All this smoke, it robs me of your true scent
Winter, oh cold thief to steal you away
Across your tall mountains, come home again
Without you, all time is bitterly spent
If I could only see your face today
All this smoke, it robs me of your true scent
Your heart on mine, these senses do ferment
Warmer, sweeter than the first thaw of May
Across your tall mountains, come home again
Wrapped up in blankets, no need or event
Poor surrogate for want, oh warm ashtray
All this smoke, it robs me of your true scent
The sun shone down softly the hour you went
Left me asleep at the first light of day
Across your tall mountains, come home again
These cold days pass slowly, without event
Only spring's touch can bring you here to stay
All this smoke, it robs me of your true scent
Across your tall mountains, come home again
As Captain Jack kisses of the last roach
Lavender's in the boathouse window shouting that she's grown wings that she's gonna fly
over Old Casey's boat above the painted lake past where the music surrounds
permeates with the pulse of noise
Green Hat pulls me over says my name is Corey
or Kelsey
Kelly's a slut name I tell him back home people call me Blow
Enter Tennessee the cinnamon sipping reds smoking sonofagun
Are you Kevin?
I ask the fingers that familiar flight of touch leading me
down and
down and
down towards our game
"Never have I ever" howls the young Indian chief, scarf draped in madness
the fearless warrior Peepeeohpee
Someone has trapped the moon behind the window the house on the hill someone has fed the fire with its secret light
This stranger this enigma this Laura I am her cousin
and everyone I touch is Kevin
Then with the sun Tittas steps off the boat as Jesus
sacred palms slashed from last night's ritual
Bums a cig from Drew or Not Drew with the thousands out west and the lotus flower arms
Floats on her back French exhales
As I look at our feet stained orange with ink all slow spirals soft wind ganja flowers
then to the shore the fireflies still dancing through the dawn
Flying high
Secretly praying to each outshine the fade
Let's fly to France, let's swim to Spain
Would could row a boat, we could hop a train
I could rob a bank, you could steal a car
We could drive all night, we could race the stars
We'll get high on love, we will live in sin
Follow our feet past places they have ever been
Let's put out our thumbs, take a holiday
We could go right now, we could leave today
You could play your music, I could learn to paint
We could live as outlaws, we could change our names
We won't need no sleep, we won't care to eat
We'll just keep on searching, following our feet
Let's take a chance, let's run away
We could kill some time, we could even stay
Sun go down. You come round. Tap your horn in my driveway
Smell so smooth. Spark so sharp. Light me to your latest song
Line so fine. Smoke so choke. Leaving low we're getting high
Drive all night. Bump til dawn. We'll all keep going, moving on
To hate is to remain loving,
But for you I feel nothing,
But cold.
These hands used to be on fire
Like summer doused in kerosine, alight with lust for life
Snuffed out slowly, drowned in their own sweat
Now everything they touch is forgot. Forget,
But your mirage was never kind
To leave your trails of sand then hide
Short-circuit the engine of my mind
Now, these insects set in like poison
Inject their fever and move on
Of cheap heat, premeditated, less emotion
Calculated, slowly, as to draw the infection on
But two young hearts can never seem to last
Too fickle, fragile, thin as glass
So I'll search for flame in older arms
With their matches, find sparks of your love's warmth
Sick trick, sad ash, to make this season pass
They say the blacker the burn, the less it will last
If only I could fool myself just the same,
Because even cold hands can tell a dull flame.
"When you blew
When you blew out the smoke,
You were something beyond you
You were
so much more
Than you are,
a being, beyond yourself. Another life. You see
This moment in my life
I wish I could share more moments with you
This one moment, just speaking in your ear.
Just like this
Because when you blew out the smoke,
when you blew out the smoke, you were a queen."
You,
And the smell that soaks your fingers
Relative of plastic
Of chemical, clean
That spark I found in your eye
The likes of which I'd only caught once
Reflected in mine
Of punishment and heat
Of sin drawn to sin
And that name
The only fiber of you which slips my tongue
Lost in the ache, that moment, uncut
Purgatory in the itch
Of the crawling, of hunger
Stretched tight, the rubber of your skin
That night on the sink edge
I was transformed
Born into a need, a slow burn
On the back of your guitar
I traded in these bones for bread
Of brown dogs and devils
Homesick for heaven
Of feelings lost in the drip
Oh for Southern gentlemen
All snake eyes and slow drawl
Sad cheap trick souls, all the same
Creatures of arrangement, of mutual gain
So you were
naïve
So much of a wolf was
I
Silently
We lay
sharpening our claws
Things began in love seen through a filter
Numbed by
buzz
and tamed by drugs
Of the lingering calmness of a
comedown
And the
ricochet of our fingers
My sweet dope,
You were
Your last pull was
It's beat.
On the seventh day I met the devil
All alone on your bedside table
Without his flames and yellow tape
I hardly recognized him
Dressed in his casual whites
He just looked lonely
So I simply had to touch it.
And I said, "You sure make a big deal out of being bad"
He had a gun in his right hand
It was laughing
When I asked what was so funny
He told me it wouldn't hurt
Curiosity killed the cat,
and perhaps shot a beautiful water-colored hole through my brain.
He said, "Dip your toes in. Test the waters
See if they're as hot as they say"
So I jumped on in, headfirst
To discover the waters were ice cold.
Caution, lost in the motion,
The tender lapse of green sea waves
The scent that has become you,
Sweet, sweet summer rain.
Like magnets, the polar pull, subsequent and building
The silent seize of your stomach muscles
Oh honeycomb.
Wrapped in cellophane, and the fleece in our ears
Your chin, the small hollow in which rests my head,
The cradle of your Adam's apple.
For hours I studied the color transmit in the darks of your eyes,
Of subtle change and shade
The soft, downy wool of your legs,
Warm blankets rescued from the creaking loft.
And your slow, sleeping breaths, of wind whistling through wheat fields
Shared dreams of barefoot gardens, sweet peppers in springtime
The gentle obstinacy of your fingers,
Extended forward in the thaw of shallow slumber.
The difference between oak and pine,
This nest you constructed, we lay in.
Nestled underneath the galaxy you installed, pin by pin.
The stench of battery acid in the morning
The slippery lubricant of littered snakeskin on the floor
Trash that once found liberation, salvation in the motion of its use
Now limp, lifeless, devoid
Abandoned without muscle.
The shadow of our wicked forms, braced against the balcony edge
Nerves alight, take fire. The steepest bet, a wager of the deranged sense
And that smell. It hangs in the air, still
Engulfs you as the animal sense is heightened. Without reason, all is pleasure,
All is primitive.
Out on the veranda, Diana dances. Part impulse, part stimulant. Her dimples stretching wider, farther apart as continents. Her hips convulsing
Man with the long hair, "You burn you burn"
Oh mother, we were created equally. Together in one cruel, carbonate mass of malcontent motives, of wicked intent. Selfishness attracts selfishness.
We are but a refrigerator door full of strange magnets, gleaming. Your southern fingers,
Dancing a slow tango down my spine. Your grip, lowering, sweaty and deliberate
Oh viper.
The texture of freshly cut grass and vomit crusted over bare toes. All smells of peppermint,
Bitter citrus flower.
Woke up in the morning, dowsed in kerosene
Rose petals sticking to the roof of my mouth
"There is no heaven, no hell," he said. Only us.

