get righted

i understand you less as
the days get longer
like our teeth, like our hair
even i like a good fist in
a bad face or the wrong winner
for the right race, and i know
absolutely nothing about the future
other than the fact that i know nothing
but i still hope for the best
whatever that means

out of sync

sometimes i ask who i am
to a window, or a mirror
i can't tell the difference sometimes
sometimes i stutter because i'm happy
or because i'm afraid of your
sunset eyes

sometimes i'm guilty of everything
and it doesn't matter who did
what, said what and meant it
i mean it every day
sometimes i can't beat that out of me

there's really no punching bag in my room
but i pretend sometimes, and sometimes
i just punch walls, flimsy walls
because there's nothing to hate
and sometimes i need dichotomy

sometimes we are two sheets of paper
that can't hold onto graphite
i am stained with yours, not quite
aligned, not quite right or wrong

time bomb

i could fall for seconds
before i hit, i'm
that nervous around your
voice, don't worry, kid
i'll shiver for a while

if i felt young again
would that be good? because
i do, and it feels like
going bad

i'm a kid rebel
i am underwhelmed
if i look for trouble
know i cannot help it
no, i cannot help it

may 26, 9pm: CVS

like i say, i barely
recognized your face
when you toppled from your
shelf, caught up in yourself
crying for some food some rest
some piece of goddamn sanity.
your apartment's the down the street.

i guess you relented
from your eyes, they looked so glazed
though your hair maintained its
shape through all the crying
oh, the aisles look so small
next to an elephant this tall

how are you? i wish i knew
sometimes i think you're
crying down the room, it turns
out laughter but it
scares me nonetheless
twenty-one years and i don't know
where you live

you took your bottle
of magic little pills, so i
hope you eat your fill
and at the register you opened
up your eyes

guess i'm prolific

i am
string cheese, strangely
it's not the first thing i'd think
but i'm peeling apart like
an orange from its peel

it's not nausea or coronary
call the coroner
he'd be interested in
this skeleton of a school

real

nowadays i'm so wordless
it's like i'm crushing
syllables and sunsets
into parables and lies
i don't know who to hate, nobody
everybody's second-rate
because i can't admit i'm inches
past the line

(one two three four.
who's left,
what's the score?)

we're dropping like flies, like hammers
you're sinners, bathed in glamor
and i can't find my lines
i keep losing life in rhymes

nowadays the roads all cross
like dreams unsure of living
and i can't, i can't
even tell you what i feel
somehow it should be special
but it's not

(one to zero,
you versus me)

lilac roadkill blues

yeah the road it opened up to him
and swallowed half his
mind to take the test
on behalf of all the rest
and he just went on living, living
like a fool

and the songs they hollowed out
they left him high and dry
like all the rest
to take the test
of whether he could find, find
a better sky

so he left and took his clouds
and his old forgotten shoes from
last september
remember
you gave him half a flower
just because

and he got back in for curfew
just in time for one more drink
remember
last september
back then he didn't think

get lonely

i had this vision
i was underneath the ground
and the world came to meet me
but it didn't make a sound.
when the doors
finally gave way
there was no one i could see
not one familiar face.
so i opened windows, and i
turned the fan on loud
just to swallow all the silence of the crowd
they went down smooth
like crows
oh, nothing wants to grow
not with rain, or sun
or salt

my little light

and these signs, they're all blank
like the checks i must sign, here
take my life
take my friends, take my brain

it's like being forced to burn my throat
with all your stomach acid
i've got no pensieve and i
i can't remember all your minds
and i'm failing forty subjects just to stay in line

and i
i can't write poetry when i'm sad
because what i want i never get
and half of me wants to let you go
because the other half is scared

so it comes out like this

i guess i'll jump on this band wagon

yell around for twenty miles
our little lights all cut our smiles
under eyes that want for rest

television playgrounds, washed up lives
over-believers, god we're self-deprived
only for others, watching this mess

not so bold

if skies can change from rain to snow
why can't i see down this road?

reception rock

no, i don't want to keep on
reuniting with these things
without you all
i don't want to see my ship leave harbor
and i sure as hell don't want to
be the one to call it back

guess i'm the sap.
(but you know, mountains speak
better than circuits).

rain, torso, fire

you feel like a felony
and i'll fall down next to you
if i have to, roll down to meet you
curl up to prove i can do this
while the rain meets my feet in
great blocks of hesitancy
button by button
a game of expertise
never have i ever lifted my feet

strange, you kept me warm for split
seconds, like fractures
you felt strong and simple
and i'm talking real, real
one plus one and so on
because you could
kumbaya and all, and maybe i stared too
long at your scar

(not that either of us had delusions.
you know, it would have been
a kind thing to do
out in the middle of nothing, a first
for me at least.)

five, maybe six of us packed up like
the kids we are, thinking about
smoke and fire, fire and rain
the year 1980 and pheromones
this is where i get off
(no, not like that.)
twelve o'clock and in twenty
minutes i bet this will all be a dream

it kind of feels like that, anyways

cellar door (breadloaf 3)

when i awake
in twelve different positions and alone
swollen and alone
when somnolence sets me choleric, clustered
i become a sheep, and i'll follow you like a
sheep even when you whisper death in my ear
because your watch fob glints, you see?
and i'm willing to follow your glint even
thought it tells me
time is running out
and i know for a fact where caravan leads.

black box (breadloaf 2)

i could wear you like a pendant
sink into you and take your
linen, corduroy
until you were bare-chested in the dark
until your smile disappeared
and you sighed a lamp out, for me
to see my handiwork
and know that i created you with a hand and
kept you singing in my sternum

blitz (breadloaf 1)

we tried to sink our teeth into each other
but it all came up bricks.
chipped teeth, stale vermouth, your voice heavy with
blame you won't assign
just keep on moving, four-cornered mind
i scratch at you with my eyes but of course you will never hear it.
it's all blue skies, black box, put on a face
does love do that to you?
words skinned at numbed by too many bricks
too many fingerprints clawing for your attention
as if a word of thanks would bring this box
down with us

rock

i am a gutter-dweller, true
but i still appreciate a sunset, dogwoods
and clear water even when it's still
and if i'm singing
well i'm singing just for you

i am off-kilter, under-understood
and half the time it's by my own construct
but i know it and you know it
and hell, that won't change the sky
which we wouldn't even if we could

self-degradation is a lifestyle and a fiend.
it is green-glass tea and self pity
underwhelming over-achievement
my eyes are peeled for introspection
and all anyone ever finds is a poem

but i know wind in my hair.

i always have, i suppose
it's kind of a curse, i lose myself in prose
and i talk too much
about things that aren't quite true
i keep on forgetting to see
what's right beneath my nose.

family theme

we've thrown punches before
go ahead, you owe me one
but i swear to god if you walk out that door
it doesn't matter, nothing matters

if that's what you've become, brother
if that's what you are

we've been to hell and back
(at dammit, that's not a metaphor)
and every day we'd knock one back
because hell, heaven's getting sleepy
and it's so damn strange that angels
would bring us so far down

and you know i'm not at my most eloquent
it's this bloody nose
but you've never had trouble understanding me
i guess it goes to show how far we've come
and gone

the best fight

it's not always this bad.
your eyes may glisten now
but it takes a hero to lift a toe
to toe with the enemy, the veil
to simply live is a herculean effort
i know, but you came out on top

i am a lens, bending time
wondering what lives in your
four-cornered mind, seeing
helping you see
i hope i'm not wrong

crows again. times, they change
so do you.

love is real

partly (moses parting the sea of reeds)
i think i must be sylvia's snake
silver, consuming
that these chords are cords
and my hands are tied, biblical
songs fall into my ears, eyes
i have never tasted steam

but sinai screamed when we lost faith
and we placed our hearts in gold
thinking we had been abandoned
by a biological process, empty of energy
forgetting to stare into the sun

while below, the rock springs water
it flows to nobody (because there isn't anyone)
and nobody drinks it
though i wish he would
hold me, because nowadays he can

still, it flows

not fade away, or so they say
today i believed in god and i listened to flowers
and wanted to drink water
but i can wait
just as long as these chords go on
and just as long as i have a song

yes. you're right.

i keep on hearing things like whispers
in the grey, they say he was
brilliant in his very own way
the eyes all remain
dead-set on horizons, different
and chilling and beautifully plain
how would you like to be
fifty and fading
or left on the side while everyone knows
just how to redeem their life-long calling
or crying, it seems we're the only ones left

but it wasn't blood

five seconds too long, five seconds to
stall, this isn't fog
this isn't my car
metal bedsheets like rope made of
steel, all curled and hurled
through eyes and they're peeled, yeah
but i never wanted it
all i can see is red soda like blood
and smoke through the metal
all curled like nails, this is
five seconds to stop and to think
not to feel, i'm scared and i'm late
and the metal is real

going slowly

here's the thing, i
i don't know where to go
track my tracks down the dimples
of my back. this full-frontal
assault on my full-frontal lobe
i'm just dying to redeem myself
before i'm just some kid
i'm just counting clocks, chewing rocks
waiting to remember

it's not easy to take another picture
when i know that i'll still be here
and you'll still be here
and neither of us will know it
i can't really know
you shoved me into a cold sweat
deep threat, counter-culture kid
my own personal vietnam
these hearts and minds are walking slowly home
and it's sad, but here's the thing:
i don't know.