He was holding a book of death
Bent, with the pages torn out
Leaving only a crumpled chrome shell
And a fine lighter burn line down the spine
Groggy eyed with an absent mind
He led me to the den for music making
A second sent me untrained vibrations
Out of tune and practice, too; songs from a time now gone
A third paced with pale face and wandered naked in a robe
Shifting eyes as if the spies did roam
He jammed another negative noseblow
They all did in turn
They never learn
They nodded off
Or started to
They mentioned college
For a few
And how they weren’t going anymore but sheep find sleep in woods
And so they should
The time had come to disentangle the knot
Knead the very tissue that their issue had so tightened
To the degree that they could not stand
And head became their bed became their dead
As their chins dropped, lids drooped and bodies slumped into a pile
I forgot that I was sitting straight and had been for a while
Once his percussion became my inward melody and song
I found music in everything I met, life worthy pigment
Sometimes I dream about reading your name
And hearing that you were found a motionless ocean head
I contemplate you
And I
Fade
Away

You are your own consequence
Every action of yours
Is a board in the floor
And every lie or trick
Is another brick
Your shaded thoughts
Are furniture stains
Stories and secrets
Are window panes
Crimes and cons, both large and small
Become the plaster in the walls
Every time you wanted more
An extra lock on the cellar door
Even if you manage
To avoid detection
Your darkness solidifies
Transcending dimension
For you are a master architect
With a lifelong monument to *****
A house of sin that has always been
A grave with your bones trapped within
Founded on memories that disturb you most
You haunt yourself as a lonely ghost
Built by guilt, your sick abode you will infest
Among echoing halls your soul will find no rest
Get out of the house while you still can
Such is the plight of man

Not enough money
And too many tomorrows
This
Is the recipe for an
Addict’s sorrows
Cough, spit, bleed
Sticky fingers lying
C.R.E.A.M., it seems
And I’m dying

I see you once a day
At the junction of our opposing schedules
And on weekends when
I’m working and
You’re having fun

You probably think I’m weird
But you never treat me like it
Always a nice thing to say
Like I hope your shift goes well
And four ay yem comes quickly
Or even a polite, wordless
Smile

You’ll never read
Any of this
And probably don’t understand but
Thank you anyways
You make my day

Early morning message
There are
Bagpipes
In
The
Ghetto
Like when teachers give textbook assignments
Knowing the solutions are in the back
Doesn’t matter how you learn
Show up on time with the answers
What a rocking knock
A clock to the jaw
People die
One just did
Listen, you can hear it

An unsuspecting observer would view his property as bland
With subterranean secrets rarely breaching for detection
When pointed ends met with his cracking winter surface
The sludge bubbled out filling every empty space
His inner oil to some
Was black gold
Prosperity
To others still, a tar pit worthy of dinosaur death
He grew as a sheet of ice which could harbor skating lessons
Or unseen, send auto travelers in lack of traction spirals
His light-stealing sticky venom clotted neural networks
A fat tarantula plucking whims from the web between two ears
He fraternized with Morpheus
On odds
With cousin evens
Awakening unsure if he were caught in silky cobs
Or the hands above it all
He certainly felt like a marionette, dangling on feeble feet
Pulled by the digits of ink stained impulse
Hate, tug
Create, tug
They made him dance to their tattooed meter
He felt the crunch of beetles and flies
His temples throbbed as tar dripped from his eyes
Drops forming clefs, pictures, and words
I am but a stencil, he buzzed

There is no should
There is only can
The dice were not carved
They were shaped
And painted
You can roll them
Or scratch the coating off
Or if you get really
Frustrated
Reshape them
And begin again