trees
and this is how I learned
on the first day of the year I dug a hole
as deep as my knees
and every day for a month,
I would practice jumping out from the hole.
the next month I dug a hole to my mid-thigh
and every of that month
I would practice jumping out from the hole.
The third month of the year I dug the hole deeper
the edge of the hole reached my hip
and each day for that month, I'd jump out.
the fourth month- you can guess what I did
I dug a hole just as deep as my waist
and every day I jumped out.
the fifth month- things were much the same
the fifth hole reached my ribs,
and the next month my chest
and the seventh hole was best
for it was as deep as my shoulders-
and each day that year I'd jump out of the hole
as it got deeper and deeper until,
at the end of the ninth month I could jump
from a hole that was as tall as me.
The villagers were stunned- how could it be?
And a voice from the crowd-
a disgruntled young man
tired of hearing tall tales
said to the people, let's see if he can
jump out of a hole as high as he is.
So they all dug a hole
and they put the man in it
and could he jump out? No he couldn't
and they all walked away
and they left him there
and the young man was the one who suggested:
that the tall-tale-teller would stay in the hole
until he could jump his way out

Hell lies empty

The sun hangs low in the sky
Hawks screech plummeting down towards the earth
then pulling up at the last moment, circling around the sky.
The ground is cracked
people's cries fill the air
water,
water,
someone take the pain away.
The air is rancid and hot
a warm breeze brushes the cheeks of those already dead.
The stench of rotting flesh fills everything
like a deadly gas filling a room.
Hell is empty
the demons are here.
Droughts like these
killers like these
at times like these
the holocaust looks like a baby
playing with a gun
nothing dangerous
nothing real.
The child armies march
drinking like vampires.
pillaging like pirates.
sucking the blood out of nations
then moving on
like a plague of mosquitoes.
doing as they are told
they kill.
they are killed.
no one cares.
we sit back
and we laugh
we have water to drink
food to eat
life means little more than nothing
in America
America
where the children play games
weilding guns,
never dreaming
that on the other side of the fence
other children do the same
wishing
always wishing
that they
didn't
have
to