There's a city glowing in my ears,
biting blur of the nightlife.
Figure I've been here for a while.
My supplies were piled high,
now they're in short supply
and I'm high.
The walls of my
apartment are red.

I wait until the streetlights
flick on before I flip into a
somersault, I wait until the
streetlights flick on before
I call you out tonight.
The walls of my
apartment are red.

Dead presidents, don't
answer for me,
I paint the walls red.
Dead presidents couldn't have
seen it coming,
I paint the walls red.
Dead precedents, don't correct me.

Could have been a fool,
could have been a rule
you didn't know, so
when your friends are
wrong sing a song that
won't offend anyone.

You kept me waiting for hours,
you were shining. In a dress like
blood and flowers, you were shining.
You better sell it hard tonight.
The walls of my
apartment are red.

Open your mouth dear,
Stop pursing your lips.
Trust has been earned:
I keep telling you this.

In silence you revel
As I speak my troubled mind.
And in reverence, your assertions,
Expire with time.

I thank you for listening,
And knowing this pain.
I hope it won't come to define me,
And that you'll help stay sane.

cannot hand in code
stupid website will not load
this is getting old

Your letter came
Did I not tell you?
It's not as if
I've housed it
(little treasure)
In the pockets of my jeans
Or as if I pull it out
All the time
Because then it'd surely
Have been aged by my eyes
Which dauntlessly would
Explore the vast landscapes of your words
And, in each one it meets,
See everything you do
And feel
Surely if this were true
It would've been softened
Into tissue paper
By edacious fingers
Who can't help themselves
Because they think they're
Touching you

I'm worried I may
Have sold
My soul
Oh, dear
Only because of the way
You make me so happy
I could scream
At any given moment
And how
In the doorway
I kissed you
Shaky as a newborn calf
And your heartbeat
Was so strong -
I could feel it
All over you
Our breathing and touch
They were so soft
I thought the air conditioning
Might blow us away

I heard once
smell is the most powerful
trigger of emotion.
I, for one, don't
doubt it.

For two days after
seeing you,
I smelled faintly of you.
That mere fact
made me so happy.

It was as if you were there.
Enveloping me.
If not with love,
at least with something.

It's better than nothing.

I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o'clock our neighbors drove me home.

In the porch I met my father crying--
He had always taken funerals in his stride--
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand

And tell me they were "sorry for my trouble,"
Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.
At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.

Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,

Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,
He lay in the four foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four foot box, a foot for every year.