pain
be the body of grace.
horrible grace uttered over
and over a
gain
ful waste.
you and i told lies for fear.
we were never really there
in love.
but now we're here.
prayer can't stop a thing,
I try bending a knee
or a wish.
but na,
I ain't to religious; so talking to god
becomes addictive too quick.
you have found something new,
I've found the old foundry.
all night pouring cauldrons of liquid hot into a bad cast.
sparks so sexy and comforting,
i see them jumping from the window of my belly button.
god,
there's hell in me.
i'm being disposed of as i watch
a new lava
being poured in an old way.
fuck,
im asleep,
drunk,
tilted,
restful.
i'd suggest you go now.
They said:
"You on a path to get shot."
In the form of a bullet,
straight through my head,
pink mist and all.
How much is a life worth?
or how much does lead weigh?
In forms underlayed with venom,
I have perpetrated goodness.
In ways misunderstood
I have appeared evil,
and maybe this is so.
it's no good,
no good,
no good.
No good for tomorrows,
where coffee's been cold,
tastes like battery acid,
kicks nervous systems up into highest gear--range = infinite.
then kills.
It's no good.
No good for saturday afternoons,
lonely as clear blue sky
on open highway
hurtling through ferocious air.
No good.
Definitely not a monday morning thought:
A day for hangovers,
tightly-capped lips,
shit-smelling piss,
and linoleum stained as an old man's scalp.
It's no good for that time.
It's good for moments:
the window open, the tune of hurled air humbling your eardrums. Music loud, but not unbearable.
someone laughing in the back, kicking up their feet on the headrest
and taking the last sip of Wild Turkey.
Asleep in a securely blue bar;
laying your head on the wood paneling;
feeling the hum-drum earthworm of puke
on your tongue: Tasting guacamole and seared steak.
When the cop hurls around, cuts the lights, and hops out the squad
like a monster with a conscience.
You know you're drunk,
but fear doesn't hit you
until everyone involved
has peeled off.
Fear lingers, like shaking a dead man's hand,
but there are other things that wash well.
you and her.
It's good for moments perplexing,
it calms.
It's good for moments of fear,
it throttles you into sanity.
It's good for moments of confidence,
it humbles.
It's good for clarity,
it maintains.
I can’t really tell you
About love,
You.
I’m interested in fucking
Till I’m raw, and holding
You like the universe you
Are.
Sometimes I go around
With hoes,
Smoking blunts till we fume
And sing and laugh
And start getting handsy.
Sometimes they have their kids in the other room,
And they yelp and laugh; when I look into these hoes
Eyes, all I see is aggression. I’m not seeing myself.
I’m not saying these things
The way I want them to be sung.
Most of my money
Runs out the door. Like a bandit,
Trouble likes to peep me when I’m at my worst.
The cops have never been so horny
As when they see me, and they fondle
Holsters.
I go alone a lot. To a lot of places.
Hoes, Money, Depression, Debt,
Bad Credit, All kinds of Addiction,
Porn, Alcohol, Weed, Codeine, Nicotine,
My brain is a Chemical Frenzy,
Most days I’m hovering like a mote.
I graduated,
Look at my degree: Fuck Me.
I have come home to a confining place,
A spit-swallowing place, full of half-breathed people
And tight-lipped sorrows.
I can only
go
when it’s convenient
And necessary.
I can only
be
when it’s part of a digression,
Never progression.
Food tastes like paper,
I’ve taken a likening.
Lights are fastened to the sky,
The glue wears, washes my eyes in milk,
The jewels drop,
The world ends.
Then it all snaps back into place, eerily,
So clean I never saw it.
Ask me if I can tell you about love,
When I can remember your body
And
It’s casual thump,
Clothed or not,
Drunk or sober,
Speaking or silent.
Ask me if I can drive home and peel back the sky with my left hand, while steering Earth into oblivion,
As I lean across wind-swept galaxies of dust, ash, and settled nicotine
To kiss Florida Orange lips, sip the nectar of insanity, and
Swerve on universe eyes.
Across town, there’s no across. It’s just the town.
The dogs being fed by master, master toys,
Makes dogs bend, cower, quiver, then shoots dog
Out of the bow. Dog gnaws air through gritted fangs,
Finalizes his stupidity, gives up on his own self-confidence,
And lets it roar with a hand up his ass.
The pigeons coo, cluck, fuck, fly,
Coo, cluck, fuck, fly,
Coo, cluck, fuck, fly.
Foxes run around the yard chasing tails,
Motives based in circles,
Saving slowing down and puking for death
as they Yap like pups.
Master watches from a high gallery
of Windexed windows so clean,
That you can see master’s muscles tightening as master laughs.
happiness and darkness.
Cars, trains, automobiles,
Flying machines, high ideas, fulfillment,
Continuation, carbon and all things irrelevant,
Master loves you.
In town, Pop tells the kids he’s on his way,
Mama shatters into a million brilliant pieces,
And Grandad’s sigh comes out his mouth with the care of a habit.
The kids are corralled into the basement to play,
mess with each others genitals, and put on azalea dresses
And heavy suits with black ties.
With all the venom of moths
They let their little mouths flutter in the dark,
as Mama and Poppa hurl everything they can.
Master gets drunk on equilibrium,
High on acid, perks, dipped bud,
Brushes teeth with alcohol
And spits out his/her teeth in the morning.
Way after the dogs were put to bed to tuck their tails in their legs,
The foxes following suit, the pigeons in the middle of the mess, somewhere.
Mom, Pop, Kids, Grandad, finished talking in low voices around 11:16 pm.
As they shredded the charade, ashamed at all its pieces,
Their mouths watered; I have no hope.
Across town, it’s not a town,
It’s a random house.
Last night, a thump.
A body hurled, third floor.
Second floor doesn’t do that kind of thing.
It’s 2 am.
That time of night when people when wake up anyways.
Blue-dark like antifreeze.
I was hard trying to go to sleep.
My bank account’s been throttled by loans,
Bills, Coronas, Blunts, Girls.
They shut off the water.
I walked to the store and saw a friend.
Ashamed, I laughed,
Said I liked water. “Water like liquor
like Koolaid like fun. “
What I really meant was:
“Water like survival like broke like stupid.”
This girl operates in ideas,
Dances like a ballerina,
Acts like an actress,
And will probably get bored soon.
There’s one across town that knows her way
around a lollipop, calls me sweet,
wears red just the way I like it,
sucks dick with both hands
and doubles over to her tiny knees to laugh.
The actress is less sustainable,
but I sustain thoughts about her more.
The thump, it interrupts,
Distorts a globular fantasy into a brilliantly skewed
Pixelated awakening.
Pixels drain out. Room
Clears of smoke. Velvet embalming begins, purple night quickens,
Halogen streetlights invade in battalions.
Fuck me.
There’s a girl with a rancid pussy
I still love.
The electricity thrums.
I’ve never been humble;
Super-conscious.
I can hear second floor:
footsteps light like sex fear,
tipping to the nexus. To the spot
where some hurled
lies,
above even them.
Third floor gets down like that. I can’t be a hero.
I used to think it was second floor.
But they don’t get down like that.
If we shut off the power,
You’ve gotta pay.
I know, I know,
How much?
180.
Carlos used to live on third.
Wife took the kids and dipped,
That elephant footed baby,
And the mouse-footed teen.
Carlos brought all kinds up after that,
Muffin women with huge, roach eyes,
Emaciated blondes with seamounts running their spines,
Thick, buggy black girls with asses I wanted to stick my dick all the way into.
Then he quit. Broke one day. Told me everything was mine if I went up there,
and he was gone.
Third Floor was there in two days.
Bruh, they caught u stealing.
How much?
Don’t know, they were just talking about it at work today.
Shit.
I watch way too much porn. Tonight,
I get horny enough to burn holes in my palms.
Maybe it’s the fear and anger.
Third floor is not my problem.
The cat
followed me
in the door
last muggy night.
on a return trip
from a beer run,
Kurt heard a yowl
as screaming as any hurt guitar,
and looked under his volvo
into the far dark.
Two canary eyes
leered.
Then,
slinking,
the canary eyes
moved.
And this cat
rubbed its body,
the length of its shivering spine
along my
small shins.
And that cat
followed me
in.
I put you
over my shoulder
like a spooled
rope.
Twisted too many
directions,
a little tug
and you might go
anorexically
thin;
too taut for me
to yank anymore.
And when you come to me
drunk,
a whore
of yelling,
I think of those times
when we sat close together,
barely touching.
In those days,
we were both drunk
and bitter over forever.
Beers chased liquor
over steeples;
we dropped dimes of pain
over smoked weed
and bleeding anger.
Time languored,
and eventually
or anger
stymied.
When you cried
twisted beyond
compare,
I held you close,
sniffed your hair.
People hurt each other because they can,
and we lay
on a mattress of your canned hopes.
I would never be a prince charming,
even when I groped
you;
when we were tossing each other,
fighting like ghosts do:
bad jabs,
quiet knives,
softer moans.
So, I curled you
over me;
beneath my earlobe,
as your whistled tears
drained energy.
Our synergy was syphoning
each other's
pain;
coiling nooses around our hearts
and kicking out the chairs
holding up our underneath souls.
Loves
meek-mongerers,
calls when there's
no alcohol left:
no more balling
today.
Pisses on you in the morning
and walks out the bathroom
laughing like a pig.
A response
and a beginning,
now in a blanket,
my blood boiled when we were closer.
Had so much fun,
those times,
when love
asked you to stick a lime between
your teeth
and pour salt on her pussy.
Cats howling at night, right
outside my window,
and I call and call and call
a whole bunch,
until every single one
asks from the brawling fence:
"you still talking about that cunt?"
"get off her."
"she's not the one."
"no need for all of that."
"keep it chill."
And they still--don't know.
Bit down,
fucked up tongue.
Little eavesdroppers
run from my windows;
pretentious fucks
go vegan
as the world turns;
coffee bum,
cigarette bum,
love bum
all become one;
a lot to say
in the moment 'fore the big bang,
but daddy forgot to pull the trigger,
and
none of us are on the run;
nobody loves me;
nowhere to go,
no-one to be.
Take it.
Be fucked by it.
Love it.
Take that tit of despair,
bite down,
rip away the nipple,
and fuck up your tongue
on all that up-chuck
because if you don't
you're the one that's getting fucked up.
Night starts
with a drip,
and roaches move your feet.
But when day comes,
it comes.
Fear is
as good as sunshine,
it keeps you lose,
then tight.
The Jamaican bones,
having been ground into
sugar,
are whipped into coffee
and grey goose.
A mouthy mix,
and it seems
to cleanse the whole earth;
cannibals praise the lord
in all of his glory.
And on the way
to the first day
of forever,
the iron in my blood
clings to my gums.
I know you there
on the highway,
as we both drive with our
heads downwards,
our evil hearts
cuddling cowardly innards.
Press your fingers,
dismember what lingers.
Crack those knuckles,
smack those palms
and blow that screaming bone.
Today drunks got up,
on an upended axis.
And wobbled
on driven souls,
driven to piss
and let the hate loose.
A drunk walked in mud
to work,
and his boss sported a smile
of sad pride.
He had done a great job,
and no one knew.
When they were sitting down
on the couch,
cracking the air with laughter,
the country man
looked up
and saw
a daughter of light on the floor,
slitted through the blinds.
He wanted so badly
to cry.
But didn't.
An imp limped
upstairs
and down, back again
to the basement,
and his old ma
heard him sparingly.
So much happened to day,
so beautifully
sad,
clear, and azure,
that the masks
of nails
spiking our faces,
slowly wore down
against steel skin.
When the sun went down,
aching for pain again,
they took the first swig,
then a second.
My teeth feel like plastic,
and I'm
going
hungry.
Today, is the day,
that I become a man.
Don't you know
I'm freaking?
Or did you think
the biggest control
was the one at your knees?
When I finally get out of here,
all the cardboard in the world
couldn't box me.
Punch me Love,
make my nose bleed.
I want to take it;
I need it my brutal valentine;
from you to me
I have nowhere to go;
you are desperate.
We are holy creatures,
and don't even know it.
If the ceilings dripped
liquid metal
and the scratchy rose-print sheets
bit out for our bodies,
we wouldn't know a thing.
If God jumped into bed
and tried to cram in between us,
there wouldn't be enough room.
In the deep night,
all the stars could come down shattering into knife light,
It would be perfect.
All the asteroids
could warp the earth into a bowl
of milk, and splotch
the solar system into a giant cow,
but we could not join in the teet-mashing mayhem;
there's nothing pure here,
and our fingers hunger for bad places,
instead of ushering in the good.
I do not know what we will do,
but the world is falling apart.
She is with him and,
I am here alone,
about to get kicked out
of my house.
He buys her sketchpads drawn
in love, while I weep
in the flourescent night.
I drink
enough to make you hurt
enough.
I'm young
and no one loves me.
Oh, hope
make your mess again.
Hope
don't keep asking more of me
than I'm willing to give.
Forreal tho,
I was in trouble before the boat sunk
and the drowned
finally let loose their blood
in bouyant droplets.
Because I was a little boy,
on the ship,
and you came in to my room,
and laid beside me
with a watermelon smell in your barrettes,
and a "I'm forever"
in your siuking voice,
as the ship tipped.
So much of me shrieks;
you make me.
Sometimes I hate myself,
when i'm lonely
and no one's around.
When I was younger,
Mommy used to call me a faggot,
Daddy used to call me dense
and then punch me harsh as an addict, addicted
me to pain.
I Used to wrap cords around my neck,
take lines to an addled brain:
crazy with masochistic Peter Rabbits,
tangling up their ears,
in mangled mesh wrapping.
Take sleeping pills till
I couldn't sleep ever again, from all the nightmares I was having.
But Mommy still laughed,
Daddy still hawked.
Faggots cry.
Don't tell your mother I'm drinking.
So no,
I can only love in one way.
I've got this shit
in my arms,
cuddled tight.
I could have it forever,
cold and beatless,
my heavy love.
Maybe there's no place to go,
but I feel like there's a place,
that only you know
about. That
seems so long ago.
Don't you know you've got a strong tongue,
and a whiplash heart?
This is why
you always have a boyfriend,
and I lay with you
in a bed that's not mine;
I never tell you I'm hurting.
Way past delusional,
I drove, forced down
into doggystyle by noon,
almost ass-raped by that suppressing sun-God.
And I saw something
confusing, but all to truthful.
A Boeng was coming in for a safe-landing,
strafing the sky,
when a Raven dropped from dim heaven
and got sucked into the turbines.
Crimson-mist, across the sky,
and my car as black as a feather.
I rumbled down this carbon-dioxide tunnel,
crying over love, heartbreak,
too drunk to be alive and
still trying to live,
and you know what,
I have nothing
and I wished that somebody
would hit me.
I don't know
if I'm gonna make it back. I need to be more tipsy
than just this.
There's a girl
gonna be in my bed tonight,
who's boyfriend used to strangle her
something crazy
when they'd fight.
GOD,
I could die in her
red-black hair with its pulverizing smell.
I wish I could offer her something more
at four in the morning, when she cries
and I just grab her close--
never knowing a thing
about anything.
