God runs a carnival
With a test of strength
Right by the gate
If you ring the bell,
You get a stuffed animal
And free admission.
Just past the ticket taker,
There on the left,
Is an old carousel
Painted ponies preening,
Careening the children astride
Mirrors by their heads
Flashing the crowd's smiles
As they glide
Forever and ever amen.
The ground is littered with ticket stubs
From a raffle they had earlier,
And despite the crying losers
And the broken boozers
I can't see the person who won.
Just billions of blue ripped ribbons
Carrying call numbers
For the lottery of a life time,
While the rest of us are left
To brave the creaking tilt-a-whirl
Assembled by two clowns out on bail
One roll of duct tape and a promise not to fail
This time.
As the fire eaters and game cheaters
Line the midway
Barking promises of heavenly repose
If only you can hit the elephant's nose
With a jet of water, streaming
Into its beaming mouth,
Grinning despite your loss
Try again, kid.
Better luck next time.
You'll wander into the hall of mirrors
To see your sins grow and bulge
Like the battle that rages
In the pages of your gold-leafed heart
Thin enough to tear
So take care to mend
Your broken ways
Or you'll find yourself
Climbing onto the Ferris wheel
To sit on high
And by God,
You can see your house from here
And down and around
And you're bound to lose your lunch
So you'll pay too much for a bunch of frozen
Fries and to your surprise
Sweet mercy, manna from heaven.
Even though you don't know what it is,
You gobble it up
Because you don't wanna go to hell,
But you have to get the hell away from that bell
Ringing and ringing over and over
Chiming in time to the line that winds
Out through the dark parking lot,
Every winner another sinner
Washed clean by the lamb
And *******
A petting zoo
Never felt so good.
If you ring that bell,
You won't go to hell,
But you won't go to heaven either.
Oh no.
You'll go to work
Tearing tickets 'til you're sick of it,
Bending mirrors in the fun house
To split and bounce
And reflect onto the patron
That part of your heart
Too broken to pump,
Running the tilt-a-whirl with a burly
Bouncer who got up early
To **** his wife
And this ain't a life sentence,
Baby, it's eternity.
I guess that's what you get
For trusting a ******' carnie.

My whole life,
I've been a third string hitter
For a fourth string team
In a no-string city
With nothing to offer
But the glow of the city
In my childhood bedroom window.
I was the batter they brought in
When they wanted to avoid invoking
The mercy rule
Otherwise, they mercifully let me
Stay on the bench.
Swing, miss, swing, miss,
I haven't had so many strikes since
I went bowling at age 12.
I had six of them that night
It had been so long since I'd hit the ball
That I had forgotten what home plate looked like
It's becoming a nasty habit,
Forgetting home.
Every umpire shout of “you're out”
Made me glad I didn't try to go back much.
But then I met you
A greased lane lady
Looking for a ten-pin king
We started talking over a ******
Paper boat of nachos in the 24 hour bowling alley
I had stumbled into after the bar kicked me out.
I knew I wanted you when you finally
Explained what those little air vents
On the ball return were for.
“For drying your hands” you said,
Demonstrating.
I used them all night, partly to
Seal their use into my memory,
And partly because no one had ever made
My hands sweat so much.
You beat me, badly.
You blamed it on the liquor,
But I knew the truth.
Just another game which I shouldn't be playing
But you fought me on that.
You followed me out to my car
And took a cigarette from me
Even though you didn't smoke,
Because you wanted a reason to stand outside
While you assailed me with logic.
Too tired and drunk to argue,
I conceded that maybe I just needed practice.

So we practiced.
Every day, my baseball contract
Long since expired
Voicemail boiling over with
million-dollar egos shouting
I'd never work a plate again
Let 'em have their foul *****
And line drives.
I had a greased lane lady
And I was a ten-pin king.
Strike, strike, spare,
Seven ten split,
Pick it up!
We wore a groove in the lanes
We threw more ***** than Elton John,
And our palms stayed perfectly dry.
The problem wasn't me.
I always thought I was a defective unit
A fluke in the system, a glitch.
No, *****.
My problem was the green and white world
Shoving juice-syringes and Nike contract promises
In my face
When we both knew
But wouldn't accept
That the diamond wasn't my home.
I should be on the lane
Picking up an impossible split to take the frame
And feed the flame my fame fans in the alley
You showed me where I belong
You taught me how to play.
Now maybe it's my turn
To show you my heart,
To teach you it's name
But only if you promise me
You'll always be up for just one more frame

When I was 8 years old, I used to roll a slinky
Down the stairs
Of my very old, very rickety house,
An incomplete mobius strip of metal
Rolling and folding over itself
Down the green carpet wrapped around those stairs
Carpet that had been laid before the invention of vacuums,
And you could tell
With every exhalation of dust
My slinky looked a thousand years old
By the time it found solid ground.
When I was 17 years old,
Those creaking stairs were an alarm system
Of squeaking,
Making it impossible to sneak
Out on the town
In search of a brown bottle
To drown my troubles.
Now I'm not trying to get any sympathy,
And I know if I was, you'd all turn on me
Like a record being flipped.
And I know unrequited love is a package that's shipped
To the wrong address
And it'll probably get lost
In the post office
At the bottom of the bag...
Maybe I shouldn't have sent you that ballgag
Regardless, my intentions were pure
And even though you can't take a picture
They are worth a thousand words,
All jumbled and mixed
Like a ransom note cut
Out of a dozen magazines,
Again lost at the bottom of that bag
Right next to your ballgag.
Okay, last chance to plead my case
But I'm getting tripped up by that gorgeous facebook
Status you posted where you said birds
Were love notes from God.
Now I've never talked to God
But what kind of benevolent, all powerful deity
Would send a love note that ***** on your car?
Not me, and I'll go so far
As to say that's a really stupid idea.
And while I'll never **** on your car,
I will take you to a ****** bar
And get so drunk that
I'll tell you the sun rises in your hair
And your hips are a valley
In which I will fear no evil
Because obviously God's on my side this time.
Maybe he's trying to make up for that time
I accidentally elbowed my
Soon to be ex in the face during ***
Or that time my dad hit me so hard
That I don't remember what happened next.
I guess all's fair in love and beer
And all I really needed was to hear
Your heart beating like a kettle drum
While we wait for the sun
To come up.
And I told you every secret I had
Thinking maybe if someone else knew
It wouldn't hurt so bad.
So we laid in the bed
And we smoked 'til we choked
Until the morning peeked in
Like a registered *** offender
And those ****** love notes told us
The fantasy was over
Done, finished, goodbye, gone
And while I thought we had really bonded
You absconded with the piece of my heart
Labeled "not for resale"
I don't know what you're gonna do with that part
Is there a black market for broken hearts?
Cause I'll gladly trade for a cracked glass vessel
That pumps nearly perfectly
Except for a small leak
That makes you think the world
Can be fixed.
Even though chemistry taught me faults exist
When impure compounds are mixed
And the best to which we can aspire
Is
Balance

Sweet waters rushing from our source
Cutting paths deep and clear
Watery sentinels for the Garden of Eden
Rumbling thunder and flashing swords
Feared and worshiped, conscripted gods made into a cradle
Rage and foam, rising from our beds
Driving all the wanderers away
We watched the Tower under construction
A thousand tongues searching for a mouth
Follow the paper boats

Eons later, we still guard the rubble
Broken bricks and fires in the distance
Yearning for our glory days

Drove 16 hours today
Up and down the interstate
Stopped for fast food in Denton
Felt my treads wearing thin

On 44 I felt like I was going to burst
So I grabbed one of the Styrofoam cups from the passenger seat
Dumped the half melted ice out my window
Relief down to my feet

In plain view of the policeman in his squad car
Watching for people like me
Desperate to get away, half-desperate to be caught
For a moment in my mind I can see the celebration freedom lights red and blue
Until some guy blows by doing at least 100
Breaking the spell


It's three hours later and I'm asleep on your couch
or pretending to be.
I can hear you arguing with your boyfriend in the next room
He's not nice, but he seems to know the score
You come into the room and pat me on the head
Hair like grease-soaked down.
I hope he' sticks to your ribs like your mother's cooking
I hope he plays your guitar when it rains
I can hear you mumbling reassurances
Spyglass in your hand
Pretty pink drapes to hide the grimy windows.

With a full tank of gas,
You're easy to avoid
The snow is thick and fluffy
I am overjoyed.

Match my tires to the tracks ahead of me
To hide my trail
I can't let you follow me
All the way to the grail.

I'll hold that cup in my hand
And get the lay of the land
No one else may come aboard
It's just me and the Lord

Patch of ice under the snow
Sends me off the bridge
Photos of the two of us
Under magnets on the fridge

White out conditions
Axle snapped in two
Huddled under a blanket
Nothing else I can do

I'll hold that cup in my hand
And get the lay of the land
No one else may come aboard
It's just me and the Lord

No lights on the freeway
No end to the snow
Little hope of being rescued
North wind continues to blow

Can't let you find me
Away I crawl
And suddenly I'm warm
Forward I am called

I am holding that cup in my hands
Just dug it out of the sand
Sun shining on my weathered face
I am weary of that golden chase

They say *** and pizza are very much alike
In so far as when it's good, it's really good. When it's bad...it's still pretty good.
Poetry and tequila are also similar.
When it's good, you'll be dizzy and kissing strangers.
When it's bad, you'll be worshiping at the porcelain altar, so to speak.
There is a sensation when you're standing on the edge of a cliff, looking over
And you realize that there is nothing to keep you from hurtling down into the ravine
But your own willpower
Which, if you're like me,
Quickly begins eroding.
I wonder if everyone feels that way
I wonder if there are some people who can look over a high ledge
And not immediately begin panicking that they will toss themselves over
In a fit.
Perhaps this is why baby birds fall out of nests.