Bending The Universe
a collection of original poems
by Alaskan poet
Justin Wetch
©2016 Justin Wetch
Respect the work of the artist by not sharing this work illegally or claiming it as your own.
PREFACE
Hello, I am Justin Wetch, a poet, writer, musician, and
photographer from Alaska.
These are my poems. They are the result of five years of writing my heart out. Please treat them kindly.
There are five sections in this book, each composed of twenty poems.
The sections are Society, Love, Life, Personal, and Nature.
These poems are completely honest. They are 20,000 words in all, and I have given my best effort to make them the best I
could possibly make them.
I hope you enjoy them.
If you’re going to distribute these poems, whether online or
otherwise, please attribute them to me. Thank you.
DEDICATION
Dedicated to my friends and family. Without you, I would have nothing to say.
Special thanks to Malachi Paulsen, who drew the incredible pencil sketches in this book by hand. His extraordinary talents and perfectionist work ethic have made this book so much better than I could ever have dreamed it could be.
Art is the breath of life.
We are born with the knowledge of breathing. Don’t let the world stop you and teach you not to breathe.
CONTENTS (SECTIONS)
Society
Love
Life
Personal
Nature
section one
society
SECTION I: SOCIETY
CONTENTS:
Diversity
The Fire’s Still Burning
Growing Up
The Cosmic Soul
Then & Now
Femme
Tinderbox Minds
Church
Preaching Tolerance
The Girl Down The Street
Love Is Dead
Rome
American Justice
Candles
How To Tell If Your Rep. Is Owned By a Corporation
Welcome To America
And So She Wears Black
Millennials
Glass Rectangle
Patriotic
There is no change within a society that does not begin within an individual.
DIVERSITY
Sunlight shines behind a church steeple,
The courtyard filled with diverse people.
But skin color and differences drive us apart,
Our world is afflicted, and it’s time for a new start.
Fear of our differences drive us to action,
We could have peace, but choose overreaction.
Our differences are as minor as Pepsi versus Coke,
But they get stronger over time like a piece of oak.
We’re split up, as if on separate teams,
Picking winners and losers like cheating at card games.
We judge and discriminate based on the color of skin,
We preach love, but treat diversity as a sin.
Ignorance is a cancer slowly killing our conscience
Eating away at fading chances of gaining tolerance.
I envision a utopia where people are free;
Where nobody is judged based on beliefs or creed.
A diverse city embracing diversity,
Mutual respect bringing an end to animosity.
We may be different, but we have more in common;
Let Martin Luther King’s dream never be forgotten.
THE FIRE’S STILL BURNING
The country’s gone gay and half of ‘em aint happy
Floods in Texas, drought in Silicon Valley
We didn’t start the fire but it still burns the youth
Confederate flag’s now a symbol of hate groups
Young kids in basements proclaiming they’re savages
Police brutality has become the accepted average
Greece is bankrupt, China has all the money
America’s just one giant entertainment junkie
Indoctrination, not education, never read between the lines
The future’s a dead end and we didn’t see the signs
Russia’s bringing us back to the brink of cold war
ISIS on the rise, what were the middle east wars for?
Apple’s making a watch and the NSA watches your life
130 people bombed in the city of lights
Yeezy for president and Trump’s in the lead
140 characters is the most this generation reads
Children who don’t fit in boxes are put on meds
Our nation’s youth don’t see a good future ahead
Ancestors fought for freedom but these kids aint free
Decades of debt for a piece of paper that says 'degree'
Bruce Jenner’s now a woman, Rachel Dolezal’s not black
Old white guys screaming ‘Let’s take our country back!’
The church is preaching sermons but the pulpit’s rotted
Persecuting gays but pedophile priests are closeted
U2 gives out an album and America throws a fit
Pixar’s in the mind but the whole world is out of it
Global warming is cooking us but we don’t care
We didn’t start the fire but it’s our fault it’s still here.
GROWING UP
I remember when hands were for comforting
Before they started going up skirts
I remember when lips were for compliments
Before we kissed until being alone didn’t hurt.
Hugs turned to sex
Smiles turned to texts
Candy to cigarettes
Schoolyard races to lottery bets
Mountain Dew to mary jane
Hyper kids pronounced insane
'Cool kids' to twitter fame
Asphalt scrapes to mental pain
Snow angels to angel dust
Show and tell to nudes and lust
Growing up is being so rushed
Hopes and dreams quickly crushed.
Oh, but that’s the way it goes
Growing up means growing old
We change, seasons change,
Leaves turn to gold
Call it nostalgia, call it something else
I just wish for a time less... complicated
Call it depression, call it needing help
Life’s a game and I’m… disenchanted.
Life got hard
Shackled to a plastic card
Always on your guard
Self worth on report cards
We’re psychologically scarred
Disgusted with who we are.
Growing up means living less
Screwing over means success
Crumbling under all the stress;
Expensive outfits just to impress
Another lost soul in a dress.
Let’s get real, let me confess
I’d rather die than live with regret.
This is what they call growing up in our generation
You can probably understand my trepidation
Of age and its relentless acceleration
It’s a prison with no hope for liberation.
We can’t spend life chasing new sensations
Or working behind a desk for some corporation
We have to work for happiness and toleration
Because fixing society is our obligation.
Growing up in a world we didn't ask for
Growing up with a low ceiling and no floor
&nb
sp; Growing up when dreaming means declaring war
Maybe if we don't grow up we can learn to live more.
THE COSMIC SOUL
People are often uncomfortable
Seeing the flaws in others;
Once we fixate on one piece
Of who another person is
We want to keep them
Inside that little box
On that imaginary pedestal
Confined to that spotlight.
Oh, she has a beautiful smile
And so she is only seen
As a two-dimensional image
Like a tabloid cover model;
But her third dimension
Remains in the dark;
No one asks of her soul
As if she could exist
As pretty skin
Covering nothing.
Having seen someone as flawless
In a particularly good light
The illusion crumbles
Under the harsh weight of reality.
That’s the problem with beauty;
Under the surface of a perfect painting
Remnants of rough drafts
Flawed structures, wrong colors
Hold up the facade of perfection
Before the elements turn them to dust.
Nothing is ever as it seems
And we are ill-acquainted
With the full dimensions
Of even those closest to us;
We’re just fans of the reflections
We pretend others see.
Saying we truly know someone
Is like claiming to be able
To recite a book by memory
Having only seen the cover.
We look to the stars and cosmos
For unsolved mysteries and intrigue
But there is more inside one human soul
That has never felt the weight
Of human footprints
Than all the territories
And domains of the infinite.
THEN & NOW
I remember the stories an old man used to tell
Of war, and heroes made in battle,
They stormed across Germany and fought evil
Like knights of old attacking a castle.
He used to say how one good man of ours
Was worth a dozen or more of the enemy’s;
Brothers at war who would die for each other
Living past death in history’s memory.
Earlier today I saw a flame war on twitter--
They fought with weapons of misspelled words,
Their shells were snarky comments, a retweet button,
And a bag full of voraciously vulgar verbs.
This great battle of history, fought on the internet
Is the legacy for that teenage boy's future son
To follow in his footsteps, to be like his father
He’ll start his own twitter war and make sure it’s won.
I remember the romance story of my grandfather
He pursued his one love year after year
Won her love and affection with sweet words, kindness,
And he never let the sun set with her in tears.
On Facebook I read the screenshotted flirtations
Of a 25 year old and his current female fling;
They had no tall tale of loving romance but,
They hooked up in the back of a Burger King.
Are all the great stories already lived out?
Is there nothing left for my generation?
I pray we may find something better than
'Hashtag relationship goals' for inspiration.
FEMME
I heard a rich white woman say
The only glass ceilings women have to deal with
Are the ones they put in their villas.
Of course, she married rich
Or, perhaps I should say, divorced rich
So now she’s more than half a man;
But I don't think she had it quite right
Because while I’m enjoying a hearty breakfast
My friend applies make-up society says she needs
To be beautiful; how’s that not sexist?
So much media attention on women’s bodies
That half of them nearly go anorexic
Trying to live up to photoshopped ideals
That are impossible, but still expected.
Are you comfortable in your own skin?
The automatic answer should be yes
But no, we live in a society where
We force false ideals and wrongly stress
Ideas that should’ve died decades ago;
In every way, a woman should be less
Than men, and the most naked she can be
Is when she’s getting undressed.
From television to advertising
Woman are presented as objects and prizes
We're so tolerant we don't realize it.
Sex sells, and it’s cheap but so costly
We don’t consider the byproducts
Of this cancer on society.
The effects are far-reaching and devastating;
A girl in a room with no self-worth
With slit wrists, blood on a Bill Nye poster
Because society told her science was men’s turf;
A girl crying, tears flowing from her eyes
Saying her birth gender was a curse
She would’ve been the world’s best eye doctor
But now she’ll try to be eye candy, and that’s worse.
The science guy, Mr. President, Renaissance man
Embedded in our very words are these thoughts
Passed down to the next generation without question
We give men an education, but women are taught
To define themselves by men, and not
To define themselves by themselves;
Fight for who you are and what you want.
TINDERBOX MINDS
Our minds are tinderboxes
Hungering to be lit aflame
Our stances are paradoxic
Preferring cuts to mental pain
Measured meticulous self destruction
At least we at last feel something
We turn to the warmth of self-combustion
As the burden of life becomes crushing.
Fire is warm, life is cold
So we extend our aching hands
Towards a spark we once sold
For the price of saying “I can’t”
Ankles chained to our expectations
We fall gracelessly on our faces
Accepting our future anticipation:
A hangman’s noose, a child’s shoelaces.
CHURCH
The music stops and they don't really change,
Because it's easy to tip the balance when nothing hangs.
Emotions run high and promises are made,
Then the rats run quickly from sunlight to shade.
The pulpit is beautifully furnished and bright
But it's rotted in places not seen by the light
Millions suffer from famine and plight
But corrupt shepherds push that out of their sight.
The church is a container for performance and stage
Singers up front who were at last night’s beach rave;
A social gathering of self-worship and self-praise—
The widows go hungry but the parking lot’s paved!
The ‘body of christ’ is now a lifeless corpse
Preachers plundering pockets without any remorse
Like a battery disconnected from the source,
It’ll be lights out without a change of course.
PREACHING TOLERANCE
With how far science and technology have advanced
You’d think we’d have realized our mistakes and re-stanced;
Ridden ourselves of prejudice, et cetera and not chanced
To once again fall prey to judging at a glance.
So late in history, yet equality still ain’t here,
Visions of a new Eden have disappeared.
You see, we’re hard wired to hate what’s different, to mistrust,
To block all rationale and let compassion rust.
But we’re better than that, or are we not?
Consider how we join the hate onslaught.
With a dark whisper of sensational doubt
The forces of fear and all their clout
Are so easily twisted, so easily bent
To let out dark feelings and hate up-pent.
Like a blacksmith pounding metal into shape,
Our collective conscious is malleable as duct tape.
When we see someone different from ourselves in some way
Say of a different orientation, maybe lesbian or gay
Should that really be a cause for disgust?
As if simple differences are good cause for distrust.
With the choices someone makes you might not agree,
But that’s no excuse to trample on their liberty.
It is an evil thing to judge a person into a box
And excuse our own shortcomings, a hypocritical paradox.
If we stopped concentrating on only our differences,
We would reach different conclusions and different inferences
About the quality of a person based on one single factor;
We need a change towards tolerance to avoid disaster.
THE GIRL DOWN THE STREET
There’s this girl who everybody knows
She, as they say, just can’t say no
And she grows grass she doesn’t mow
Indoors where the leaky water flows.
What a whore, what a tramp;
Society is a vicious rubber stamp,
Labelling and assigning camps,
But love is an illuminating lamp.
Born to broken home without guidance,
Screaming and yelling was her silence;
We’ve got judging down to a science,
Potential liberators become tyrants.
No one to turn to, nowhere to run,
Lovers she has many, lovers she has none;
Looking down the barrel of a handgun,
She looks at your hatred and decides she’s done.
Where did this scenario go wrong?
Let me tell you, it wont take long;
Of course she sought solace in a bong,