The ambulances scream all they want.
Sirens wail if they must,
Those sunset colors are killing her.

Let those angels hurtle down the highway
Gripping steering wheels with white knuckles,
screaming on their way to her.

They call out over their cb's
"We're five minutes out!!
Any casualties?!"

I lay sleeping,
In the nonsense of a dream
Thousands of miles away from the scene.

My body could not twitch
with the pain unknown;
My mind could not wretch
In ignorance;
My heart could not wither
Under the cover of nubile darkness.

But you lie there on the highway
a sideshow I feel so horrible about.

I felt no pain, didn't wake from my dream.

midnight tragedy you have taken my mouth.

It begins on those humble mornings,
Where wispy clouds linger in the sky
the color of white oak.

When the leaves collect in the gutters
and are soggy like corn flakes
and their color is markedly indistinct.

A morning for the birds to make
their shrill calls
And enhance the feeling that
you are at a low, cold altitude.

If the coffee is hot, burnt, and stale,
then it is a coronation of this morning.

On the highways
People listen to news radio with the windows cracked
and a ribbon of cold air and sweat on their faces
and know that soon
They will be home.

A quiet kid,
lonely in the rain,
fingers the nickels and pennies
in his pockets, waiting for the bus
to splash around the corner,
so he can get to work.

He lives with a demon of a roommate,
and shares snores with the roaches,
Bathing in the shower of their incontinence.

After college, he lost it and wrecked his mind
in a haze of liquor so foggy it
swallowed the moon for awhile.

He stumbles through pitch black nights
with an ugly soul and redemption on his mind;
The worst kind of late night wanderer.

Coffee and sugar keep him alive--
just like war and famine are the black angel's wives--
bringing him back into this liquid reality.

In the mornings he breathes in this world,
totally sober.

It tastes like sourness
and the milk of ***** entrapped in blue jeans
in 100 degree weather
all day.

It was the worst kind of sobriety.
All the horrors of birth.

He lives many lives:

One for his mother,
where he plants fruitless kisses
on her cheeks.
Little wreaths of future disappointment.

She hugs him so warmly.
It makes him want to suckle his .45.

One for work,
all smiles
and plumb submission.
9-5.
5-2.
12-9.
6-3.
4-12.
And if he's lucky
12-4 on saturdays.

All this in 5 dollar clothes
and a rumplestiltskin attitude;
trying to weave his own ugliness
into truth.

One for his girl,
the one who'd hurl her tongue at Appollo,
puke up her month's sugar intake,
and curl her fingers so tight that she cut the cappillaries,
making a red and white fist like a christmas cinnabon:

If he ever told her who he really was.

His love for her is secret.

One life for himself,
to keep the mirror happy.

This kid.
He's all or nothing.

In the alcoves I hunt for mystery
and pleasure. Seeking your joy. I hope
to break you to the core,
and make you crumble to all my love.
Id hope your days are perforated silences,
my voice a trickle of whiskey.
I treasure your absence,
thinking to myself, with a cigarette.
I sip down evan williams
Pretending not to hurt,
but with a hurricane
your surge through me.

It is not enough
to stomp on our hearts;
It is worse to stomp
on the ground we find beautiful.

Hectic breakneck of the chopped up music.
beautiful wilt and hungry wither of the hips.
Drunken fingers grasping a drink and shaking so feverishly,
its like the adrenaline of war.
Knowing there is something past the moon,
past darkness. The freshness of sweat.
A black skirted woman dances.
The fabric squirming up her hips
as she drives her thighs,
whipping them back and forth.
Dreams bellow out of hollow bellies,
the bottom of the roar,
a squeak.
The bouncers in bowties and charcoal suits
look nice.
The opaque lights and streamers of brilliantly lit people and huge parade of bodies
washing and bouncing inside are like fruits in the dryer,
Tumbling and tumbling until they are fully juiced and induced.
But you can never find a willing partner
For good rough ***. Or even
love: the canary in the mine.
A pink, throaty croak
Emanating from its black lungs.

I miss the drunks. The y3lling.
The inhalation of beer and cigarettes
Chased down by ego and godlessness.

How many times
hqve I written to this song,
and never heard beauty once?

Like the sweet pinch of a grapefruit,
before the sunset of sweat,
the same sunset that hailed warfare for boys.

I loved you so much once,
I still do, but you are like mist,
and  I am blind.

I miss backstabbers, creeps, catfish,
vampires, crows,
an angel.

When I was young I would screech down the hill
in my toy truck,
plastic chassis a powerhouse,
canary and howling,
I'd crash into the same cherry tree a million times.

Call me Avalanche.

Call me Indisputable.

Call me the Powerhouse.

Call me,
I missed you.