Why My Left Leg Is Longer

Rings of a faded coffee stain dream

And old men arguing in early morning cafes.

He never knew me at sixteen.

Shutting in horrors of heroic death

And letting the mother do the discipline.

He never knew his own at forty one.

Stroking soft maroon almost asleep at the wheel,

Then waking up to such delicious smells.

She barely met the better part of me.

Trying desperately to forget inequities and

Remember the hours of backyard gadgets.

He never saw me outgrow anything again.

Everyone Hates A Tourist

The very last hurdle of this dead horse race

Is set at a distance determined by hate.

Sometimes it's a fence or a winding river or

A millionaire's idea of a made up line.

It builds up devils and strengthens their cause

That thickens the mortar of a blind man's brick.

The resorts of the earth have shielded their eyes

With elaborate cocktails and a well-oiled lie.

Mothers and fathers unknowingly condone when

They call their child anything but their own.

The colorful labels we put on their sleeves

Continue to tear at the fabric of we.

But let's not forget the arbitrary gods and

Arbitrary wads of paper stuffed down their throats.

Theirs is the diet of a bitter selection that

Leaves out nutrients that make a real connection.

Burn down this building built from our flags

And rip out the tags we pinned in our ears.

The foundation of language is learning to listen,

So unplug your ears and turn the ignition.

And Down Again

I have grown up

Grown out of taking turns

Grown out of old shirts and
Into new sweaters with cigarette burns

Grown out of making movies with an
Artificial lens

Grown out of making friends

Grown into lighting candles regardless of
The scent

Grown into blocking time
And out of marking Lent

Grown out of fearing summer's end

Grown out of heart and mind

I have grown up and down again.

The Battle Of Missoula Montana

Two silent soldiers in arms and in sounds
Stood next to each other exchanging slurs
And friendly stabs to the growing gut,
But no one can tell when the other is serious.

Which one is a prophet? Which one is a fool?
If claiming the future makes you a fraud
Then they both killed for money just in
Slightly different ways, ensuring they got paid.

The one that sees himself as the flowering kind
Sits and sucks in death with a slightly bended wrist,
Pondering and laughing about how they never kissed
Until their skin had peeled back to show a foolish grin.

The other sees himself on a high and lofty cloud
In a heaven that rewards theft with eternal life.
But the cloud is tied to a blond haired, blue eyed,
Wannabe god that screams at him to come down.

Perhaps in all the battles won and lost together
They never had time to hear the truth over
The noise of an outdated melody;
The real truth is only for one to see.

Don't Be Fooled By Artificial Sweetener

The future will never taste like rotten berries,
It will perpetually die inside chemical lines
That one man hides with the grass root
Cloak of deception that everything will be fine
If we just look inward in heart and in homeland.

One white pearl in a mouth of rotten teeth
Will make chewing and swallowing unbearable
Tomorrow for both him and the starving
Children he's forgotten or chooses to ignore.
Because spending is what the refund is for.

What you spew is just multi-colored hate
Wearing a suit of faded paper prints that only
Small men cling to when the past is wearing thin.

The Sound Of Hunger

Save your singing for ears that hear deeply
For deep have hearts sunk into the dirt
To awaken with pulses the wondering worm.
No song is too low for those with no home.

Melody misses those far above the blade
That sees itself in different forms and
Offers itself to ancient storms to shield the
Living and the dead that freely allow them to grow.

Liberate the earth!
Liberate the soul!

The dough so sweet with a man's skin
Turned to a working class race that
Knows no race, but the taste of sweat
Strikes my bones on the loudest drum.

Burn down nations to an old bitter clay
And build up an oven with the fire of life.
Starve yourselves of everything but common things
And common men will come to know the world.

A Pathetic Right Of Passage

Two righteous men of God mock with all
Their might at one asserting himself
For the first and very last time of his life.
All men become fools in junior high locker rooms,
Especially those who think the Lord's on their side
In a basketball game, too young to realize
he doesn't really give a shit.

Brotherly love becomes a brotherly shove
And a slow but solid fist to the face.
He was the one to turn the other cheek
Without crying foul but still crying out,
Bleeding from front to back on his knees.
The keys to the kingdom were lost that day
When the janitor swept up what doesn't exist.

A Town Called Sarcasm

White words fade quickly on a white screen
In a ever-shrinking white world where
Incestuous ink will soon be unseen.

Hell must be such a pale place,
Void of real life and real wonderful death
That moves to the visual rhythm of time.

No wonder the suburbs are such an empty place.
Creativity was killed and left to bleed out while
The murderers fled and encircled themselves.

The only sound you hear is  blind children
Screaming for their never-ending meals of
Hard-headed beasts and sauteed veal.

And when I have no choice but to pass through the fire,
Holding my breath to avoid deadly fumes, I think
Of the real color of a real open wound.

Mr. Professional

Why waste good curse words on any old boy
When they make a bigger impact thrown at a son?

Hell hath no fury like a man gone mad
With middle age and a useless back.
So just spit rage with plastic and metal
And mourn your disappointing offspring
With loud harsh words and a boot to the groin.

What good is a salary to play a frozen game
When dead pathetic silence is the ultimate cost?

All those anonymous parents nodding their heads
Convincing themselves what's good in the end is a
Sociopath teaching their children with rubber bullets.
But before you know it he'll have the bruises to show it
And you'll feel like a pimp with the money you raised.

Why waste your time sharing your thoughts when
He became everything you wanted but lost?

This third hand smoke from celebrity cancer
Is not gonna spread in the way that you want,
And all the protection that he says is weak will
Only prolong your sense of defeat.
So go on, enjoy it; the cycle's complete.

Just Before I Wrote A Letter

Half naked on the shag carpet steps and begging
For a man's ear to hear one last plea of
Youth for youth's sake then the door
Swings shut and we go off to the races.
Hands pulling up the center of the square
And lacing fingers between each thread
As if to pull the hair off a young mother's head.

Trying so hard to be the younger brother you
Never wanted made it easy for you to put
The garbage outside well before the ride
I would take into a living episode of a
Yearlong marathon of Who's The Boss.
Our friendship died a little that day but
I never saw poker in quite the same way.

The Man Who Never Moves

We are hard-headed
Soft-blooded
Creatures of optimum opium.
Fixing and burning
Twisting and turning
For a new kind of get thick quick scheme.

We have killer instincts
Living insects
With growing limbs to stay alive.
Dead pan expressions
Taking collections
That build up a plywood lie.

We want tighter skin
American gin
Mixed with the right kind of guy.
Fucking excuses
For all of the bruises
That show us the truth in his eye.

We are craving the stage
Disguising a rave
To convince all the doctors they're wrong.
Give it a shot
Right through the brain
Showing them where they belong.

The Aquatic Revolution

Sitting in this sweat brine two fresh fish
Touch flesh and share salt to give the blood
A little more taste. The aquatic revolution
is far from being bland, in fact it could do
With a little watering down from the high
Pressure seasons. We've only begun to scale
This flat black wall that makes the sea
Seem like a containable thing in our palms.

There's a mid-day, mid-life point of no return
Where up and down have abandoned their
Logic and flat is as meaningless as any other word.
Deeper is only the pressure of things that
Cannot surround you if they're already in you,
But what is a skull in a place with no air.