I don't necesarrily believe in angels
but one came to me anyways
she told me
"There is a time to live,
and there is also a time to die."
I didn't know what she was going on about,
only, I knew exactly what she was going on about,
only, I didn't want to know
"You have courage in your heart,
this is a known universal truth"
look lady,
I aint got **** in my heart,
go ahead and take a look
"You can't dwell in this dark place forever
waiting for your time to die"
I thought an angel would be better able to grasp the concept
of purgatory, but apparently not,
"You weren't made for a life of cowardice,
a life on the run"
the blisters on my heels would beg to differ
"You can't hide from potential failure,
Hiding when you should stand
is the ultimate failure"
So I guess God won't be
all too happy with my report card
"It's time to wake up,
you silly little boy,
it's time to live"
and ljust like that,
she was gone
leaving me questioning
if she had ever really been there in the first place,
or if I had finally lost my ******* mind
but I like to think she was there
I like to think
it's a time to live

The walls are vibrating
with sweat pouring
my artificial heartbeat
is the recorded sounds
of feet taking flight up sidewalk runways
pouring with sweat
heart exploding
and maybe if it does
I can get something on the page
for you magnificent sons of *******
but my appetite will be vanquished
in t-minus one hour
the extended release of last nights beer
and smoke permeating through skin
blow it in the air
to show the trip wires
my desk chair dusty and lifeless for too long
“how’s the writing going, Harry?”
about as well as when poets try to be real people -
so a lot of complaining and selfish procrastination -
but my crosshairs are all aligned
trigger finger itchy
the sarcastic, *****, dropout, “just rolled out of bed”
cynical wordsmith
with a chipper chip on my shoulder
and just like lays you can’t just have one
so I’m quick to 86 any competition
who are too quick to toe over my line
you don’t wake a hibernating bear
and you certainly don’t poke the starving wolf
when the grease from last night’s dinner
coats your skin like slime
my hands are shaking
and homework is due by the start of class yesterday
But I’ll be fine, Ma
I’ve got a mouth full of big talk
and eyes full of short sighted leaps of faith
my soul blows through alleys, avenues, and storm drains
and it tastes just like little kid medicine
something artificially sweet masking the bitterness
When I was a little **** -
making dens, kicking cans, and ringing doorbells -
they told me I could be anything
except tall enough to ride all the good roller coasters
so now, I’m a carnie in a booth
getting revenge on the world
by ignoring all the kids screaming
for me to stop the ride
I’m no artist
far cry from a poet
I’m a kid, too smart for his own good
too dumb to know better
to confused to guess at the ending
of this movie

Shotgun **** its
Shut up and listen
If you can't take the heat
You know how it goes
I have to go to work today
And I haven't been home yet
So that *****
I guess
Above all else
What I want
Is to just
Get the hell out of here
Away from everything

she had her lingering pale blue eyes
and long blonde hair
skin like paper
dotted here and there with freckles
She was the first
way back when
in the first grade
her name haunted that old farm house
she was the first

A friends sister
back in the sixth grade
she was two years older than me
and **** it
she carried it well
I'd sit next to her
on the sofa
waiting for my friend
to come down the stairs
so we could walk to school

The short brunette
who loved the Chicago Bears
watching that super bowl
in the rec room of my parents' house
truth or dare
a peck on the lips
my seventh grade conquest
bathed in nostalgia
I don't remember who won
I don't even remember who was playing

high school came
and brought with it
a new field of roses
some of them wilted
all of them perfect
I told her she would have made a great mother
and I meant it
my best friend's girl

The little church girl
little robin red cheeked
prom night photos
suits and dresses
and smiles and holding
crystallized in the flash of a Nikon

The girl with her guitar
and her poster
carpe that ******* diem
her upper teeth
came out below her curling lip
and when she smiled
a hint of gums
a hint of pearl
the one that time
placed out of reach
in some other place
with some other people

For one night
there was the blonde bombshell
she came to town once a year
like a hurricane
a natural disaster
that I stood outside waiting for
with my umbrella

The ones who were smarter than me
the ones who loved me
when I didn't
the ones who laughed
at my smart *** comments
the ones who were there
to pull me from
the flipped wreckage
of the silver hyundai accent that I miss so much
the ones who wouldn't take any of my ****
the one's I see walking by on the street
the one's I only see behind closed eyelids
the special love I have for all of them
all of them
my baby blue

there's a million dusty back roads
which tell a million
dusty back road stories
sinners and saints
redemption and judgment
retribution and love
and there's a million alleyways
cobblestone or brick
where a million
dusty back road people
tell tales of travel
in the glow of a flaming trash barrel
and there are a million bridges
which have been layered
with poetic inspirations
street preachers
spraying their words
from aerosol cans
and a million dusty back road people
sleep beneath those poems
almost every night
I have a million blown out pairs of shoes
and I wouldn't get rid of one of them
because each one
tells my dusty back road story

nothing in our pockets but dirt we picked up along the way
she carries a locket with her
and it’s empty inside
she says she is waiting for the perfect moment
to fit between the fake gold
old souls in foolish bodies
smiling because it was all we had
he drinks in the woods after school
because the lesson plan never quite clicked
so he’s all sheets in the wind
as the time bomb ticks
one looks for the love she was
convinced she never deserved to give herself
they are all looking for the next fix of life
experiencing the world in ounces, milliliters, milligrams
shouting protests into the mirror
he is running away from reality
until he finds the life which suits him best
he flinches away from touch and contact
with eyes glimmering with eye drops
nothing in our pockets
but the baggage we picked up along the way

I feel strongly
on the left hand a heart pumps love to every girl who smiled at me at some point
on the right hand a motor smokes toxic hate in clouds over the people who won't wake up from being awake
duality
yin to a yang
black to white
but never grey
small government
but stop telling people who they should ****
left brain fights right brain in a no holds barred cage match
and I'm pulled apart at the seams

The bathroom looks like a ****** scene
blood spotting the walls,
the floor,
the yellowing porcelain,
blood.

My brother calls me three times around midnight
I don't pick up
I'm off in la la land
chasing funny things
put to bed on the sofa
in my friends' dorm
too high to fall safely
drunk enough to take the risk

The bathroom is a ****** scene this morning
all of that blood once ran through veins
bringing oxygen to muscles and organs
keeping my brother ticking
and now it's turning the color of rust
on the bathroom floor

the jingle jangle of those things you dangle
from neck stretched thin with shiny things
call me a magpie
call me a baller
a shot caller
a hip hop drama starter
kicks so fresh they came from the produce section
this flash of blood diamond on my wrist
costs more than the home I don’t have
if I hit the switch I could make that *** drop…
got my obnoxiously huge candy painted cans on my head
so I can only hear the ads I want
and these threads reek with so much swag
the sweat, blood, and tears of little brown and yellow people
I couldn’t give a **** about
dropping three hundred on my mall haul
and they have the nerve to ask me for the rent
sounds system off the hook plasma on the wall
more **** than an abandoned lot
more thoughts forgot than cops in krispy kreme
with a water gun and ski mask for when times get hard
me and my friends are going to blow two months salary
on lap dances and ******* fantasies
“Aint that new track dope?”
“Yeah”
“You heard it?”
“Naw, but they were talking about it on world star”
this floatation device is going to be too heavy
and I am going to drown in all of this fly
fresh to death

Beach week
so we were just there
in they eyes of parents
to drink, drug, and ****
and we were
but there's more to it than that
it was a goodbye
a send off
to the times when we were allowed to be kids
so every grain of North Carolinian sand
was like a moment in time we spent
innocent like a memory
and we bask in the sun
the sand mixing with sunscreen on our backs
and we start drinking every day
at 2 pm
as if we actually had something to celebrate
we ate special brownies
and threw all of the chairs in the pool
and spent a good twenty minutes
laughing our ***** off
and to the sound
of generic radio music
hips and ***** grind against crotches
in hopes of kindling
that high school romance
that we never had the courage to pursue
and the day we left
at the end of the week
felt like a funeral
as if,
even if we did see each other again
we wouldn't be looking at the same person
we're all just growing up
moment after moment
and I don't want to

find beauty in the ugly
when times get hard
and skies darken
billowing thunder
night time harshness
you'll need it
don't let the mind
become too dark to see
that from the rubble of malice
you can build a new greatness
rising and falling and rising and falling
like the ocean front
wave after wave after wave
every sentence has an ending.
but don't let them break you
to stop you from writing the next
find beauty in ugly
for the times
when all you see in the mirror
is hideous tricks of light
assaulting the senses
do it for the times
when you are so high
you kiss the sun
for the times when you fall
for the times when you get up
and for the times when you take off

I write poetry
Because it is easy
Mix metaphors
With simple similes
An awesome analogy
Don't let the diction get too decipherable
Don't let the fiction get too ****** up
We all know how a story should work
Make me emotional
Make me feel something
So I can feel human
Because I'm a lazy
Emotionally repressed
Kid with a shoulder full of chips
And a mouth full of ******* jokes
So make me whole
Mr poet
While I fantasize
About all the ways
You could die

We used to play guns with sticks
and we all knew how to die convincingly
with playing cards in our spokes
we summit hills atop motorcycles
ratatatatatattt
we walked through woods
explorers and pioneers
waiting for dinner or supper or bedtime
when summer was another world entirely
and the stains on our clothes
told stories
and not worries
We would carve sticks into spears
with knives our mothers did not know we had
today we hunt pheasant
we never did catch one
but we made dens deep in the woods
and climbed trees until we didn’t know how to get down
the hay bales stacked four stories high
in the farmer’s field
was a jungle gym
and when the farmer chased us away
in his combine harvester
we were playing Jurassic Park
back when girls were silly, annoying little things
that none of us were quite sure why we liked
and fights were forgotten within the hour
we had better things to laugh at
a marble composition book filled with ****** raps
and graffiti designs
we would take stones and make them into entire planets
but before long
our shadows caught up with us
a stick was just a stick
a bike just a way to beat the heat
and we were all too aware
of the special effects

under all the beds
in every closet ajar
these things are very real
the thoughts suppressed
the last cold breath
the moment before death
the void between all things
all the green paper life rafts in the world
won't stop the blood from seeping into so many lungs
and one day
long after recess laughter
and birthday morning smiles
these things will dance under the harvest moon
they are drowning the children in the rivers of Madison Avenue
and shaping them to soldiers of the dull
shooting innocents point blank in the face
with pop-up ads
The fry cook king
laughing at the bloated corpses
holding up his monuments
a shadow will break through the clouds
and consume the flickering candles
waiting to go out
in the metaphorical cave

What is it
that lives behind your ribs?
it beats all night long
keeping rhythm with songs
which have never been sung
keeping me up at night
wondering if at times
we find synchronization
in the pulse of our passion
because nothing is more poetic
than that moment
when I realize
that what's behind your ribs
and what's behind mine
are one in the same

it's a curse
it's a blessing
unlike any other
to be so all alone
solitude is the key
and it is also the cell
given enough time
to work with ourselves
the visage shatters
and in each reflective fragment
we see the face of strangers
and old friends
flames past future and present
and oh,
now would you look at that
it appears as if human company
seems desirable,
no,
a necessity
but there's no way out of here
you signed your deal
a key
and a cell
right?
so you just go on
being alone
until you no longer have to

I could type this in all caps
to show you I'm screaming
I could live my life behind a fist or switch blade
to show you I'm desperately close to falling off the edge
I could treat you like a *******
to show you I'm only talking to you for one thing
I could cut tic tac toe into my wrists
to show you my own spilled blood is just a game to me
I could be the person they want me to be
I could be the person I should be
But I'm not
I don't
I won't
I live behind a mask made of keystrokes
and one too many silences
waiting for the ropes binding me to fray enough
where my getaway isn't front page news
but a part of a much bigger legend

My mother was a catholic
until her mother died
she said she fell out with God
and sitting through surgeries
and a harsh childhood
stole God from my father
And that leaves me
sitting in an empty church
listening to the rallying calls
the crusades never ended
but the holy land has changed
the human mind
told to fear difference
but nobody cares
if I wear a shirt of poly-cotton blend
I think it's time for a new bible
after all
the current one is pretty old
gathering dust on my bed side table
papal imagery ****** in my face
they should have stopped writing it
after they penned the golden rule
and tossed out the rest

The shot glass speaks arrows
arrows to tear a man down
at the worst of all times
he viewed life
not through the camcorder imagery of most
but through specific harsh globes of flesh
the eyeballs which couldn't betray him
even when life seemed to come
in violent fragmented flashes
reminding him of all that was false,
they had said it was a weekend
dedicated to a
"ruin your life sort of drunk"
he couldn't tell them
of a life already in shambles
nor of the tribulations
of developing a craft
which seems in its death throes
work seemed silly
the very idea of a boss
or a station
ultimately sickening
but still he trudged on
knowing that he was chasing
much bigger fish,
much bigger fish indeed

today lead me to music
to beauty
to love
i'm usually the ***** poet
the drinker and smoker
the under achiever
but tonight
I feel capable of
inhaling the benevolent energy
of 100 suns
of swallowing whole
a whole a spoonful of love
I love talking in cliches
because **** being real
i wear headphones
so I can ignore the world
swipe right on tinder
Let me be your latest fix
I'm the smiling faced jester
looking to win the ****** race
but you make me happy
happier than minimal clouds
the sun is shining
I am red
but I feel as if
I bathed in orange and deep yellows
**** my poetry
this is a status check
I hope you all are fine
the people with whom I connect

I'm on my way to see you. Sailing through the in between parts of our state. Hay bales and horses. small town auto shops. Men and women with tired eyes. I'm on my way to see you. Open up the box wine. Open up the *****. I'm on my way to see you. Remember all those times that I never measured up? I track my progress by the path of raindrops. You are the only person I think about on a daily basis. The only person to have ever left me tongue tied to the train tracks. Play me my favorite song. Sing me to relief. If I had the courage to be everything you wanted - believe me I would. But day fades into night just as I fade into my many costumes. I've never felt less than the sum of my parts, but you are the missing piece to the jigsaw I've been slotting together since puberty. I come on strong. Only because I need the warmth of your bravery. Generally, I avoid the mushy stuff. However - I'd be just as mushy as you want. This rant doesn't come close to the thought left under lock and key. And yeah I do want to get into your pants, and yeah I do want to get under your skin, but I'd be the parasite you wouldn't be without. I'm on my way to see you, and I don't want tonight to find the full stop.

the children are all running wild among the crab grass
eating the wrong colored berries that their parents warned them of
just to find out for themselves
they play cops ‘n robbers
cowboys and indians
a gun is a stick is a gun
and I’m sorry to say
but that kid over there just shot you dead
you have to fall over now and play tragedy
a mess of sticks, plywood, and leaves is a home
they all ate way too much candy
and are throwing up rainbows all over the new carpet
crying over spilt ice cream melting on the pier
cringing not from the ****** skinned knees
but the expected sting of the alcohol
the only thing they fear is sitting still alone
now watch them as they try to ride the neighbors dog
and climb trees so that they might have the view of Gods
gambling their future for fun
not fluent in the language of consequence
and they don’t get too worried about what they don’t have
because they haven’t developed object permanence yet
not yet are they jaded from life
they run around in the hot sun with red ears and noses
until the sun goes down and their mothers call them home for supper
and we envy them only because they know so much less than us
and ignorance is bliss

Take my ashtrays
and throw them in the street
where the ratty, shirtless children play,
sure
go ahead
drop my keys down storm drains
never to be seen again
when the skies all open up
and the rain pours out of them
it will be like you
showering me in your glances
from the other side of the desk
this train has no known destination
and I can’t make out the turns from drops
but I do know that we’ve been off track
for a few miles now
and that this boxcar is dark and dusty
no breathing room to light a fire
no time for the canned food
******* I am really lost
China st is closing in all around me
and I could have sworn I’ve seen these houses before
phantoms from some long lost dream
teasing the fringes of my memory
this necklace sitting on my desk
amid the ash and dust and ink and carvings
is my favorite thing I don’t own
my tongue is the frayed leash
which allows my mind to wander
off on infinite miles in every direction
My heart is a drum
sitting in the back corner
of a garage sale
and my words and my cigarettes have a lot in common
because inevitably
I just end up
blowing smoke

When I got to my first English class in college
the professor asked us
how would you describe yourself?
there were some pretty responses
I'm a leaf floating down stream
I'm a tree slowly growing
I'm a bird leaving the nest
It was my turn
A boulder,
huh?
please elaborate,
Well teach, it's like this
I'm not alive in the same sense as the others
I don't grow or change on my own accord
no I sit still
silent
immovable
stubborn
I take in what goes on around me
since the beginning of time
until the end of time
time means nothing to a boulder
My cracks are representations
of the choices and actions of those around me
and I'm still sitting still
long after they have passed
stationary,
but don't try to move me,
because once I get going
I only get harder to stop
So that's me
a cold boulder
only capable of what
the world around me permits

boys and girls
like oil and water
meet in the electric darkness
a ritual as old as time
set to the pounding
of mechanical drums
boys and girls
they don't see it
but they are each other
fatally flawed to perfection
and they see something
a spark off the flint
and they mistake it for love
because they allow each other
to love themselves
boys and girls
hiding from
men and women
try not to grow up
but a broken clock
is right twice a day
and they have run out of hiding places
their limbs burning
with lactic acid
they finally see
the toxic insignia
a skull and crossbones
no warning labels
this will **** you
so they separate
and you'd better believe
that it was ugly as hell
yelling and screaming and violence
all in the name of self-loathing
boys and girls
just looking for somebody
who is looking for them

I could sit my *** down
and write a hundred ******* poems
and not even touch on the subject of *******
or I could write an ode to the obscene
and here it praised as beauty
call me cocky
but you haven't seen it yet
humility tastes like vegetables
and I've never had time for 'em
give me a felt tip
and I'll make you smile, laugh, cry, and come
within four minutes
and I'll write those cutsie ******* poems
that make your older sisters say
awwwwww
like a text from a girl
saying hey
with about a million y's and ten emoticons
you like me
I don't know why
maybe it's maybeline
or maybe it's the keystrokes
stroking your ego
while I throw mine in the laundry
I wasn't raised to be bragger
but I wasn't raised not to be
wasn't raised to stop and see
the people smelling roses
or striking different poses
my smile is like similes
my method is a metaphor
my ***** soon is spilling on the bathroom floor
take this braggadocio
and put it in your back pocket
I don't need it anymore
and I don't want it

I knew this girl once
I think I knew her
but who can ever really know?
Nothing ever came of it
always too late
too scared
too scared that you couldn't want me
and who could blame you
I never have
She went away to college
and I was busy
doing my own thing
But I never forgot
the way you would blush
and hide your smile
when I said something nice
And maybe you never forgot
all the times I made you laugh
always something stupid
I remember how nervous you got
in the center of attention
maybe you never wanted it
but you always deserve it

And I know
that you're going places
big cities with dazzling lights
endless tall buildings
never sleeping
but dreaming of you
And I'm heading off
to places of my own
hoping that our trains
are heading towards each other
so that just for
one moment of disaster
my body may fly pas yours
and I would smile
or wink
or nothing at all
perhaps I would just look

The worst part about it
is I would throw it all away
so that I could get back
all of the too lates
the too scareds
and all of the stupid stuff
which I haven't told you
but you wouldn't want that.
To be held so responsible
for the machine gun rhythm
of my heart beat
So I don't
my time machine left empty
I trudge one
doing whatever the hell
It is that I do
while your star
only burns brighter
I live in a breath of hope
hoping to feel your breath
just one more time

She had a pair of bright eyes
somewhere between hazel and green
he was never much good at colors
there's a spark in those big eyes
which carries a hint of
I don't know what's going to happen next
and her pouted lips
raise at one corner
to suggest
she prefers not knowing what's next
"Oh Miss bright eyes,
won't you come for me?"
he sighs
in the early morning
and before his drunk head
rests on that pillow
She makes the closet romantic in him
want to write a whole bunch of things
his friends would call gay
and he doesn't care
she has him now
caught in the spell she cast
with the gyrations of her hips
in sync with the drum beats
which ring out from the basement speakers
his bright eyed girl of mystery
and adventure
and maybe love
He has always had a thing
for bright eyed girls

At times it might feel as if
you can't do anything right,
like the only thing you're good at
is ******* things up
and every turn you make
leads only to dead ends,
The clocks on the wall
still tick tock their pretty little hearts out
like laughter,
cruel laughter
at how broken you are,
but the important thing
is to never forget
that a broken clock
is right
twice a day

He was never afforded the luxury of a fresh start
his religion painted depictions of him
a silhouette entrenched in a thick bank of fog
The earth of his homeland has forgotten the taste of his footfall
left to find his own stake in reason and meaning
he emerged a cultist of jaded
false idol to the yearning masses
a means to an end for the end of meaning
the pounding of feet and fists
an eternal drumming
the call to action
too quiet to not be heard
his movements carried the voices
of birds too feeble to migrate away from icy fingers
he swims upstream until his body
becomes the sediment in which we plant our flag of victory

you were a brother
not of blood
but of choice
we had each other's backs
but I couldn't see
that the lifestyle we were living
was slowly trapping you
I heard about you skipping school
alone in some woods
getting drunk
in the middle of the day
when you were high more and more
until sobriety surprised me
when the medical cabinet
became a candy store
I saw this all happening
and did nothing
paralyzed
I looked away for just a moment
and suddenly there it was,
the monkey on your back
I'm sorry that I never intervened
I just didn't know how to
now you are in the New York countryside
having it out with that reflection
getting your **** together
I haven't seen you in a couple of years now
but I never forgot to hope
to hope that you can beat this
and come back to me, brother

reflecting upon a cigarette
I discovered a small fact
the middle burns stronger
any ash comes from the edge
the same is true of people
we age,
wrinkle,
decay,
rot,
die,
but  we still burn incredibly bright
from our centers
don't let the fire
ever die

my brain is dotted with burn holes
craters on the moon
like the ones on the denim sofa
from when I fell asleep
beer in hand
cigarette hanging loosely from the corner of my mouth
like the dot that comes at the top right of a cinema screen
change the reel
in the industry we call them cigarette burns
thoughts get lost in them
only to be found covered in tar and ash

I saw you waiting at the bus bench
a cigarette gripped between your lips
an act of defiance
you were looking at your cell phone
impatiently
what were you waiting for
I noticed you down the street
your red hair blazing
the color of passion
your face looked hard
strong
prepared
and I wondered where you were going
It's funny but
I almost followed you onto that bus
but I didn't
I just waited by the bus bench
a cigarette in my lips
an act of imitation
as you drove away

God must have left us
or maybe died
if we are made in his image
does he get Alzheimers
his mind slowly muddling up
so he may have forgot about
his seven billion children
then again maybe we drove him away
or to suicide
because we have been naughty
boys and girls
who don't like sharing their toys
and when others
talk about their perception
of divine beauty
we throw rocks at them
for their endless fibs
because we can't be wrong
and we can't all be right
we devour and suffocate
our children
with our social expectations
and all we really give a **** about
is self betterment
not of the inside
but the external visage of our personage
weight rooms clang with
masturbatory grunts
and a piece of fabric
is more likely to go off the shelves
if it is branded with a corporate signature
or if it's what's in
****, if I was God
I would've left too

people have a tendency
to take things for granted
as if to say
it isn't good enough
to meerely be breathing
it's like
we're always wanting something more
greedy when it comes to happiness
or maybe it's just
that we aren't ever really happy
unless we're miserable
a culture which breeds masochists
we just can't see heaven
we are more focused
on worrying about which clouds
will be rain clouds

The angels are playing their instruments
as the ship goes down
lifeboats made of billboards float through
the riptide of endlessly mundane adventures
icebreaking the callous apathy
one of these days the sun will tire of
dancing with the moon in the celestial ballroom
and one will fall
down on one knee
whatever the opposite of a proposal is
we ride this rock but don’t listen
when they tell us to keep our arms and legs
inside the car during the duration
the young smolder until they are quenched
or suffocated
and we all worship the first tree to flower in the spring
the line between ADD and stopping to look at all of these miracles
is as blurry as **** on the tv
but feed us with pills, pop-psychology, and poetry
stenciled on the bottoms of bridges
by wandering beaten down heroes
of St. Paul, San Fran, Richmond
Planet Earth
the to-do list consists of
find some paper and a pen
and something to do
country folk with straw in their mouth
a good hard day’s work
But I just rolled out of bed
and the world is flirting with me too much today
to simply ignore it

I am like a camel filter
you know, the brand i smoke
you said that you loved the smell
but hated the taste
I'm a bad habit
that you don't want to start
because while i'm killing you slowly
I'll whisper reassurances in your ears
and long after your lungs are black
and you stand face to face
with death
I will still be here
looking for a new victim to poison

I wanted to write this
As an ode
To my oldest hero
Charles ******* Bukowski
But the thing is
Sometimes genius
Is impossible to ignore

The first time i went to church
I was terrified
It was an old church
and bore the cracks
and tombstones to show it
I was terrified because
I was convinced
that Jesus was trapped in the attic
chained to the rafters
malnourished and wild eyed
scruffy and emaciated
our lord and savior
a sunken eyed chattering skeleton
and I didn't know why
they kept him up there
feeding him our sins
while preaching their love
like scorpions
as the herd grows larger

A southern belle
the only men she's ever loved
are her daddy and Jesus
and every Sunday
I see her walk out of that Church
with her flowing white dress
like the clouds
she's a lover
a server of the Lord
and she lives to save
her voice is a choir
and her long brown hair
is silent pews
her eyes are like first time prayers
and a cathedral smile
rests upon her face
when it's bathed by the warm Virginia sun

I think I'm going to write a book
school shootings for dummies
just to **** people off
just so it could get banned
that way all of my other books
could be about fairies and flowers
and endless unconditional love
and people would buy them
"I want to read the school shooting guy's book"
because as much as people pretend to be P.C.
we're still in the Colosseum
screaming at the top of our lungs
for the blood splash catharsis
and we think we are so civilized

"you should really try to get clean"
That's what they would say,
if they knew,
but they don't
I can't let them
something about being a "man"
infected me with stubborn pride
and one hell of a fall

I just can't be open
nobody ever tells you
how hard honesty can be
and the truth of it is
I should probably see somebody
because the days spent sober
are filled up with
inescapable, palpable, crushing boredom
and the nights are spent
hiding from my own thoughts
afraid to sleep because of what it may entail
so the days kinda bleed together
like kool aid and water
and for good measure
a lot of *****

Do not fade into the anonymity of everyday life
Find the avenue in which your voice echoes
Cling to the thresholds of any success
And never let go

Tequila sunrise
whiskey moon
the way I like
to encounter my doom

If you walk into the coffee shop
where I like to work
or watch
you can look around
at all of the faces
and you just know
who the regulars are
with faces baring more years
than age would show
and five o'clock shadows
they come in with their shirts
not ironed and untucked
their fingers stained yellow
with everything they run from
people don't ask their orders
they just nod and sit down
a tribe of people with something to say
but nobody to listen

The coffee is brewing in the kitchen
God that line is played
but it is true
black drop after black drop
you are in bed still
I have not been much of a sleeper as of late
up by 830 down by 330
so I am brewing us a whole *** of coffee
which the *** says is twelve cups
but it is really six
even numbers are good like that
and now you dream in unmade bed
of things I wish I could drag kicking and screaming
into this reality
twelve(six) cups takes a little bit of time
so I’m writing you bleary eyed poetry
by the open window as winter’s last breath chills so nice
what are we going to do today?
get breakfast? go for a drive? I’ve got no work today
are we going to fight
cat and dogs and all that other crap?
oh we are?
then It’s a good job the coffee’s ready

"Sunny day we're having"
the man quipped
his head fixed firmly on the Formica bar
his words given time to die
and he is rewarded
with nods and broken English
we all knew -
it was sunny
swimming in the silence
not funeral silence,
but post love making silence
a comfortable,
relaxing silence
because it was still sunny
before the words were spoken

I like to listen to people complain
about the things which
for some reason they take seriously
I like to make snide sarcastic remarks
which makes their problems seem
futile
just ******* and moaning
I find it amusing
I'm an ******* though.

If there were ever a problem
worth ******* about
I don't think think we know what it is
so selfish,
so selfishly selfless
and we have no clue
as to what it is we are doing
so we all end up doing nothing
as nothing
as everything falls as sand through hour glasses
so that now all I write
is gibberish,
but sometimes gibberish just makes more sense
other times,
it's complete gibberish