Curing Beef

While this body
Sculpts itself
Around me
I remain trapped
Inside a mind
Over which
There is little control

Imagine myself
As a slab of meat
Attached
To hooks on wires
That cannot be reached
Regardless
Of how flexible
I might become

Afraid
Even if I could
Get free
Detachment
Would find me
As hotdog filler
On some butcher's
Stainless steel floor

Mercynaries

We were walking around
Our hometown
The gravity got us down
There was a lifeless moon overhead
When she said
You know we’re probably better dead
Born a hundred centuries late
Was our fate
Minus money
Power and hate

Minus the money
Minus the power
Minus all the mounting hate

I couldn’t help but agree
With everything
The hurt made me want to sing
A song about impending night
In our sight
And nobody left to fight
Crushed beneath our apathy
The safest thing
This nightmarish sleepless dream

All I see
All I see
All I see is nightmares in my dreams

What a surprise
If you open your eyes

One thing left to do
For me and you
Is build an army just for two
Go down in a blaze of peace
And charity
In this war against our dignity
To battle in the face of defeat
For you and me
Is the only taste of victory

The only taste
The only taste
The only taste of victory

What a surprise
If you open your eyes
Well here’s your surprise
You can see through the lies

Cheap Cologne

Selling out so quickly
He is forced
To search
For a liquidation tag
Someone clearly
Stuck to his back
While sleeping
Passed out
Or wrapped
In his own reflection

If he could escape
The fact
This behavior
Has him terrified
He might find it
Somewhat humorous
To watch the
Fleece line up
And purchase faith
In the latest
Comic book ad
For x-ray sunglasses

Everydaymare

Dreaming about
White rooms and rows
Of accountants
Shackled to typewrites
Clacking away
On a screenplay
In which
The protagonist
Insists the script
Is heavy handed
Predictable
And regardless
Of the equationed
Cuts of language
Dragging the story
To balanced climax
Everyone will wonder
What happened
And why
Did they waste time
Engaging numbers

Runs In The Family

The voices revert to static
Each time
I look for a witness
Or reach
For my tape recorder
A young girl and a preacher
Trapped in reverb
Chant curious things

He watches us
He knows

The voices live
In a fifty watt Budokon
Make me wonder
How symptoms
Of mental slippage manifest

The rest of reality
Appears to be going about
Its business

Wake and bake breakfasts
Cocktails for lunch
Happy trigger cops
Civilians sporting Kevlar
Another prison built
Ebola in the backyard
The voices in my amplifier
Are my only real concern

Fumes

Three women
Slink through the door
In various
Stages of undress
Bringing with them
The floral scent of promise
Something amiss
Amongst the charred
Cheap tobacco
And defeat

Through narrow slits
Tries to will
A single glance
Towards a dark corner
Where one man
Scribbles alone
But the behavior
Is predictable

They will order
One drink
Smell the fear
In this hole
And dissolve
While shadows sit
And question their lack

One Brave Act

The red hot
Cherokee blood
Still flowing
Through these veins
Insists I add
To a collection
Of scalps
For no reason
But to prove
I was born with
Warrior heart
And not the kind
Who would
Settle on words
To get a point
Across

Hypnotized

The clowns we meet
On the street
Are real
Don’t you see
They’re walking
In circles over
Last year’s big thing

When one trips
They all fall
Something new
A skinned knee
It hurts for a bit
But they’re real
Don’t you see

The sacks of meat
On the street
Are real
Don’t you believe
They’re saying prayers
They’re waving flags
I think it’s safe to agree

When one trips
They all fall
Something new
A skinned knee
It hurts for a bit
But they’re real
Don’t you see

Ollie Ollie Oxen Free

Weary of looking
For myself
In these ludicrous
Inhospitable locations
Where the service
Never equals the tips
As I am becoming
Difficult to find

Should be
In a mountain meadow
Reminding the world
Nothing short of radical
Reconstructive surgery
Is necessary
To uproot the cancer
And reseed
The bald spots

Having spent
A former lifetime
Staring at glass lakes
For affirmation
I am
Somewhat hesitant
To admit
They might be right
And more locatable
To care less

Gladiator

He has a plan
To arise from ruin
Laid out
And falling into place
Exactly as it was
Chalked up
In the off season

Deserves
A coach of the year
Award hung
Behind the scenes
Where he manipulates
Players on
Or near the court
And successfully forgets
Those otherwise distracting
Career ending injuries

Anyone believing
It isn't whether
You win or lose
Never experienced
A string of victories
Quite like this

Fleeting

No words to explain
How necessary it felt
For once
To truly feel alive
And of some use
Outside
Of a drunken
Comedy routine performed
For the precious few
I have a hard time
Calling friends

Almost lasted two days
Long enough
To tease me with
Some sense of hope

But having written of the
H word before
Should know the sensation
Can be summarized
In eight letters

Ain't No Thing

Woke up with the sun
In my bed
On a black stone trail
Where blending flowers
Mammals and birds
Blinded my ears
With easy summer laughter

The path led into rows
Of silent symmetry
Carved granite
Rusted iron
Brittle bouquets
Names and numbers
Now clues for the curious

Instead of taking leave
My animal companions
Burst through the gates
To sing and chatter
In the face
Of shoulder to shoulder
Head to toe death

On bent knee in awe
Of their defiance
Noticed
The expiration date
Over which I perched
Matched the exact date
Of my birth

Some vague and instant
Understanding
About the cycle of things
Left me feeling
Slightly better
About my own sickness

H.E. Double-Toothpick

Low then high
Waiting for it to feel
Like the first time
I never thought
The lines of wonder
Would appear but
There they are oh so clear

There they are
Behind the eyes
Burrowing creeps
Completing my disguise
They never leave
This place behind
Once they’ve settled
Deep within the mind’s eye

Did you ever have
One of those days
When you felt
Your life crumble
Slip away
Through your hands
Down to your feet
Just how low in this life
You gonna reach

There they are
Behind the eyes
Burrowing creeps
Completing my disguise
They never leave
This place behind
Once they’ve settled
Deep within the mind’s eye

I am almost certain
That I was sure of something
At some point and time
Some cause or creed
That I could argue with the best
But nearing the bottom
Of this bag
And all the nights before
I find myself
Defending both sides
Nothing feels more right
Than anything else
And if you care enough
To still believe
I got to hand it to you brother
You’re a better man than me

Smoke from the pipe gets in our eyes

Merry Go Round

The killer showboats
In fancy clogs
As I piss away the coffee
Cigarettes
Last night’s abuse
And plead for anything
To make me feel

In the urinal’s reflection
It seems so
Redundant
This breathing
Drinking
Stabbing the same circle

I am bored with sobriety
Tired of being twisted
Anesthetized to the
Homogenized plastication

The slick red wrappers

Where is the plague
I promised
My outside shot
The placid river
The smell of fresh kill
And pine

This is more reality
Than I ever hoped to find

Poets and Junkies

I have decided
To stand for something
Bolder and
Somewhat more tangible
Than the my usual
Disclaimers

So I defy and
Deny the research
Stating our magic
Stems from disorders
Or chemical imbalances
However serious
And probably deserved

Accepting
The rest of you
As the end result
Of dedication or
God given talent
While
We are mistaken
For a misfiring synapse
Somehow
Cheapens the entire
Miserable experience

A Little Sympathy Here

There is a gathering
Of ghosts
Smoke and death
At every table
In this bar
So forgive me
If I can't bring myself
To care about
The wine stains
Or just how earned
Your obscene
lack of money is
Or what expectations
You had
Down the line

The second this
Joyfully
Sloppy train-wreck
Becomes unwatchable
Do me a favor
And quit acting like
You can't see
The glowing green
Neon exit

The Finish Line

Out of the lysergic mist
A mile marker appears
And he is filled
With a profound sense
Of unease
Like wishbones breaking
Into three equal pieces

All the years
Of being tossed around
By a falling sun
Have left him searching
For a side road
To suspend a world
Forever out of hand

No more of the
Split second understanding
Slipping into the fog
Before it can be snared

Wants nothing more
Than to never be teased again
And however it plays out
He finds himself
Looking forward
To the very last page

Jihad

Wide awake it's another day
I feel the strings pulling on me
Can't deny what I can't see
I feel the strings tugging at me

Morning drive the entire way
I feel your hand on top of me
Can't forget what I can't see
I feel your fingers manipulating

Every thought I ever had
God damned
Every thing I ever touched
God damned
Every one I ever tried to love
God damned
You wanna live just like me son
Cuz that's just what I am

Work again and I have to say
I feel your eye watching me
Can't escape what I can't see
I feel your eye dissecting me

Try to sleep it's the end of days
Even the sheets whisper to me
You can't beat what you can't see
Even the sheets are reminding me

Every thought I ever had
God damned
Every thing I ever touched
God damned
Every one I ever tried to love
God damned
So you can fuck right off
For all I care
Goddamn

Works Both Ways

Like some kind
Of real life horror film
The men in white gowns
Pry open a platypus
And poke
Her interior snout
As if that will somehow
Filter the air
Replace the trees
Restock the oceans
Or at least
Intoxicate the sober

With fading senses
We justify this
Inalienable right
To satisfy absurd curiosities

So I will hear no complaints
When the visitors
Finally touch down
And probe us
With sharp
Shiny instruments

Better In Theory

The smell of death
Is impossible to stomach
Yet still we lay here
A couple
Of negatively charged magnets
Stuck to the mattress

Outside
An ochre moon wanes
Between stagnant clouds
The wind rattles the branches
Of a thorn tree

Through the glass
A flame point siamese
Ingests our daily evolution
With graceful indifference

Lost Cities of Gold

All strung-out on alcohol
Heartache
Valium and Chocolate
Wasting our youth
Crossing cattle guards
Hoping for sympathetic trolls
As dreams gradually blow
Out the back of a truck
On some never ending
Desert road

Chasing stars
That cannot maintain
Their glow
Expecting clouds to hold
A lion face pose
Compromising dignity
For loving degradation
The whole time pretending
A reflection
In our side-view
Is not as close as it seems

What I Wouldn't Give

We pull the rancid and
Sticky strands
Straight from the air
Sculpting them into something
That in the mind
Is rare and beautiful
And not unlike unicorns

Then we throw these
Ashtrays
To the heavens
And wait for their return
Because
We have heard a story
About letting go

We expect gravity
To function
Like they told us it would

We waste
Entire lifetimes
Waiting for a friend
To open the door
And release this vacuum

Two Bullets For Each Cure

We pile it on
Hoping to convince ourselves
The trashcans will hold
A little bit more
And soon
We will be able to
Bury the entire planet
In the hole
We have dug

Betting our latest religion
Will manufacture
A savior more genuine
Than the moon
Sun
And those
Who already
Tried and died
Throughout the centuries

I once found
More faith in the eyes
Of a catfish’s severed head
Than on the pages
Of these
Blind prophets

Oscar

While I dig through
Disgarded pizza boxes
Insisting
You get off my street
And remove
Your delusions of hope
From my trash can

You manage to find
Teaspoons of sugar
In every story
On the condensed
Morning misery

While here I sit
Thinking
A monster more
Twisted than me
Just couldn't exist

WWJD

He'd take some herbs
A bottle of wine
Make mountains of vino
And rivers of kind

To junkies and whores
He'd offer his hand
Knows we all need
At least one second chance

He'd slap on the bass
Play mean lead guitar
Rock out the drums
And hang at the bar

What would Jesus do
What would he
What would he do

He'd dance with the wolves
Fly with the squirrels
Walk with the whales
And wink at your girl

Allow you to strike
Without fighting back
That's just his way
That's how he reacts

He'd ignore the laws
Of those who would rule
Says live for yourself
And not like a tool

What would Jesus do
What would he
What would he do

He wouldn't make light of our malignant pain
He wouldn't start wars for corporate gain
He wouldn't drop bombs from a fighter plane
He wouldn't spill blood in his poppa's name
Let's go

Three Black Eyes

Each time I grab
The last word
I assume it to be
A dragon finally slain
Hydras tied in knots
An unparalleled
Swansong
Dying unnoticed
With a million
Other things

Until it breathes
Once again
Out a throat
Not made for singing
A message
Unfit to hear
And it feels like
Starting another round
With a gladiator
That can’t be beat
But won’t stop fighting
Until he is

Good Question

Got lost
Amongst immense feedback
And smiling lesions
To the point
Even a low brow
Street rat belonged
With something
Outside of
Tomorrow's flashback
Placed in the hands
Of a poorly cast
Stunt double

His survival
A trash mystery
He can't put down
But having skimmed
The body
To read the last page

Fails to understand
Why anyone thought
It was him
the entire time

On My Heels

Throwing down
A couple more shots
Addingto my tale
And trail of
Alcohol soaked receipts
Staring at an
Insurance policy
Deciding to cash in
Possibly
Place a dent
Amongts the bets
In emotional debt
Accumulated
Over the last six months

I am a pirate
Who has lost the taste
For rum
And the only treasure
I have found
Is an anniversary
In the arms
Of another
As she sleep talks
Her way
Through secrets
I don't want to know

Rain

Never stop
Thinking about
The inside feel of
This woman
Or the curves
of her
Silouette

Never hurt
From the touch
Of another
Like I ache
From her voice

She steals
My desire to escape
And although
I am not sure
She has found anything
Worth holding

I cling to her
As she weeps
Through my fingers

A Father's Pride

Found him under
The neighbor’s hedge
Dignified and
Waiting for death

Figured the bones
Sticking out of his back leg
Were his biggest concern

I peeled his body
From the frozen earth
And held him until nurses
Carefully removed my fingers
And took him
Into a back room

The doctor told me
His pelvis was crushed
Eight
Or nine serious fractures

His odds were about even

Chances
I wouldn’t have believed
After the seeing the x-rays

Almost convinced myself
Making him live
Was the worst thing
I had ever done

He hated me for months
Hated the medicine
Hated pulling himself
From room to room
With front claws

His indifference to life
Became a mission
For revenge
And because
He was my boy
I knew full well
That would carry him
Through several more lives

Marching On And On

I
I believe I’m right
Got you in my sights
Marching on and on
You
I see through
The excuses you use
To keep me on the wall

Lies
Perpetrate the fraud
You think I’m in a fog
I’ve seen you all along
Steal
You thought to take my heart
Smash it all apart
Stomp all over the shards

Unbridled animosity
Such a curiosity
You wanna try and
Out crazy me
You have no idea
Of the depths I reach
I can close me eyes
To the sound
Of your screams
Walk away while you
Sit there and bleed
Trust forever
This solitary thing
You don’t wanna try and
Out crazy me

I
I believe I’m right
Still got you in my sights
Marching on and on
You
I see through
The use I have for you
And that is none at all

Yield

Spring once again
And I am dragged to sleep
By gentle mocking
Of fresh leaves
Comfortable
With their role
In all this fuckery
While I summarize
The last ten years
In one admittance

I have still not become

No longer
Can I set myself up
With half hearted
And wholly unrealistic
Resolutions
No longer do I wish
To understand
Or attach a meaning

I accept the fact
These movie sets
Will forever shift
Before I
Catch the stage hands

Land Of Og

Another sleepless night
To perfect
The synergistic spin
Five
Six times over
Rattle off a list
Someone keeps track

One thing is certain
They have no jurisdiction
Over us in Utah

Swim to make sharks envy
Abuse the eye flare
Because it burns so good
Laughter surging
Inside a flashing second
Of pillows
Glued to the ceiling

I think someone
Is trying to tell us
Something

Hope they found
The off switch

Family Stump

Still in mourning
For a couple of boys
In a black and white
Photograph
Long pale hair
And teeth so big
No one ever looked
Past

Like their father
And the father before
Their world was full
Of echoes
And eggshells

The only defense
Was keeping it behind
A smile
That never quite matched
The holes
In their eyes

Don't Ask

Alone
On a couch for six
Watching blades circle
Above my head
And widow makers crawl
Across my wall
While
Another woman
Is no doubt
Inventing reasons
To leave

Should be fingering
A bullet
Selected for such
An occasion
Instead
Somehow struck
By a feeling of serenity
Filtering through
Six or seven senses
Magic in the act
Of breathing
Joy in a mindscape
I wouldn't wish
On anyone

And I can't stop
Grinning

Surprise

After giving in
And making love
For the first time
I told her
My reputation
As a cynic
Of considerable skill
And notoriety
Was in danger
Of losing luster

She laughed
Assuming I intended
A joke
So I kept her out
Of the shadow
Vowed to show
Nothing
Of the other side
And before
I could turn around
She was leaving
Her panties on the floor
Of the next poet
Who could not find
His comfort
In this world

Cheers

Here is to a Rome
A Rome that never fell
Misplaced
In space and time
Alive
And doing well

Here is to a sun
A sun that never burns
Through the haze
In our eyes
And why
We never learn

Hungry little cells
Dominating
As we shrivel in the shadow
Of our own majesty

Here is to the war
And all the lost graves
Tell me
Was it worth the kids
We all boxed up
For the fuckin' parade

Hungry little cells
Metastasizing
As we shrivel in the shadow
Of our own majesty

What To Say

When he is finished
Feeling his way through
The stocking of soda
And candy machines
An old man sits behind
Thick sunglasses
In a storage closet
Serving as his office

A thin white cane
Between his knees

Never thought twice
About the light in his office
Always being on
Until one day
It wasn’t
And in a blinding flash
I felt
What it must feel like
To be alone
In the dark

Showing Some Color

Two weeks removed
From the shelter of marriage
He finds himself
Surrounded
By nights in bars
Too many rounds
And not enough friends

Buying strange women drinks
Between naked auditions
For bad
Black and white movies

Weekend cabin trips
With electric sex
On the skinny mountain air

Pain killers and pushups
Bong rips and street ball

The truth he avoided
Translucent in his cave
Blinded to his own
Bioluminescence

Lucky To Do So Well

As I approach
Her coffin
The flashbacks take over
She sits up
Asking the same questions
Again and again
What is my name
How old am I
What am I doing
In her house

The half dozen
Collected for the send off
Laugh and agree
She hasn't looked this good
In years

A stranger
Pretends they were friends
Asks us to believe
In comfortable fairy tales
And it isn't her death
Bothering me

We all get to try that
Once at least

But having this to show
For a century of breath
Is indeed something
To cry about

Trust Me

It is not my intention
To make you
Nervous
Little bird
I didn't design
This hall of mirrors
That takes such a toll
On your migrating family
And friends

In fact
I'm the one
Stepping on heads
When they bounce off
With broken necks
Before the murder arrives

I suppose
That is hard to understand
And I certainly don't expect
Any gratitude

To you
We must all look the same

Troy

It was the day
Streetlights hummed
Long before the sun
Actually set
And whatever is up there
Emptied trays of ice
On the city below

Never have I seen
Darker skies
Or felt such static
In the air

Helped me understand
How someone
I played basketball with
Less than a week ago
Is now
And maybe forever
In sterile dreamtime
While strangers and friends
Search the crash site
For his Ginger

Doesn't make sense
She repeated
With the sizzle of each
Frozen stone

Not every story
About a boy and his dog
Makes us feel good

Sometimes
We just take cover
And realize
We are not in control

Monster

Lo and behold
A child was born
Unto this world
Torn from the arms
of his God
Right after birth
Another mouth
Without a chance
To ever be heard

Into the pit
We threw a child
And out of the dark
Came a monster

A self-fulfilling prophecy
That starts at the end
Sealed his fate
When he was eight
The other only ten
The game
The gun
The flash
The scream
He hears in the wind

Where is the mom
Who is the dad
A future in chains
Behind his back
Into the pit
We threw a boy
And out of the dark
Came a monster

It’s not what he wanted
What he wanted to be
It’s not what we wanted
Not what he wanted
No

Into the pit
We threw a man
And out of the dark
Came a monster

Must Be Taller

As revolutions pile one
My perceptions
Of what is real
Slip through these claws
One second so
Four dimensional
The next
A waking dream
Daze spent
Lips attached
To prosthetic limbs
Shaped like bottles
Blown glass
And cups of tea

Another trip
Into the familiar
Twisting landscape
Where escape
From the concrete
Steel
Straight lines and numbers
Is not only possible
But positively
Habit forming

A universe of space
Kaleidoscoping time
And vast
Terrifying silence
Where chameleons
Fear to loiter
And we natives
Wallow
In all this freedom

Automated Nirvana

When I have no questions
For the clouds
Leaves
Chemicals consumed
Or friends
Across the table
I am half convinced
This lobe is attached
To a joystick
In the hands of something
Bored with stomping
Through the galaxy

See
When not plugged in
I begin to wonder
In my own directions
And whatever has control
Is catching on
Because it allows
The suspicion
That none of this
Is real
To strike me less often
Than it once did

Contagious

Thought
A reinvention
Of myself
Might offer
Dramatic results
In ten weeks
Or less
So I walked away
From an opium
Existence
And said good bye
To a swelling gut

Dropped
A few bills
Shed a mole
Got some ink done
Thinking
I could forget

Bought a rooftop view
Of wild kittens
Thriving gardens
And gothic steeples
I quickly
Failed to notice

Still looking
Across my world
With the same
Hateful pair
And crawl into bed
With one person
I will never escape

Last Chance

He needed us
To believe his story
Of a metal mountain
So massive
It would one day
Tip the earth off its axis
And hurtle our plague
Into space

During each attempt
To enlist volunteers
We laughed
Drank our scotch
And smoked Chesterfields
Until he walked away
With blueprints
Wrapped in his fist

Eventually
He gave up on people
Like us
Choosing to roam the alleys
And parks
Still mumbling to cats
And children

When they found him
Stabbed and frozen
In a heap of aluminum cans
I had to wonder
If we had killed
Another savior

Therapy

Having seen my share
Of red eyes
And black tears
In the first few weeks
Of this new year
I feel the waistline
Growing thin

Try to convince myself
It’s only
The annual cabin fever
Although I realize
The sensation
Is three months early

Resign to keep pushing
Towards our first warm day
When I’ll settle
For an iron rim
A chain net
And the sound of a ball
Passing cleanly
Through the hole

Glue

Beneath the arch
Of a tired street lamp
Rain falls from darkness
Into fake moon glow

Funny
How wise men appear
After the scene’s dying breath
With carpet cleaners
Giving dirt
A reason to invade
Our homes

Paranoia?

Nothing safer

Conspiracies get wild
In my neighborhood
Everybody’s been lifted
Everybody’s tired
And look mom
Nothing but stumps

Add more freaks
To the line-up
In tonight’s big show
We love abuse
And use cigarettes
To track time

Trash Fiction

One of many voices In my head
Would have me believe
They have found a new strain
The usual coffee and chatter
Delivers the find in somber tones

And as long as I sit there
Enduring the end
In this deliberate suffocation
The bad guys always win

The rigid heads
In today’s traffic jam
Accept the latest delay
Were I half the man
I claim to be
I would walk away
From you soulless machines

But as long as we sit here
Enduring the end
And this deliberate suffocation
The bad guys always win

These plastic prisons
This unbreathable air
And I am no better
Most days too high
To even care
And as long as you sit there
Enduring the end
In this deliberate provocation
The bad guys always win

The bad guys
The bad guys
The bad guys always win

Marty And Earl

My next door neighbors
Served in the White House
For thirty years
As dope smoking
Fundamentalist
Christian chefs and they
Are closer to politics
God
Obesity and burnout
Than I ever need to be
But they do lead
A magical existence
Preaching the good word
Between knife hits
And barbeques

They still dream about
Motor homes and fishing holes
While I search for my cabin
On the shore of a
High mountain lake

The only difference
Is our definition of spirituality
And thirty years
Of forgotten smoke rings

Aquariums

Living alone
In a twelve foot camper
He develops a habit
Of checking the battery
Thirteen times an hour

He uses binoculars
To watch
The neighbor’s big screen

He lies in bed
Waiting
For someone to come
So he can ask them
To leave

He has a tendency
To imagine
Honeycomb patterns
Of a trillion homes
Identical to his own
Stacked together
And spreading for miles
In every direction

Each one holding
A heart
Afraid of the competition
But unwilling
To silence the generator

Poetry Is Not For Love

I am more concerned
With the cycle of things
The nothing
The spiders
The strings holding
Us together
And shredding our hearts

I accept
The temporary nature
Of objects
Friends and feelings

I understand
The relationship between
Women licking stamps
In Tibet
And snow collecting
On my windshield

I know all of this
And still
I wait for her
To walk through the door
Of this dimly lit bar
Casting one smile
In my direction

Doppelganger

My blood has been poisoned
And it pains me
To see him swelling up
So empty
As a child
Knew compassion
Now there's nothing
Yeah there's nothing
Behind the lashes

My blood has been poisoned
And it kills me
To see him step in line
So willing
As a child
He would stand up
For the have not
Half empty soul cup

Well it's his blood
In my vein
And our faces
Oh our faces
Oh they still seem the same
But I wonder
If I wander
Well I wonder if I wander
Will I wind up in his blame

There's a point here
And I'll make a
D. Claarative type of statement
What I mean is
That I need to
Figure out just how to phrase
What fucking happened
Why cant you wake up
Get away
Get away from the man
Who'd see your throat cut

On The Bright Side

For the first time
In what feels like years
He wakes without the fear
Begins to walk
And the first thing he notices
Are cars
Carscarscarscarscarscars
Until he knows
There can’t possibly be
People for them all

Hears the distant rumble
Of more cars
Cars assailing the senses
In a collective drone

He retreats to the river
Only to find
Yellow dinosaurs and orange men
Replacing the muddy bank
With handrails
Astroturf and airbags

The howling
Of mechanical lizards
Mixes with the roar of cars
And he flees
Nearly screaming to a forest
Where he uncovers
Plastic heads
Painting X’s on trees
And whistling
For the grinding of steel teeth

Covering eyes and ears
He stumbles home
To his cats
His faith in humanity
Restored

The Hardest Thing

She followed me
Out the front door
Insisting
I be the first
To break
The last eye contact
We would share

An image
I have failed
To drink
From memory

As I drove away
From her
The house
Our cats
And a life
We began together
I wept
Like I never want
To remember

And for once
the voices
Allowed the tears
Without insisting
I act
More like a man

Passing Phase

On the dark side
Of every moon
Drink
And drop of acid
The jackals wait
With sockets of ash
For the last grains
To fall
Sunday morning ravens
Defecate on a crucifix
The wind tears holes
In an old glory
That never really was

Rain and rivers
Tenderize the landscape
Into quiet submission

Oceans and beaches
Hungry for more

And I have earned
The right
To tread through
This body of apathy
When all there is
Worth mimicking
Is her indifference

The Nothing Of Things

When was the last time
You looked at the sun
And felt the fingers trace
Across your face
Without a doubt

How long can you stand
In the winter rain
Wonder why
No one seems
To ever weep for you

You'd like to believe
It seems comforting
Can't find your faith
In the nothing of things

Where does it end
All this waiting for signs
To show you what hides
In your eyes
Beneath your mind

Remember the words
Once upon a time
How long has it been
Since you even
Tried to try

You don't have to believe
In a golden king
To find your faith
In the nothing
In the nothing of things

January Thaw

After I finish the
Automatic
And monotone dispensing
Of indifference
She describes her brother
Shotgunning himself
For the holidays
And how
Nobody remembered
To keep the receipt

As one
Who is hesitant
To stack more pain
On top of his own
I push the buttons
Jostle the mouse
And maintain a
Positive attitude
While imagining
Zombies
At breakfast tables
Everywhere
Spooning oatmeal into
Mouths already dead