Not A Night To Be Daring

And so we pass
Into the next, and
I'd wish you
Nothing less than
Happiness
If it weren't for
The dreams
And the marks
On my chest.

So I'll stay dry
For the first time
In decades,
And instead
Of looking forward
I'll strain my neck
To look back,
While I bury
My still swollen
Hands in the snow.

To Some Future Lover

If you stay
I'll plant a garden in the yard
With raspberries, strawberries,
And fresh green lettuce.

And if you'd like
I'll sing to you awhile
In the quiet of
The evening,
When nothing's
On our minds.

At Least It Was Exciting

This voice is weak
And withered in warm
Dark places that silence
Makes and boredom despairs.

Love is in the worst
Parts that fire gives
And passion takes without
Another needless name.

Nothing is ever as small
As it seems in words
Of discomfort or terrible
Screams of loneliness bared.

So give the floor your
Knees like its begged for
With pleas of love through
Violent and passionate greed.

This Never Happened

I was making speeches telling lies
In a faithless forward fashion,
Underneath us there some sacred spy,
Making love and giving lessons.

Soon enough I think I will advise
In a dark room long and lonely,
All the time we take to realize
Is a red and righteous ending.

But I can tell.
I know you well.
My hands are numb.
From what we've done.
Bury it.

Bone of heart and heart of sinking steel
With a love that shaped our bruises.
I have stretched the silence thin as wire,
What is lost is never useless.

But they can tell.
They know too well.
We're all so wrong.
But now it's done.
Bury it.

Weaving The Air

Sorely my love
How sorely we stretch
For things unattainable,
The chance to put hands
On father's wounded neck.
Our bodies so naturally
Carving the weight
And speaking with symbols
Our child-like fate.

Now the unborn
Have something to live for,
While all of the living
Contract and debate.
Our colorful silence
Is weaving the air
With father's bright violence
And mother's long hair

Split Thin The Line

In the car on Lake Drive
And in this bed,
Steady hand
And head against the glass
Hearing the sap-drained
Soul of your voice
In the air.
Your hand still stinging
But barely aware,
We almost said it
We almost split thin
The line, with our tongues
Still dragging
And begging for life.

On The Way To The Cage

British monks
And Navan punks,
A little too young
And too self assured.
One going forward,
One going to Rome
As I throw stones
At a liberator's statue.
Come back beneath
My planted feet
Stuck quick
In the sinking, circling,
Turning red flame
That orbits this hell.

A Two Second Lifetime

Pull up anchor
Like the weight
At your ankles,
While your body
That your wife knows
Better than her own,
Is losing control
With every raised eyebrow
And child's bruised bone.

But it just goes to show
We are signals
We are signs.
We are more of the heart
We are less of the mind.

A Lock On The Door

What was it
That you wore?
Underneath the altar
And your stockings
On the floor,
This sunken grateful cynic
Anticipates the air.
That's all we ever hoped
To have between
Our barren, wondering souls.
Now more
And more will cover us,
Spreading a thickness
Distance longs for.

We have what we need
For the dreams that will come.
A lighter, a glass,
And a lock on the door.

The Wrong Cure

Dress me down
Bear me down,
Down this arterial mine
That the hammer
Pounds and pulls
When stressed,
Inside our lover's
Empty chest.

One wonders,
But gravely
In blue gill chambers,
Not quite able
To break in the door.

The other,
Spent sewage
With a hint of sweet sadness,
Will make no haste
In towing the line,
Burying ticket stubs
In flesh along the way.

How Comfort Kills

This fall feels right
Because death
Makes the ground cold,
And landing in spring
Leaves too much to chance.
It is the soft earth
That flees the brittle skin,
But bares itself
So little it seems
To stretch and strain
Over empty organs.

It must have been
So easy
To leave.

You Invented Jazz

I'd hike up your skirt
If you wore one

(you never do)

But boredom is
That youngest stepchild
In the corner
Speaking to the press corps,
Answering questions
With questions.

Will I tell them
I've never had another?
He wonders,
And then forgets
If he said it out loud.

Just tell them that
You invented Jazz,
And cover those wounds
With fake ambition.

Stone Between Us

Friend it's not too late
To tie those wrists
To the pillars,
To the pillars that hold us
And shake the halls
For our plagues
Like walls have become
Stone between us.
My strength is letter thin
And words so spare
Will never be spoken if written,
If written so soft
The ink will fade
Through for us.
Then let the archer
Lay his bow as a marker
To draw the arch
As a line in the earth.

Judas To The Song

Did Carmell have a wife
That wept upon the stones
While he, like vanity
Sat and listened to himself
Age with every blue note?

Then maybe it's our duty,
Sad and solemn soldiers
Breaking bonds one way
Or the other with pen
And steel-tipped brush.

Such art is betrayed
By newfound smiles
And brand new skin so
White with noise it can
Drown these elephant fears.

So there is the blade,
Like Judas to the song
We must repay it,
Repay it all with wounds
That healing made its muse.

There Is Power...

Keep your eyes on common men
Running hard and tainted
With a ghostly red layer
Of skin and sweat
That changes races
With summer labors.

Ever so slow
Is the independent soul
Free from guild
And cautionary, iron-clad dues
That give us all wings
And waterproof shoes.

But my work friends,
Is never so dull.

Love Like Danger

Somehow idle in the park
With a Roosevelt mask on
I passed out change

To those would would take it.

I won't tell you which one
Just to make you angry,
Cause love like danger
Is abusive by its

Presidential nature.

You, Mr. Kennedy,
Are not my family.

Beneath this hill the city
Sweats out its diversity
And if it was all too good for him
And his army of twins,
Then it sure as heaven hell
Wasn't good enough for me.

The Black Island Conversion

On this anchored beach
That makes a poet's grave,
Some blood dripped south
And changed its shape.
Ignorance connected us,
The land and it's new kin
That guide my hand
To the square steering wheel.
Uncorrupted crops
And leather-skin zeal
Are woven together
Like the bonds of true faith.
And I can't help but wonder
If they would side with me,
Me and the holy see
In this humid depression
That makes him a fool,
And me a disgrace.

Fists and Red Wine

Men with baseball bats
Broke my knee caps and split
With the little breath that I had.

I never gambled much,
Except with nightly whiskey,
An OCD libido
And handling money for worms.

I bring people down
To a level where love lights
Fires with fists and red wine.

But they don't forget those
Loud red debts that
Racked up in-between
The one flesh winning streaks.

True believers will tell you
To risk it on whatever
The guilt-soaked dealer can give.

God gave me nothing
But a fucked up straight
And a pair of tired lungs
Ready to fold on forgiveness.

Youth And Conquest

I found the place
That old men, blind
And drawing horses
To their death, search for
With supple skin on
Their minds and dark
Socks pulled to their knees.
Something shoved me in
Ten inches, ten feet
Split open and drowning.
Drowning in dimensions
Of envious youth,
Washing over only those
Who turn their backs
On the gods of the past.
How abandoning,
How simple and clean,
The way broken things
Make weapons of war,
And war itself
Is a daily routine.
Those of us who survive
With our socks to our knees,
Stretch forward in time
And back into pain.

The Heavens We Fear

We are gods of some universe
Throwing thoughts in the air,
Reviving dead fates and
Giving Lazarus a future.
Such a lovely evolution
Without time and space
To bury the bones of
The all-to-present priests.
Remember well the occupied spaces,
And intruding mothers,
And time well wasted,
Velvet nooses on our necks
To keep the moment desperate.
So let that symphony
of vulnerable regret
Be just out of reach
Of the heavens we fear.

Always The End Of June

So much death must have drove
Him to youth in desperate corners
Of desolate rooms, the ones
We used to laugh at until
They found him there
Building fate for us all.

But oh what fun!
Stretched animal skin
And sanded pine
With ice that choked
The truthful vine,
While loose-skinned neighbors
Tended their lawns
And pitied the sun.

Holy Paper Weights

Tiny little priests
Stacked so neat
With holy paper weights
And windows shut
To quell the morning breeze.

Humidity and iron will,
With dust that settled
Some centuries ago
And painful growth
Is a thing unknown.

Such innocence blesses
And kisses like a mother
Would a thankless child,
Some raise a man to give him up
And other just to hide.

But oh how envious
of those winter loins
A swollen man becomes,
When summer heat exposes all
And cancer takes its toll.

Drowning Takes Breath

I'm not suicidal,
No killing takes strength
And idle men sleep
With sheets over their eyes.
But dreaming takes time
When other men die
And weakness wakes you
With hot sweat and cold gin.
I'm not drinking too much,
No drowning takes breath
And what you can see through
Dead spotted pale flesh,
Is the last of the classical,
Such a predictable stretch.
More salt on the highway,
Less blood to my neck.

The Meaningless Few

Silent men night nursing
Their wounds so open and clean,
Cutting years off progress
With an unspoken blade.
But pity them not
They are young men again!
Young with passion full of fear
And a sea of decisions
To carry their bones forward
And drown their souls here.
At night sailors speak
To Mozart's remains, so empty
And quiet in the curve of the blue,
But his first was well worth
The meaningless few.

The Memory Wall

This daily ghost
Used to show itself,
Bitter, pale and powder grey.
All that's left
Is a dead red aura
Pulsing all over
In the black lack of center,
While white waves are chasing
The memory wall.

The Attributes of Insects

Caught in strange insignificance
Running up bathtub walls,
Legs speaking terror
With desperate rapid motion.
Pray for running water
And beg for morning rituals
To end the waiting, suffering game.
How quickly forgotten
The attributes of insects,
The benefits of lowly things
And any comfort there within
Doesn't mask their ugly sin.
Perhaps the fear is justified,
Half awake with the dawn
And a waiting surprise,
But even in the white light of sun
The devil knows when he should run.

So Little Time

Ask me for nothing
Shove me through, shove me through
Until my ears tear off
And let the pressure loose.

Boundless measures given numbers,
But if they were nothing
Then nothing is the god
That we loved together.

The deer almost died
On the way home from her house,
The one I still think about
When I'm staring into headlights.

Separate lies at separate times
When voices shifted
Through selfish dimensions,
So much sci-fi, so little time.

Whiskey and Water

This all started
When I started on the whiskey.
I told you how it made me
Feel lighter and less young,
Squeezing life from the last
Of your worn leather hands.
Something split
In and out with it,
Like our visible habitual breath.
Even if I could convince
These angry man hands to turn
On the tap for the ocean,
The desert wants water
Without getting wet.

Food For Trees

Shifting visions of future movements
Where time will take hold
Like a tumor to your throat,
Feeding it's growth
To end the unknown.
Hypothetical breasts in your hands
Or maybe another man's
Straying from the lines.
Good and terrible gods
Will still give you time
To bring his grandsons
To his bones that feed the tree
On the hill beside the lake.
So far from kindred soil,
We may as well be descended
From worms; a need to resurface
Was never so plain.
Hard times come
With the blood in your veins.

A Tribute to Blind Joe Death

Of the river quickly running

Changing wind and facing warning.

Of religion's deepest roots

Splitting fast and shaking loose.

Embracing time with old and new

Shapes and patterns, plucked and

Strewn about the golden fields

Of the wild and untamed road.

No words speak comfort like

The rhythm of the horse or

The wheel rolling musical, steady and

Slowing to feel the pain of the years.

Come east with me my departed friend,

And venture still through silent hills

That shaped your past like a lover's breast;

Abandon with me the words of the west.

Water Is Pain

Hello shameful youth,
Return to me from rusty springs
Or a wet elevator ride
With a little less tease.
Chiseled and crafted too late
To gloat, a sliver draws
The same blood from eight
Years past when the outward
Expanse kept many at bay.
This nameless vessel has
More than one maker and
Guilt is setting sail
With the call of a loon.
Where are my maps?
My compass of blame?
This bitter lake is chained
To past and present the same;
The anchor is light
And water is pain.

Comforting Circles

Oh simple old friend,
Hurry quick to stop the hunger
That evaporates our blood
And rains all over us.
Oh simple old friend,
Make wood from wooden skulls
And hear the saints soliloquy
Created from the dust.
Oh simple old friend,
Stand strongly on your stone
And bring your rod down on the ears
Of those who wouldn't listen.
Oh simple old friend,
With insides marred by older men
Creating strength for running legs
Could leave some muscles poorly fed.
Oh simple old friend,
With insides vibrant red so real
From movement after movement still,
Still you pause to take this meal.

Vultures All

A bird to the glass
Will lead the flock with
Broken wings and peck out
The eyes of any creature
That sees a reflection.
I am no sparrow,
No sacrificial dove
And truth is the white shit
Stain on the hood of your truck.
The mask of intention
Is the pale blue plumage
That paints the raven's kin.
Vultures all, to some lower form
That gives their cause munition.

Sandpaper And Satin

Would you do a dance
On those blistered hands
That came from the shrill wind
Scraping and spitting sandpaper
In the air as it moves?
Would you do a dance
With those legs stretched
Thin like satin
Inside your skin; it's hard not
To breathe in the fumes
With nostrils so close as
Arms are pushed magnetic
To a paper thin space.
Would you do a dance
To this pulse like a siren
In the distance goes
Beyond sound and takes on
The form of a blue flame
In this hollow chest.
Refusing was a mistake that
May shut off the valve.

Nature In The Ghetto

Nature in the ghetto
Go slow and gentle still,
While outside the cage
Birds find prostitutes
Like trees breathe in the sun.

The wilderness is traveling here,
But motion makes these old men
Weak and time will cease
Beyond those hills.
Fortune bear us no ill will.

A Dream In July

Hovering there between two trees,
That colorful cocoon and a rest
So gentle like the breeze, it
Seemed to quiet even the most
Annoying of sounds coming from a
Strange, yet familiar dogwood tree.
Through a mask of weathered age
It spoke quick, pulling nails
To end the suspension of it's
Own future of sheltering this
Devil and his growing army
Of forgetful men. Fire is heaven
And steel a living hell and the
Roots keep growing, even after death.

History, The Whore

But then we've all woken up
With stacks of books in our bed,
Waking quickly spilling coffee
All over the dress that was
Supposed to pull his sunken eyes
Away from the other boy you
Saw him kissing in the shower.

The river was made but never told
Which way to flow, but you
Will build a shrine of a dam
With misguided money mistaken for love.
Such a bold use of history,
Like the way you change your skin
In the summer when it's moral
To seduce. This must not be all
Things to such delicate and
Yet-to-flower wings, too soft
For sandpaper and too colorful
To photograph in black and white.

No More Ignoring

By now we should be better men
Softly tilling hearts in tender soil,
Speaking like the sun in an endless
Afternoon of windless water and open air.
But the same rays that warm
Fade the stain on the oak and
Penetrate the layers of those
Who don't belong.

Progress is less appealing as a step
To the right of the things we
Bear proudly on our chests,
Cut open and bleeding to our last
Engineered breath. This form of
Extinction will be our dead end.

We Need The Heat

No breath from my mouth
Shall disturb your perfect hair
In every perfect place.
When conversation comes easy
Like sweat in the summer,
Drag slow and pull under
The sweet thickness of the air.

And I will spread silently
The skin inside your hands.

Such Beautiful Seeds

Before morning in the air
The welcome is an open palm,
Or a sturdy redwood
Stretched to the open sky.
Many men of iron are dull
To the touch of a warm breeze,
But strength is the bending
Root of the charming tree.
Such beautiful seeds
With flesh in my flesh,
Towering over this seedling
That planted a memory
On the hill by the lake.
The roots are meeting now
In an angel's afterthought,
Soft like the grass
And warm like the sea.

Flesh and Steel and Soil

Bureaucratic hippies finger fucking
Their dreams and slow roasting
Their spit to a well-oiled glaze.
What's the use in getting old
If the trees go unloved,
Set fire to the fat and old
Hypocritical oak. They are
The spinning steel blade
Not the warm fleshy embrace,
Tired men destroy more than
The springs on their bed.
Communism's not dead.
It just got old.
And frayed like the rope
Holding chaos in the air.

A Blood-Ready Smile

Draining heavy the thick red vine
Moves without rhythm or any good
Reason except to appease the ever-glowing
Screen. More evidence lacking that
Youth brings the fruit of delicate
Skin, for underneath runs the river
Of a race that's left to drip slow
And straight up into the air.
This brain in my lap brought me
To empty places and filled it with
Faces and here I search for the
Next common courtesy or a
Grip to hold reality like a club
To make a mark. Accelerate this
Resting place and meet ends
As ends deserve to be met.
With bat or barrel or a
Blood-ready smile.

Beyond The Reeds

Are you used to this she screamed
Marking switches and ancient reeds
That mark the depth so clear and
Smooth on our stretched white feet.

The flesh oars of the adventurers raft,
Blow hot air to last as long as
The sunset is over the trees, holding
Back the black suffocating the blue.

There we are in decades on the dock,
Hands in quick spotted knots for
Centuries have passed to fade out
And set loose that layer of the earth.

I will wait here for the seasons to sever
She said, white death instead of red
Life is calling from the shore, so
Jump off and dig your feet into the bar.

In This Endless Garden

Useless compass always pointing inwards,
What direction can arrogance go
If the magnetic pull is the bones
Of this prick that sits here in
A built up lined paper ego.

Oh the lilies, those fucking lilies,
They do so much of nothing yet
Return with a triumph that beats
This god complex into the stone that
Has never moved despite perceived strength.

And you my love
As such wet soil

Spurring and spinning
With such thick weeds.

The Fake Pub Fire

Nerves tighten rubber hearts racing
But not from the three pints
We've already emptied.

I built an empty house as I criticized
Your lack of stone and masonry
Is work your frame would never fit.

Gracious apathy inside your well worn
Jeans that drag like the ones
That barely missed the tight verbal target.

When I aim I aim to take it all,
Like the arid leaf grasps at moisture.
Sucking desperately cultural lines.

One stop shopping for argument ending,
The ancient critic of overbearing art.
How foul the smell of diversity must seem,

A nature I fear I've come to admire.
Fear that keeps stones from blending
To sands that dry out our lungs.

Those missing things, sharp arrows and all,
Shed plenty of heat from the fake pub fire
And we'll have another, just for good measure.

A Lesson In Waste

The bag man opens up and tells all
Rolling cigarettes with pages of the bible.
Little memories little things like teaching
Daughters how to collect bottles and
How to put a smile on a lonely man's face.
What are the men of the fields so
Afraid of? A father learns his lesson
And shares it with a son while he
Digs through soggy shoes to have
A meal that you would call despair.
With luck he'll fill his belly with
Melted glass and scraps of steel and
I'll shake his hand on monday nights
With a surge in my chest and a sword
At my feet, for all that we've killed
He's winning the war by bending his back.
Bar none from this place that hardens
Cheeks and makes hands burn red,
Because here pain washes over those who
Let their arms go and plant their feet firmly
In the sands of liberation. Words flow
Freely when none are concerned and
Set down their knees to give up their turn.

Trapped In Storms

Oh how I envy perpetual youth,
Trapped in storms of hormones
With houses set on strange foundations.

Pull the hand off the mannequin,
Shake many and more so
Dominating man is set as your goal.

Deadly daily mundane mechanics
In back of the brain a gunshot,
Let out and live on for love.

Fears so small conquering heights,
Walking on eggshells split cells
That make you superhuman souls.

With Your Midnight Headlights Off

Pick your head up and drive
A little slower.
Thank god this is over
As dreams move your mouth
Like an alternator belt.

Too cold to get out for the man
In the road, feet planted
With roots like a
Hollowed out baobab tree.

Pretend to listen, pretend to care
And flash your brights
So he can read his cue card
And whirl his arms in the air.

You said you hear him with
Your one good ear.
Hard earth and soft hands,
Coast to coast on the radio.

I asked him for a jump
From his gas powered lamp
But you were already pushing
And cranking on the wheel
As we barely miss the ditch.

In The City Of Saints

The stain on your oxford sweatshirt
And a beer on my bedroom balcony.
Absent minded, the intervention went
Something like a dance to a dead-pan waltz
So things are never as hopeless as they seem.

Everyone picked up and drove away with
Slow respect dripping from the exhaust
That was felt like a red-faced child
Inside the closet door, heart racing with regret
And fear that this time he went too far.

Sunken eyes see judgement as a curse
And save themselves in a chemical confession,
But perhaps it's better than the verbal rod
Or a switch that came from the mouth of a friend.
The truth doesn't know the difference between it.

So any outstretched hand that's cut
Is justice now for a long lost grudge
And traveling through time is a one-way show.
The only entertainment in this pious hell
Is a vision of the future that none of us know.

A Sonnet For My Sister, At the End of the World

Our mile high markers are reduced
To spreadsheets of dead space, and youth,
As bold as the future may seem,
Embrace the fear of an unknown place,
An unknown species of fowl or fawn,
An unknown matter of rest and
Learn to obsess in the shape of the grain
Or hills that hate could never have climbed.
Sink in slow and salivate for the
Spoken word of an ancient bird so
Frightening it gives man a reason to dance.
Give yourself four hands and greet
The earth's illustrious kin and when
You've met them all you can finally begin.

All Things That Are Moving

What became of those young bodies burning,
Rushing through flesh at a forward glance?
Time makes fit the knowledge of body
And the main course is always a little disappointing,
So spread it out for ages through darkness
And light and bloom through the terror
Of a windowless winter. Splintering shapes
And sanding the surface, such changes make
Lifetimes into moments and seldom does
boredom get a word in edgewise when
Celebration occurs with the changing of the leaves.
Absence takes shape in to models of memory
And men are boys again making calls
On the company dime from a calendar kiosk,
Where words would flow like the pain in
Our knees on those rocks beside the bay.
Returning and leaving and waking and dreaming
Will grip like the hand to the moving
Rubber rail, and differences then are
Differences now but nothing can contain
What grows like the sea.
Infinitely you and infinitely me.

Bring Them To Babel

Proud flesh masons put their work on display
So masochists can gaze and stain
Their pants with the wine of life.

Grip hard and push to smite the poor devils
That too often will sink in the
Sick stuff that we bathe them in.

The endless paper chain is cut a certain way
And those ill wives that don't follow the line
Should've known the taste of bread before it was made.

Teach them all to eat right and drive right and shit right
So growing is kept in a physical cage,
With clipped and dull wings only for show.

The only way out is to bring them to Babel
And lead them astray so comfort becomes a detestable thing
That keeps them away from the hollow shell.

The Daily Race

Run for cover under cover of changing skies
Creeping gray and spots of light.
These clouds connect to other concrete
That still hasn't moved though feet
Have stepped over many ages and many places
And have seen no man greater than the sea.

My heart's in the middle where it long left it's seed.

The daily race to beat out the best of the day
Pumps blood through the veins of this
Wondering organ so colorfully plain.

Start pissing and spitting,
Draining and filling,

So weak men finally have something to fear.

A Young Man's Armor

Red faced straight jacket and a chorus
Of excuses for an overdressed mess.
Seeing and speaking seem so desperately separate
And when tall and slender, stretched out,
Feels the footsteps in the sand,

A universe of doubt has it's eyes on you.

Sweat it out and inside skin that's
Swelling from the bee sting thoughts
About why the elephant is moving towards
The antelope and who the hell would
Give him hope of anything more than a smile.
Spitting up words and admiring curves
Is all that evolution allowed,

So take off your shirt and make your mother proud.

Nothing Starts If Nothing Ends

Brain matter longs for body temperature changes
And regular patterns of cross stitch bliss.

This subtlety is sin in it's conquering complacence
And sweats out the body into an unknown form.

Change
Me
Please.

Two isn't four and four is the number
That flowers should shed as they willingly end.

Layers of love that fall and re-form
Have faded with all the promises of fate.

Bend
Your
Knees.

Cut the straight and narrow straps that
Keep shade from the insects that live too long.

All the good ones come from a cold hard bone
That thaws with the melody of looking ahead.

Become A Prophet In Minutes!

The one night stand medical man
Makes a quick diagnosis for a lifetime of want.
Needs only run so deep when the surface
Was covered by over-zealous scribes.

The savior is time to look for salvation.

An unread script is the oracle of wisdom
That tells us how to feed a man

And love a man
And drug a man.

What mind have we to make these weeds
Then pluck them half grown,
Claiming the earth would be better off
Without them.

The ground is wine that's poured for thee.

All Creatures But Us

White tiger build nations
Stripes showing age and count all
the ways to feast so fantastic.
The apes make safe some future
Forgotten, but protect your young
Oh tired ones or they may be the mark
of old White's delight.

Fire is fire and rain is our friend
but such bitter spices invaded our soup
At the root of the flourishing tree.
The quick stripped leaves, inequitably green
And blinding the eyes of our predator's soul,
Will make men into gods and gods into me.

The Buzzword Is Broken

Those men that fear change

Change in the weather
Change in the sun
Change in the way the moving is done.
Change of the power
Change of the lips
Change of the quick drip stock market tips.
Change in gender
Change in glands
Change in who's holding hands.
Change for the scarred
Change for the torn
Change for men with stripes to be worn.
Change in the graveyards
Change in the bricks
Change in the junkie that needs a good fix.
Change in a right eye
Change in a kiss
Change in a dead end heavenly list.
Change in our movements
Change in our minds

They are the future that must not survive.

Cast Out and Drive Straight

Break hard earth bold faced and take
Shots with pain like some men dream
To bury their youth.

Shake fast and loose this sense of
Past self that's faded like the lines
Of labels for gin.

Those steel stern sails can direct you to
Storms to make your blood warm and
Cook your heart rare.

But as long as the anchor is embedded in flesh,
Pushing through layers of steel wool skin,
The spirit will stick to the barest of stones
Waiting for boldness to break free from within.

The Saints

Raxed with guilt the gracious greed
Feeds nimble elbows that bend
For nothing but a well-cooked meal.

The saints are those with slings to steal.

Well mended am I for several stiff years,
But wearing cartilage like a peacock
I betray the root of my upturned nose.

The saints are those who show their bones.

Men construct to the second floor then
Balance in the middle naive beam dream
That they are the ones who struggle to lose.

The saints are those with holes in their shoes.

Incoherent confessions sink into concrete
And tears are the dinner of vegans grinding their teeth
For fake sausage links made of pâtè.

The saints are those who die everyday.

Don't Get Your Shoes Wet

Dark alley showers spitting sinks at a time
With loud cries that bounce from
Window to wall.

I am dried up inside
Like dragging skin on leather, just leaving
A trace of cells in the bumps and the bruises.

Fate chooses men with a blood soaked sponge
Wiping clean any trace of real truth,
So lie like the wind, you arrogant youth.

When did the right arm become the symbol of fortune?
Those desert-dead dogs who chose to throw left
Make the game less fun for everyone.

So freeze if you must to prove some ill point
That sounds so sick to pin prick minds.
Maybe a beating will bring him around.

The Clash Communication

Quick shot smiles and syncopated nods
at two or three notes collected together
Make men into brothers if only for a moment.

We strangle these objects in just the right places
And if any happen to survive we'll let it slide
As long as the future is too far to recognize.
Warm up hearts with old familiar faces and
Stretch them out to create a brand new
Form of clash communication to shake
Loose the walls of the misappropriated.

Count in and count out.

Pick up and break down what holds
Together the countless miles of unspoken
Love to be shown through a song.

Twelve Modern Men

The ground is spilled glitter on pale construction paper
As curses are heard from the sunset slaves
Preparing a path for the non-nocturnal.

Twelve modern men ache the burden of one
As far back as the cycle seems to begin
Men shuddered less at nature's white release.

Now exit quickly the oldest at heart
And abandon the hope of conquering fear
With rusty iron arms and a fire-tipped spear.

Those at the first stage of global grief
Will act like they're shocked when grandma dies
But they are the ones who poisoned her eyes.

Meanwhile the pining for silence carries on
And catches the tears that so often melt
If they don't first freeze in the pure winter air.

A Second Look, A Second Meal

The celtic tiger ate my dreams
With jaw clamped shut and one
Tooth gleaming and showing the air
The last of the elephant hopes.

When he saw me he spoke with
A copper-soaked throat that seemed
To echo of a future endeavor.
He must have known it was time to let go.

The decision was waiting inside of cave trees
Where other men waited on fate and a
Paycheck that came from less honorable means,
And we all know how useful flesh is as bait.

Ignoring the stone that split on the tongue
May have been a deadly mistake since
Words are as slow as the Liffey at night,
Pulsing with the beat of a nation's heartache.

Take a second look, a second meal
And serve the past as a post-dinner snack
Because dessert is sweet but death is not.
Knowledge of nature is what we lack.

A Disease As The Future

These among us seem plucked from the endless
Dozens and dozens of what the world sees
As half grown weeds in a garden of sanity.
Perhaps these bitter greens were purely
Mother's luck forced upon the bed and
We make the dressing from our particular air,
But life exists in an expanding array of atmospheres.

Why can't more than one be here?

We are the drug addict preachers and the
Whoring politicians, defining hard notions
With over ancient motions, rejecting any kind
Of brand new evolution in action and thought.
Millennia will make the consumer consume until
The earth has turned over the tables we set.

An Exercise In Exhaustion

Warp speed binary insomnia and a
Sloth of rot in the gut.

The OCD induced counting of the hours
As they drain away in a bright red
Dye that was meant for the morning.

Young women and old men,
Even younger women and very dead men,
They speak with voices of radio noises
And pound on my temples with
Unrelenting tempos and words of
Overwhelming hope and despair.

How deadly the morning.

How precious the air.

Beads of consciousness as water
Left upon wood to slowly seep in.

Welcome the morning,
This life wearing thin.

Be Sure To Make Your Bum Bed

Face down in the dirt the conversation pit
Sits seemingly in it's white and yellow waste,
Made of such stuff that walks the earth for
Generations until it's burned by drunken teenage boys.

After twelve nights straight on a bed of concrete
The giant piss pillow is a showroom mattress,
Only there's no scared shitless stock boy calling
His manager to kick the trash to the curb.

So instead of calling sanitation, turn it upright
So your disgust can be one man's vacation from
The dark prison breeze of the lake in winter,
Where no man is guilty no matter what you think.
God damn the man who watches his waste
Like the great right eye of misery and greed.