The throne of a metropolis is on the far side
atop the lake
that wrinkles the sun,
beneath a mountain
green with sickled pines;


The people use their boughs as scythes.

The people use trees to cut down
more and more,
and burn whatever's too pesky
to stick around.

In a backyard of a house in the suburbs
people get bored playing cards,
watching tv,
getting drunk in the evenings.

They party like pagans going crazy
over a peerless future,
and an impermanent past.

Sometimes a new bonfire is started
where the old one died,
sometimes the old one will flare up
and scorch the sky beautiful;
a smoky curtain on which the tongues of stars
can make good on all the promises
made on them.

And people kiss around the fire.
Hug,
make up,
joke.

The sealed souls of the people open.

At the end,
they regret it.
This newness of life.

They swing their wooden scythes at the night,
still furry and wet
with bark and sap,
cursing god in fury, fury, fury,
trying to cut down the stars too.

These people that take and destroy,
they whittled the throne of the Metropolis
out of ivory from Africa.

Night twinkles,
winks,
with cross-dressing jets.

I catch a thousand spider-webs,
until I'm home. Caught up
with all this silk, tickling my arms
it's a trap.

I've never had
more than I've had, a share of
love that loses money every day
is the only investment I've made,
and I'm poor in her hands.

My caretaker
might be meeting the undertaker
soon, the gingersnaps baked
until they burned, but she served them
anyways, and she made me feel good,
because she was as heavy and reassuring
as an indigo-less night,
she was my black night.

But I'm seduced in the night,
caught up,
held down
force-fed debt,
and reassured.

A night is heavyness.

A night is a ceiling,
in whichever way you think of ceilings:
either in your home,
your job,
or your love.

I could have  a few more pints,
pass out,
and still be in the same place tomorrow.

That's the thing about it all,
man,
I'm stuck here on a planet for neanderthals and minute-men.

And it's gracious like that.

Giving in plenty of normality,
conciousness
and stupendous
felicity.

Like we could all have three bedrooms,
xanax(enough to **** ourselves),
and a few appreciative kids.

Ever felt like you had the one
for you, and
you just let her duck out?

See, I got this girl.

See, I had this girl.

See, this girl really ****** me,
see?

This girl was an island girl.

This girl ****** in torrents.
Argued in cannonball barrages.
And hugged like a linebacker.

Those island girls are thick:
all thighs,
all ***,
all fire
like the volcanoes we all come from
and forget to remember.

But they remember.

And they live it.

See, this island girl, was a bigger, thicker one,
and I could throw her around any way I wanted.

And she liked it,
and I liked it,
and,
I'm telling you,
this island girl could take an ***-canning whooping
like nobody.

I mean, I'd make sure her ****** became
a bruised rose
and she felt it.

But,to talk about love,
the *** was a good thing,
but she could argue,
and I think I like that
more than I'm beginning to realize.  

Just like a short poem on a ***** day.

That cheap stuff
will run through you.

It'll give you a hard time
going down,
and then,
it'll hold your belly like a baby's hand,
soft and sweetly,
then it'll smack the **** out of you,
because you trusted it.

This cheap **** is a bad ****.

It tastes like molassess and *******,
it kicks like a jalopy,
turns over in bombs,
slices your belly button,
and pops its little head out of your stomach.

I like the cheap ****,
it makes me feel this way.

This way is the only way.

Kind of like
how they say
alotta love
is
good love.

You want to love me.

You want  to ******* fear,
and cure
my insecurity.

What you hold about me
seems dear
when it's in your pocket
and
close.
as a child
when the ice-cream truck rolls around.

The looping rhythm
of every day
is a clear sign
that you
need to move
and hold me more.

I **** your *******,
lap at your legs,
crumble in your words,
erupt in your anger,
and you think I need you,
and I relish
in you needing that
needing.

But then the need bites,
rips,
destroys,
and the black hole of our apartment
is reality
when you sleep
and hear me snore.

You know that i will get fat
when I am older,
and I know that you will slowly
become bitter
as raspberries;
Me thinking you're ripe
and perfect,
when you're holding in so much
and don't
even
know
it.

Don't touch
those broken stars.

Don't try to cup
my nebulas
in your hands,
or grip
my exploding novas
into concrete baseballs.

They cannot be hurled into oblivion
to make a sizeable dent
in eternity.

They burn
and crush you.

And I whiff
at your beautiful pitches.

Your words crumble,
and slither,
when they are meant
to soothe
and restructure.

My love
is horrible,
stupid,
and placating,
because I made ramen noodles for two
and you ate them
because it was a sweet thing to do
and that was the only reason
you ate them.

On the way down,
those noodles say that my love
is the best love,
but poison
in your gut.

Sometimes it's unclean
as cheapvwhiskey
because we don't mean it
and didn't p;ut the effort in.

Or maybe there shouldn't be effort?

Sometimes your body
feels so weighted
that I could crash it.

Taste the curtained night
and know
there are things
hiding behind it.

Know that there are burning,
blazing,
bitten
things behind it.

Know that I have a special hiding place
for the ride home,
and that I reach into it
and take a few hits
just so that I won't
**** you
when I get home.

The ocean teams with life,
but when I am at the beach
it seems robbed
and
empty,
and I hate myself
for being a part of it.

When he is home,
it seems like he shuts off
and
and I'm frightened about
how I can get so used
to a routine.

When she kisses him,
he knows she does it for show,
and the showy part is what kills him.

Alice had to clean out the ******* today,
and almost got into a fight
with her boss
about how ***** they were.

Romero, took two teens across town
in his cab,
and they laughed at him the whole way there,
not knowing his jokes
were canned, but thinking
they were original.

Romero hated those rich people
and his car
stank of it
if you knew the smell.

Today people did things
they had no business doing,
but did them anyway,
beacuse they had to.

I am them.