When you don the mantle of murderer
Two graves are dug.
One for your victim
And one for your soul.

People mock children for believing in Santa Claus,
And
People mock the religious for believing in God.
But
If you ask me, there is nothing wrong with believing in something
That loves you and accepts you,
Whether you believe in them or not.
That is true love.
The suspension of doubt,
And the acceptance of the love that we deserve
That is at this very moment, trying to make you believe.

Pulling a punch is a sign of strength.
Brutality can be metted out
By nearly anyone,
A straight razor or a shotgun
Does not make a man strong.
Mercy is a virtue everyone should pursue,
For the merciful are bathed in grace,
And shall understand loves depths.
Mercy spreads as a contagious infection.
Leaders provide the example
That molds the lives of those who support
As well as oppose them.
Lifting up your enemies
Is a karmic synonym for making lifelong friends.
Around the bend is a better place for all of us,
An all inclusive, in-exclusive paradise
The entrance to which lies in your hand,
The kind touch you lend,
And your willingness to make a stand
For love above all else.

Say what?
She said,
And I said
"What".
She giggled,
And I blushed under my beard,
Wrote a song for her,
And burned it in my head.
"He's a one trick pony, I said.
I was talking to myself."
I pointed at the man in question,
Gracing the tabloid cover.
She laughed,
Cascading harps
Strummed by the wind.
Red hair,
Tied back,
Pink lips,
Freckled nose,
Gold and green eyes.
The check out girl who stole my soul.

Vodka from the bottle,
Warm.
Hot dogs from the package,
When your down and dirty
The grotesque becomes magic.
Pawning a guitar for a pellet gun,
To procure breakfast.
Squirrel stew in the back of a scamper camper.
Spotlighting bullfrogs,
And mopping floors for a hot meal,
And a cold beer,
And a sympathetic ear.
Nights when the blacktop turned into void,
And the painted lines became a tightrope to nowhere.
Full circle,
Bangor to Frisco,
Any woman who was willing to sleep in the bed of a truck
Was a queen for as long as she stayed,
Always had weed concealed on me,
The copper piece of road currency,
To the gold and silver, of ass and gas.
The exchange rates would change overnight,
But syphon some gas at a truck stop
And it all will be alright.
Misspent youth, following bands
And getting lost along the way.
Vodka from the bottle,
And hot dogs from the package.

I was burning in my own torture chamber,
While you baked a pie and split it with your sister.
I never walked my own path, just where I was dragged.
You think I didn't eat salt and razorblades for breakfast?
The throbbing beat that is the cadance of my death
Is inaudible to you I suppose.
If go away is your mantra.
Excuse me,
I'll let you get back to meditating.

Did what I said this morning make it through?
Who is watching us,with the book of the dead tattooed on their skin?
Will you ever let me back in your trailer?
Can you make one for me, so I can make one for you at home?
Do you remember when your bootstrap broke,
And I broke down for you...The emotional shuttle crash?
Do you remember when I told you I was bad news,
And I would hurt you, and I was arrogant too?
Do you remember how many brownie points I still owe you?
Am I still someone you want around?
Should I leave you be, and never turn back?
What do you want from me?
Can I tell you what I want from you?

I hear talk, of the cruelty, and heartlessness of humans,
but I see things on a regular basis that disprove this.
There is no cruelty in a childs kiss, the gently caressed cheek
that puts a smile on your face.

But, today I saw the clincher,
a RIP sticker,
for
A Squirrel...
It hit me like a punch made out of "What the fuck?"
I didn't know whether to smile and break into tears,
or shake my head in curmudgeony disbelief.
A memorial sticker for a road kill...

Would an animal do such a thing.
I think not. They'd eat the thing
or just as some leave it to rot.
A Road kill memorial sticker
is about the craziest compassionate thing I've seen...
Animals don't memorialize us when we die...
Of course, that's not true.
I remember my dad's old mangy bloodhound...
and how, after he died, she moaned everyday, at the time he used to come home from work.
For weeks she did it, just sitting  by the door
and moaning.
Until the sun set,
then she would slink and lie at the foot of his chair..
She died two months later.
And if that isn't mourning I don't know what is.
Maybe animals and humans aren't all that different,
we just mourn differently.

I can remember the first time
I stepped through the mirror
into the Umbra.
Flash
crashing glass
into darkness.
Being propelled along by arms darting
from out of the darkness
squeezing and groping,
ripping off clothing.
Then came the mouths,
too many mouths to count,
it was maddening,
sucking and licking
shoving and poking
endlessly forward
through a sensual gauntlet,
soon I was pushed to the floor
at soon I was being fucked,
one after another, mounted by a horde
of hot flesh, gyrating,
hands probbing, and squeezing.
Gasping for air,
after mouth after mouth covers mine,
tongues tongues tongues tongues,
Coming,
over and over again,
eyes bulging with maddening release.
Alk the while propelled forward,
the floor a conveyor belt,
and just when the pleasure becomes too much to take,
it all goes away,
and I'm dumped unceremoniuosly in a blinding white chamber,
surrounded by mirrors.
And As I crawl to my feet, naked and wet, sore and aching
I look up into the mirror,
and I see that
I am you...
That was the last time I stepped into the Umbra.

I've met people that live their lives like a burning building,
All motion and light, excitement, smoke and fiery glow.
They mostly have wavy hair, like the constantly moving surf.
I'd like to think I am this kind of person,
For the allure they project,
But in the end, opposites don't attract,
Only opposite personalities.
If there are no similarities, then
Nothing will come of it.

I'm a gently flowing river,
Only when my temper melts the icecaps,
And the melt water rushes down,
Only then do I rage.
(Flash flooding on occasion)
A burning building and a river,
About as far apart as two personalities can go,
This goes to show you how this funky freaky universe works.
Cosmic soda jerks, making asteroid root beer floats,
Balls floating through blackness,
Flaming and frigid stars and comets,
All spinning just right, to create this magnetic field
That drew me to you.

I meander and I have my rapids and waterfalls,
My shallow pools, and deep ravines.
But you rage with a fire that cannot be extinguished.
It is a marvel when we collide,
And together we make steam.

Mixed up messed up
wacky Yankee doodle world,
curled up in a ball
like an animal should,
its no good running guns
and popping and burning in your own hood.
Used to be bike chains and brassknuckles
A Filipino dude with a balisong,
but now its a Beretta in every waistline.
Machine pistol mean mugs
putting drugs above people
in the hierarchy of the streets,
cold blooded hits, where there used to be beating.
No wonder every Tom Dick And Harry, is crying Apocalypse Now!
It's not over till everybody gets a chance to sing, take it all in.
Begin anew, step through, and claim the future you want for your great grand children.

She was such a sweet thing.
Barely seventeen,
To my barely sixteen.
Steam was rising from the blacktop,
She was wearing a baby blue tube top
With shorts to match.

A little on the chubby side,
You know I like that,
Before I could think to kiss her
She kissed me.
Like a viper strike she was on me.
Fierce and deep.

Backed up in an alley,
I didn't have to dilly dally with my belt,
I left it on the balcony at Scramble's house.
She had her shorts down before I could blink.
Sunk down...no, she slinked,
like my pants that pooled around my ankles

Standing I entered,
She pulled me in deeper,
Leapt up, wrapping her legs around me
And I held her up against the wall
And I drove my hammer home,
Each thrust a moan.

Rapidly increasing speed,
Infinite fulfillment of need,
You can call it greed,
The way she took my seed.
In that alley we hid and smoked weed,
My first child was conceived.

That day I knew she'd be my wife,
Kas came 9 months later,
A little pink beauty with crystal blue eyes.
I can't disguise the love I have for you,
It's true, there were many girls I had had before you,
You were the first one to make me wanna stay.

I lovd you,
This will be true long after the worms have their way with me.
I'll be weighting, for them to come mold cerulean seas
For the flag to be unfurled,
For your face and chest to be pearled,
For the end of the world,
By your side.

Nobody got anywhere in this life
throttling bums,
and robbing hotdog vendors,
but a Saquatch eating a knish on top of a flipped bus
is a sight that sticks to the roof of your minds eye.
Let's eat caramel apples down by the seawall,
trade tall tales, and lizard scales,
run for the hills, but settle down in the shadow of the valley.
Prickly pear and agave nectar, nopal cactus fruit,
blended together, you can hardly taste the tequila.
I'll boost you onto the roof, and hand up my guitar,
and you'll help me climb up,
singing and chanting till the sun knocks us off the room,
we'll go pool hopping, with ski masks on,
and steal lawn ornaments,
and eat churros, and drink egg cream.
and kiss under the Brooklyn bridge.
I just gotta go throttle this bum
and rob this hotdog vendor.
If there isn't a sasquatch
I'll be home by the apocalype.
Then we can get naked,
and set off the sprinkler system,
and dance in the halls.
Until the sun explodes,
and 2+2= 37.

If it seems like my love has gone on holiday,
it not a slight or desertion,
I'm just trying to get the temperature just right.
To make you feel the way I feel when you make me laugh,
sigh, or tremble, because I cannot hold you at this moment.
You make me make noises a grown man shouldn't be making,
I can erase deep depression, with the impression of you stored in my album,
You open parts of my mind I thought had been welded shut.
I think of you at odd times, four in the morning,
drinking juice out of the carton,
because I live alone, and can do that,
I remember something you did for me,
and the juice tastes like your mouth.
I want you to have the crown jewels, I want you to sip champagne in paradise,
but all I have to give is these weathered memories,
and this brokendown soul, full of love
for you.

I don't know what Jonas has been preaching,
There's a pigmie on the roof
And claymores in the kitchen.
I never rejected nothing
Cept when I was dazed and dazed and confused and confused
If I wanted to leave
I would use the door I saved for later
That leads out into the void.
I need to take a day away
Or breakdown and watch Casablanca all day long...
Because I thought it was a forever song I was singing,
But I'm out of tune,
And my rheumy eyes are liars,
And I want to christen my great granddaughter
But I'll be dead...
I just wanted my declarations to resound,
But in a town of disrespect
Chain link fences make for noisy neighbors.
I have every bit of it on the line for YOU.
I'll drop it,
But it will stand on end,
Like a trick quarter.
Four in the morning
Forty five caliber bullets blasting
I found myself in the backseat
Of a burned up police car.
Every thing is rotten,
Except the infantine seamstress
Who doesn't come out anymore,
Because you scar(r)ed her.
I just wish I could eat a bag of salt brine soaked
Ballpark peanuts, shells and all without having a damn stroke.
I wish I could, smoke, without Jiminy Cricket, calling my doctor,
And the red squad arriving with the straight jackets,
And the bear mace.
I can't project the rigght radiation,
I get that, but its not for lack of dying.
So this is my death letter, to be read to my reincarnated infant self
Twenty three times, by twenty four different people,
I want a life size wax model of Eeivel Keneival
To throw rice at me thrice
Once for each marriage,
But on the third throw wild rice
Because that is what I think of when I think of you.
The burglar ate my begging strips
And the ravenous dog
Is getting impatient....
I've seen the truth in the darkness of the soldier core.
Why not open the gate to abracadabra land,
Give me a list of your one thousand forms
In code of course,
And I will pay the piper
So he can finally change this doggone song.

She wields amazement and elation
Like William Wallace wields a bastard sword,
With brutality and precision,
The only decision that is certain
Is that I want her to know that she is special.
A carefully chosen photo, and a death by a thousand caresses,
It's the little things that pile up like sonderkommando stack bodies,
Until, in a holocaust of pleasure, I feel her everything completely.
In other words,
She is the one for me.

That coffin nail smile
All the while it never broke.
Toke after toke, we took the plant apart,
As if the night was a chocolate cake,
And we knew it wouldn't last.
Cast of with a flick of the hand,
They were like that ash,
They never understood,
It was never any good.

But you were so good Betty.
That dirty blond mop,
The halter top,
And that coffin nail smile,
All the while, it never broke.

They say, you had it on your face still,
When they pulled you out of the wreck,
A few teeth short, bloodied,
But intact.

I beat myself up over it,
Nonstop.
Its a horror,
What four hours can do.
To have the world wrapped up in a piece of bambu,
Twenty-two records, without a single skippable song,
A plant in full bloom,
A room with a you...

I saw the bastard, two months later,
Drinking himself to death,
In the Orlando international airport lounge.
Sucking on an olive, and sobbing on your picture.
I wanted so much to strangle him
Until his eyes popped out of his head,
Until he was dead...like he made you.
But I figured...he was doing a good enough job on his own,
So I left him alone.
I'll never forgive him though...
He's been dead twenty years now,
But I'll never forgive him...
For hitting that guardrail at ninety...
And for walking away, with a broken collar bone,
While you...
Oh Betty,
You were so bloody...

Why didn't you stay that night,
Stay with me...

You didn't...

Oh, Betty...
Why did you leave us like that,
Why did you leave me...

They're setting up roadblocks,
And throwing down spike strips,
But I have a cargo that's gonna make it through!
Ain't hauling apples, chickens, or farm equipment.
I'm hauling one big honking load
Of energy and innovation.
Smokey's hot on my trail,
And he wants to" barbecue my ass in mollases"
But he ain't gonna stop me,
I'm gonna smash through those barricades.
I'm hauling a special load,
Full of wisdom and knowledge.
Passing car after car, campers and dump trucks,
But none are hauling half the load I got.
Intellectual assets weighing down my trailer,
I blow through the weigh stations.
Can't get anyone on the citizens band,
All I got is static.
So I keep on rolling down this lonesome road,
Hauling this heavy load.

Hers was the first face I found
freshman year at FSU.
I'll always remember that garish orange and green gator shirt,
and pin with the picture of a bulldog,
hanging from a noose.
I thought, oh Jeez, she's got school spirit,
and I shuddered at the image,
of cheerleaders, and sports stars, recieving preferential treatment,
but my first impression was far from the mark.

She had a smile for miles and eyes to match.
And a laugh that could shatter a frown.
And she laughed any chance she got.
The few pictures I have left of her,
she is laughing and smiling in each...
That big toothy smile,
and that magical laugh...

I remember the first time she kissed me.
I was playing my guitar on campus,
back when everybody did it,
not just pretentious douchebags
trying to show off.
She came up behind me,
and did the old hands over the eyes routine,
and of course I knew her voice immediately.
She turned my head and kissed me,
for the first time,
and I could hear the whispering,
and feel everyone's eyes on me,
and it felt pretty darn good.
How I wished someone had snapped a picture,
for the FSView, with the caption
" Future valedictorian kisses scruffy hippy freshman.
Entire student body baffled."

I was baffled.

She was the talk of the campus,
she spoke her mind always,
and she was active all over the campus,
doing this and that.
I asked her one day,
"Why do you make your life so complex,
when do you rest?"
and she said
"My life used to be complex, because I made it that way.
But believe it or not, with all I do around campus,
really my life is simple and fun. If I didn't love what I am doing
I would stop Will. Life is too short for complexity."

I laughed, and I thought to myself,
this woman is more complex than she lets on.

We went out for my entire freshman year,
but she graduated my sophmore year,
and she got a job in London, and she moved away that summer.
I said I would visit...I never did..
She said she would write...she did, once,
to tell me she was getting married,
she even invited me, but of course I didn't go..
She enclosed a photo of her and her fiance,
and it was clear what she saw in him..
he had a smile almost as big as hers,
and of course she was smiling too..
Of all the images burned into my memory
that picture is the one that hurts me most.

I wrote back, wishing her luck, and I told her I couldn't come,
I never heard from her again, but I prayed that night,
that he would treat her right, and if he took away her smile,
I prayed he would suffer, until he put it back.

Every time I close my eyes, I see that picture...
that smile...
I hope she's smiling, even as I write these words.

I remember your scent,
In the Gold Star hotel,
Abbey road on the record player,
I fell in love with you, through that album,
I love it nearly half as much as I do you,
Which is far more than I love myself.
I still have a copy in vinyl,
But the original warped, and wouldn't play right anymore,
I find myself listening to I want you (She's so heavy)
And I can almost feel your touch in the bass line,
Your lips in the lead guitar, your body in the drumbeat.

We come together in my mind,
And I become old flattop,
And there is Something about you,
My mind will always return to,
Until The End,
When golden slumbers fill my eyes.

Oh, Darling!
Protect me with your silver spoon,
I want to be with you under the sea.
I see no future, can't pay no rent.

Don't be quizzical Joan,
My hammer is poised,
And I shaved in the dark,
Because I don't make enough paper,
At the polythene factory.

I see you rise in my mind,
Like the sun comes,
And I become the Sun King,
And admire Her Majesty.

Don't suck your thumb and wonder.
Because,
I love you still.