No one understands you because you imagine you are better
                    Than all the others
                                When your feast is served you share nothing

2. You are hungry yet you have eaten fully
                        You stumble
                                The wine is so heavy in your belly
3. The people walk the empty streets
     Crowded

    Sitting in waiting rooms
     Coughing
    
    Standing in line
(You look into crowds of empty eyes)

4. The cuts on your wrist are silent
                          (Yet you speak incessantly of them
                             As of they are your children)
      The cuts on your legs are silent
                            (Easier to hide these cuts
                                      Not so bright red against the pale backdrop of your arm)

5. Your hair is long
        The day is cold and wind cursed
            You press at the hem of your skirt

6. The place once called home is still there
     Somehow different
        Quieter -
        Everyone is awake
         Gone                               Somewhere they make sound and love to the sky

              unstable

7. You sleep but you find no rest
     You awaken but you still feel like you are sleeping
   The dreams turn to nightmares
Flashbacks/memories of things once loved now hated
Things once pure are now full of lies
         (The radio crackles as you search for the station)

8. You cover yourself in clothes
     You think silly thoughts
"I'm alive! I matter!"

9. You want to believe
     You want to have the faith of a child
              But children don't see the things you've seen
             You feel the barb of pain
                     Throbbing in your ribs

10. Your mind is now your greatest enemy
         It tells you
     Love.     The flamiliar heat of wonder
                    You squeeze your thighs together
Hate.        The lonliness that comes
                   When the heat dies



        You lie on your bed
       Unable to defeat the enemy of self
     You lie awake
      Praying but none listen
You whisper thoughts of longing    your flesh alone against the sheets

It's dead
She's dead
It's all gone
*******
That touch the puddle
Of your crimson life blood
The knife was cleaned
And put in a bag

I walked down to the sea
And threw the bag from the rock

It splashed into the waves
Gone

What now
Which way
I wonder who is watching
Everywhere I go
I am haunted by your eyes
I see eternity in them
The black infinite black of forever
And just as my soul begins go reach out
******* towards the puddle of black

It was just as I had drempt it
Even down go the thirst and the red flashing light
It was perfect
Almost scripted
We are only actors acting for no one
The fear of heights and closed spaces
Lying drunk on  the kitchen floor
Counting tiles until
The record ends
With no one to turn it over

Like a match burns
I took a scalpel to my life
I realise what I need and what I don't
I don't feel important
You are important a trusted and friendly member of our company

I run on the treadmill until I feel fake
When I'm thirty I jump off the treadmill and ***** at my own tremendous waste of life
Maybe I will sit in my office and stare at my diplomas and awards
Wondering at how I could afford a sports car

I'm tired of life already

Is what I tell them when I drive fast
Hey
Slow down
Be careful
Hold on
Hold back





If you go running off at the mouth
You will only have your heart broken


I decided

I don't want to sit in waiting rooms and fill out form after form with my social security number
Let me see your driver's license
Swipe card
Debit or credit


I would rather pay now than later
Later is gone in a ball of fire
Later I will die in a traffic collision
Later I will get cancer
Later I will be happy
I know I will be happy and fulfilled
Just after my favorite show is over

Tommorow you might be gone
Tommorow you might get sick
Tommorow I might lose you


But today you are mine
We are going to make summer heat and throw rocks at windows that may or may not be broken by tommorow


Fail a test
Just one
And your life turns into a black abyss
Drip out
Move downtown
Stay with a friend
Get to know someone
The library has all the books you need
Trust me
That its not so hard

You could be gone with me ......your heart beating a hundred miles an hour as you smile so big
Your sure widen
You hear someone scream and laugh
You feel free
As we speed  down an old dirt road

You get a taste for freedom
And your addicted

Come with me please
Today

Needle in the hay stack
The spin of the weather vane
I took a drink of you
And felt heavy to the touch
I lay back on my bed and opened up the dark
I woke up dead
Or maybe half alive
I miss the words
That came from your lips
Poems as mystical as a cloud of smoke
I allowed to twist around my fingers
Maybe I thought of them
Maybe not
Words like forests as deep and as dark
You skip from pool to pool of silver moonlight
Beaming through the trees
Singing a song I once heard in a dream
A bird
A whistle
As you snap your fingers
As you tap your foot
You never trip on
The terrible black roots
That reach up like fingers.
Somewhere far away or very near
You picked a flower
And placed it behind your ear
You sit cross legged a minute
As you drink your can of beer on the porch
You say you feel important and high up
Like angels found you and brought you back
To me
How I see the porch light
Reflecting your hair
As you twirled a lock and whispered
Mars is visible tonight
Red and bright
A shooting star
And you wish

On time with the cosmic dance of fire and color and rain
Earthquake Heartache Lust and Pitty
Your eyes glow in every dark alley
Of this sad quiet city

I believe I have fallen for you hard
Each of my daily routines are interrupted
By single moments of infinite happiness in which
I imagine you are thinking of me

Everything is falling apart
And coming together
It's warm outside
And not even summer
The grass is green and I'm tired of lying
Me and God went to fists under the moon

And I woke up alone
Next to a stone wall covered in ivy
The sounds of morning were all around me
I wipe my red puffy eyes
The fog is full

I am all alone
And I curl up back to sleep
I don't need anything anymore

And she opened that window
And hands came out and dropped
A book of spells in my lap
And I lit another cigarette
Opened it up
Right there on your firefly soaked back yard
Reading about spells that could bend the whole world to what I wish
I shook my head and said no
Don't call me honey
Because real love never lasts
Things twist
And pull
The gears that hold you together
Somehow shifted
And i can see golden sunlight pour through
Window good morning
I fell asleep with you open last night
A praying mantis is having a battle with my fingers
And honey bees swim around the whiskey
Birds call and look like tiny painted toys on the deep blue
You could be
Are everything to me?
Put in my pocket for later
Forgotten
Like a soda tab
And a square head nail
A knife
A brass tack and a pair of pliars
My hands are cut and *****
Dried blood
Black spraypaint
A phone number written in pen
A single cigar burn scar

Myself
I am stupid
A nothing
A slave
But I break free from you
The window shatters.at the diamond tip
Cracking in pieces
Reflect the sky
And rain flashing my shoulder
I stop
I listen
I look
Turning lifetimes between times I've known
Feeling a tangle of weeds at my throat
You bite and clawed until it let me go
Gouging out glass eyes
Million by million
In a silent hilltop
Where a morning fog fell
Where a morning fog fell
Where a morning fog fell

Near the edge of hell
I felt your fingers about my feet
Pulling me from the darkness of a midnight dream
The dreamcatcher tore
The beads on my neck
Where each one touched me like a dagger Sharp
Leaving me scars
All torn apart but a tore a man apart because he started the fire
That killed my old and beautiful mother
Ask me not how a weak man can leave patterns on the sea of time
Someone whose words can cut with every broken glass
Someone who falls asleep dreaming of lost hands
Warm beds at sunset

What am I doing?

Out on the palms
Like pillars stand strong
Bent tillers broken by a storm
That the mood looked red like blood
Looking into get away
But the grass grows tall
Hidden in the corn
With leaves that cut me
A scar on my eye
The blood is hot
A trail of hungry hounds
Starving from the east
I can't sleep
Even when I have a fire in the mouth of a deep cave
And I can sleep in the corner with my knife out

I cannot tell the difference between real life and dreams
Your face still and smooth
The marble cold floor you lay your back on
It became almost enough
Because i can drink the devil under the table
It feels like I'm thirteen
And I still just want to fight
And scream
I can throw a rock into the stream
Where I once  fished all summer

Tired
She rubs her red eyes
Creaking down the old wooden stairs
Barefoot

Looking for a new purchase
a better  foothold
She never seemed to scan
The right barcode

So she sits like an indian
Thinking thick smoke signal fantasies
Dreaming about the good old days
Days that drunken lips taste like honey
The smell of ***** like roses
You seemed to have your signals crossed


You smell like home to me







I smell like cigarettes and mexican beer






You fell asleep face down in the bathtub
And woke up singing your favorite song

The room is empty
And the door clangs open and shut
When they feed you three times a day

You begin to write on the walls
And tattoo yourself

A poke here wont hurt


I always save my pills under my tongue
...I keep them
And one night when its pouring rain outside
When the thunder and lightning play dice against your bedroom window


Youll swallow them all at once


Without a single drink of water


I hope you wake up next to me again
Because I've been worried
Where have you been?

You can go make friends with the gods on Olympus
Walk barefoot through the promise land
Cross the sea
Cross the river
Across town
Have some dinner

Just come back to me when you've had all your fun
Lay in our bed thats warmed by the sun

We spit stories and sunflower seeds off the bridge
Walking down unimportant crooked roads
With names like summer lane and love street

In the afternoon heat
I popped your soda top
And we walked like we had shoes

The heat glued us together
The cold that once tore us apart
The blizzards would come in
And drag you up into the lonely white sky

The window is open
As we sit smoking
A joint you rolled with care
The sweet notes of night time
And heat roll in and fall asleep on your chest


In a tangle of your arms and blankets
I woke up for work
I put on my greasy boots
And pants with oil stains

Maybe something as simple as goodmorning
And a kiss to the back of a neck
Something like that could start life over
And give me something to breathe about

It was a good night
With cold wind

Until I wrapped my car around a telephone pole
I was in and out at first

upside down

Saftey glass
Refelected on the moonlit road
As I wait in silence



Each breath is ragged beneath my shattered ribs
The rub of the seatbelt on my my clavicle
Snapped like a broken branch

I fight to keep my eyes open



I wake up to a man kneeling in the puddle of diamond windshield pieces
Yelling into a cell phone, and then talking to me calmly

I don't remeber my name

No I don't know what day it is

I'm gonna die


I wake up in the ambulance
The feeling of my lungs pumping themselves
The feeling of blood pooling beneath my hands
The sound of paramedics yelling at each other
Then talking quietly to me

No I don't know where I am

No I don't know how many fingers you are holding up


A neck brace keeps me from looking around
But I can see so clear in my mind



That day at the beach
When we skipped school


The night I snuck to your house
When your mom was out


The time I got bit by a dog
A hot afternoon in April

I remeber pine needles falling from the trees
As you kneel in the clearing
Talking about heaven


The emergency room doors slid open
On their own

Nurses yell back and forth
And speak quietly to me

As they cut away the clothes from my blackened skin
As the needle finds my vein
And I notice the old flamiliar sting
Among so much anguish

I dont smell the sterile smell of the hospital
Or the smell of my own scorched skin

I smell the sea
The sand on your skin
The taste of salt
The after swim kiss

I can't hear the beep of my blood pressure as it begins to rise
Or the yell of the nurse for a crash cart
I heard you sing
As we drove down the road
The moon was orange
And the sky was red
I could have turned down the radio
Just to listen

They yelled around me
It all fell on deaf ears

The last thing I ever told you was
"I never loved you and I never will

Without you
I lie alone in my bed listening to wind
Walk through the pepper trees

Waves across the pasture
Where new sprouts of grass reach up
From black soil cool and wet

The world doesn't ******* revolve around you

You don't see what I'm putting up with
How I am lying here with gritted teeth
And a stomach full of acid
Creeping its way up my throat
You said you didn't want someone with a heart on his sleeve
So I tore it off and it stayed where it dropped
For someone so obsessed with looks
It sure was easy to sew these eyes shut

Are we moving in the right direction?
Someone who is strong
        You know I had a dream about us once
         And we were up on the roof
        I was afraid to sit on the edge
           But I did it any way
I've listened close for any sign of moment of betrayel in your camp

But not so much as a scratch from a mouse

All I see is your power

Your strengh

Your unwavering courage

As wind billows through your tall bright banners

Always a thousand reasons why not

With only one reason why


If I never would have read your words I never would have known
How you can spill black couldrons of malice, but show beauty still
You can open up the sky with your words
Build a storm in its belly
But still feel pitty if it rains down on me

I can feel your combat boots

On my front teeth

At my groin

Snapping my ribs

Still even then, you reach down for a kiss

I'm
Amused
Take your clothes off
Boot lace tracer
It's hard to face her
With her sole pressed to my chest
Homemade tattoo
Made you blue
Lemonade shade
Jaundiced and thin
The gods shine on you
And your polished black blue
Pressing on my throat
And your dagger presssed between my rib
Blood begins to drip
So fast
It could have been a shotgun blast
As you tore my mast
Spit on my sails
Wails
A clean ****
Black leather
Whether or not
Your gonna do
What you've been born to do
Betrayed with a kiss
Your miss
Thirty pieces of silver
And bread with no butter
They say shes a cutter
But she just wants the blood
Pulsing with *******
A torrential downpour of pain
As you cross that concrete bridge
To sin

What shall I do?
When I'm in the gunner seat
Of a B-52
Your picture is taped
On the rail of the gun
Where I'll have a good view of you
If we get shot

I got it in your letter
Although three months late
But its a picture of her naked
Looking over her shoulder at me

I read your words
And smelled your perfume
I read the Bible and thought about you


They sent me home to you in a pine box
My head was shaved clean and a flag on my chest
Pictures of you naked safely hidden in Songs of Solomon

You judge me
Harsh as sun on snow

If I am a wild flower
You came to me
As an early frost

So you picked me clean
Snapping her locket off my neck
And twisting my fathers gold ring
Off of my finger

Tokens of spring and summer and winter

You bit your nails
And paced the hard cobblestone floor


You buried me there

Underneath every brick you dug out with your perfect fingers
Tracing the mortar dust with your finger

You wrote a message on the floor

You stand above me

In your cold dark cellar

Your tokens jingle in your pocket

You lay the cold stones against my skin
And filled in the cracks

You sit at your old wooden desk
By the smoke of your little cigar
As you look with a glass at your new toys
And you roll the gold around in your fingers
You giggle to yourself


You look at the locket there on the wood desk
Smiling at its shimmer under the bulb

You find your fathers old chisel and hammer
Crude blacksmith tools
You smile

You smile so wide and laugh all alone
Whispering things you wanted to shout

You split the lock
With one tiny tap
And the pieces fell down with a snap

You laugh and smile your eyes closed with excitement

You laugh you smile

You whisper your shouts

Until you opened your eyes

A start

Your picture was in the locket
That once lay on my heart

You give up on your car ride home




You stop at each ******* red light




The whole time you wipe tears on your sleeve





You wipe your nose on your sleeve




You kiss the back of your hand




You drove up on construction





There in bright lights






Flashing over the road





One word stands out in your head

It's time to say goodnight again
Time to climb down off my high horse
I lean my pride back against the wall
Or at least what's left of it
There's a place that I can go
Where life is slow
The wind and snow
Where mountains are green and full
Of fiddle ferns as long as your arms
There is a wooden house on the hill
With a drive that turns around
And I can climb those stairs
I can lay next to her in bed
We try to make sense of the lone lightbulb above us
Reach our fingers up and see who can hold their finger the longest
Where you carved our names in the wall with a pocket knife
Where all is forgiven.
But a small barb aims me still
Right between the ribs
When I think on my sins

I promised that I wouldn't write another poem about her
Except just this last one
Where sun shines around you
As I look up from the grass
It smelled like weeds and summer and dirt
Grease from working on your dads truck

I never touched one of his tools

But something about warm finger tips
Makes me lose electrical control
Feet up on the dashboard
With the doors open
And every star ever invented in the sky

Yeah, yeah your beautiful
And you smell like flowers but
She's all I think of


When you sit with me at sunset
And everything you say is perfectly scripted
As if your mouth was a t.v screen
Im not listening because I want to hear her sing

When we went to the fair
The lights were bright
You hugged my arm against the cool wind bite
But I can still feel her fingers between mine

When you try to act so smooth
Each date I have to scrape through
Looking in eyes that crack and crumble
You kiss him heavy as the thunder rumbles

She forgets about those oceans
Frozen solid
And how we laughed and slid
On the glassy surface
How you unfolded your blanket
How you folded your hands
How the sky was blue
How you smiled
How I fall asleep
With the wrong arms wrapped around me
Night after night

I looked down through the railings
Still slick with black storm rain
Windows blown open
And showers are pouring down
Watching the drops

I can hear the gears humming behind the walls
Cold against your skin
Workers climb here and there like spiders
Reaching into the greasy pipes
Turning bolts and creaking cans of oil

In the marble lobby of an old museum
With a golden chandelier
And lamps with hot lightbulbs
An old security gaurds shoes
Tap down the stairs
Asleep by the door in a pile of blankets
"Hey kid, move along"

Turning screws
That twist with a croak
A hammer in square nails
Boots echo down the stone staircase
Tall machines made of brass
Perfectly greased gears twist against
Bright red tune of strings
Twist tunnels in the black of my mind
Underground trees

Billiard ***** tap in the next room
Where men hunt weak women
With long black teeth
Collars stained red blood
Go to sleep in my family name

Someone taps nails
In my coffin

I never knew I was poor
Until one day I went to the store

Until one day I slammed your door
As you scream and throw beer bottles at me

You can walk a long way on this one quiet corner path
Where I got my first kiss and my first ****

Them **** blankenship boys never do there chores
Them boys steal and grow *** in the woods
They talk our name in the barber stop

Them **** mountains are haunted
Through and ******* through
With the ghosts of a thousand indinas
Pulling your hair

It was a hot summer
And your mom wasn't home

Ladies and gentlemen
Here's the big show
About the old drunk *******
The tanned dark farmer
And his son plow a row

Straight rows long and deep rows
Full of cool black earth
I put my hand to the plough
When I was thirteen
And my dad got sick
Then that summer he died

The preacher came
But we were all still asleep
Cold milk bottles brought in from the doorstep

Summer is long and hot  night a devious witche's brew
Somewhere up the holler
Stop askin so many questions boy!
I told you these ******* mountains are haunted

Everything is good and golden and bright
Even now when the wind through my window seems
So quiet and filling
When I **** myself for stupid ******* lines
Of thoughts no one understands
Wicked claws black teeth
It's cold night at your hair
And moonlight in your fingers
Where sunshine comes down
And wraps as it lingers

I wish voice could pierce your mind
Like a twilight zone mosquito
******* brains from the innocent
In a small country town

Broken plant pots
You once through down the mountainside
And she said I listen to it for ours
That window
That moonlight
Ones that a pack of dogs howl at
And nuzzle the silence
Beer Cigarette beer b eer cigarette breed
Beer cigarette
Now I'm speaking in a language I can understand
Where I can break cheekbones
And shoot at anyone who steals from me
Old boy









*****









Grow up

Be something

Go somewhere

Care about someone

Make something matter

Stargazer

Dream phaser

Time delay




Sleep

Alive
I don't understand how I can hear this voice
My own is real and human
Whispering from the dreams
Of real human thinking
Whispering
Writting
I just wish some golden dream of clouds beating through the heat orange skys
Surrounded by the darkest blue
I finally understand
These words I write
Because the futures I don't believe
Slow down  slow down. Slow down
The sound is like wind that screams through everything
Like twisting birds in your eye
Between branches
Between soil
Cold
I speak these words
Real for an instant, lost forever

Move on
As your fingernails grow

Cutting your hair back month by month
And I wonder

What is it you're running away from?
What is it you see when you close your eyes
And why are you so afraid of it?
I'll make up some exscuse
Put on cruise control
Light my cigarette
Whatever
*******
The sun hasn't come up yet and I have a long drive home

I imagine I'll find some sleep somewhere out in that dark
Between here and home

I'm afraid of what is happening to me
I think I'm becoming a monster
Nausea and numbness
Withdrawl symptoms keeping me awake

Head back home, son
I try not to *****
I try to keep the wheels in the center of the road
I try not to think about you
As I fall asleep at the wheel
But you come to me in these vibrant dreams
Full of color and light
And you tell me things like:
Go home
Forget about me

Its swallowed me whole the blackness of it all. The winding roads of your heart. The drop and rise of your voice
Like butter
Like jam
Like honey

You smoke your cigarette on the porch of your rusted **** trailer
Curled up with your chin on your knees
In a broken spray painted plastic chair
Your veins run blue
A dark evening in which
The orange cherry glow around your lips cast shadows on the wall

I don't understand why I love you
When I hardly know you
Your black hair
Soft skin

The torn siding taps on the wall
The cool wind through the porch
The wind chimes make beautiful songs
As you blow smoke in constant notes of sadness

Surrounded on three sides by dark mist covered mountains
7 country miles to the nearest person

My head spins
As the old warmth grows from my stomach
You have so many empty pill bottles poking up from your purse

You sit quiet as you begin to float off this broken porch
Out into that cool night of nowhere
Her green eyes glow bright
Outshining the naked sixty watt bulb on the wall
Moths circle
And bump against the warmth

I never want to leave you
As you put up your hair
As the truck turns to rust in the yard


But you know
That I know I'm nothing special
And you have plans that don't have room for me

Southern Belle
With a head full of dreams
Your skin smells like fresh cut birch bark
Your hair like a warm summer night


*"You know
It gets beautiful around here
Once spring is in full swing
I was hoping you would at least stay til then"

On your green couch I pass in and out
Your trailer door is open wide
The world outside is shining alright
As I pet your long haired cat
My limbs get warm as the liquor you poured
Slips in between my veins
And my thoughts turn red
As you rise from the bed
With not a bit of clothes on
But I try not to care
I just can't stand
As I pet your long haired cat
With a hiss and a bite
She jumps off
And you shut your bedroom door

Open up neon cracks in the city walls where the bars and strip clubs
Things go bad when shark toothed homeless sleep next to a fire
And a pail of rain false down

They built this house
In 1939
A tornado ripped straight down the street
And missed this house only

You can't understand what its like
To keep those ice cold arms around me
Keep me from feeling any and all pain
Placing momentary perfection
In place of sanity


Roll up your **** sleeves.......
Maybe you shouldn't look so much like trouble
Maybe it won't find you
From a second story window
She yells
Only your name
And flips the bird

Stopping the burn with liquor communication that twists me back into
Billows of smoke
Tongues of fire

I am no one can't you understand
That I am just a brain
With just eyes
Living through millions of electric impulses

Im just like you looking through two eyes

Mud between my fingers
****** lip
Leaking broken nose

I walked just far enough into the dark and cold hills
Until I could look back and see no light
No cars
No humans

Just me and the mountains
And the star filled night

Cars drive by outside the window
Lying on the bed smoking cigarettes
Watching the moon come in through the curtains

Heavy hearted
I pass the trailer parks
Shattered windows
Rusted cars
There's a baseball field overgrown
Two miles down
But these mountains surround me
Blankets of fog lay on the hillsides
Rain taps on the roof

I'm a small town kid
And I can smell the tweekers and the ****** down on main drag
smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee outside McDonalds
No one trusts a new face asking around for pills
But the girl walks over to the window
Her black hair is prettier than yours
A ***** t-shirt three times too big
And a big smile

Maybe I just need someone
Who can show me the mountains
Someone who can name the rivers that run through town
Take me to where the Indian villages were
To the face of a cliff covered in graffiti
Take me to where the ***** drunk red neck boys like me
**** pretty quiet girls like you


She showed me where the river flooded
And tore her house from its foundation
She took me to the cold plateau
Of some mountain in west Virginia
far away from mainstreet where
a single stoplight flickers green yellow red
I think Im in love as you point your long white finger at the stars
As you speak in quiet southern drawl
About indians and fireworks in July

I am disrespectful
Absoloutley no good
Setting off fireworks
In your head
And handing you
Fast still moments
Of peace
And home
A warm bed
No longer a wilderness sleep
Having a hometown shame
Don't grab me in these moments
With tunes of sorrow
I'll grow
Shattered through the basement window
In a dusty
Locked up box
I found a knife
That folded
Carved with your name

Mountain rocks are calling me in
I waved goodbye to you
As you cried from the drive

I could smell you on my shirt
As I sat down on the diamond
Sharp tool box

The sun sets down between long powerlines
Running to the mainland
I felt the weight as it set
Oranges and yellows and reds
Paint the corner of the clouds

Goodbye

The house once called home is empty
The garden is overgrown and tangled
Circling dragonfly
Falling leaf
Monarch butterfly

The floors no longer echo footsteps
Sunlight floods empty bedrooms

I think it was a dream
Or a nightmare of some kind
I was lost in a jungle
I search but can't find
You in the thicket
Spiders big as dinner plates
With one thousand shiny black eyes
Snakes who wrap and coil
On branches twisted, gnarled....shadows
It's hot and humid
Dripping sweat
A mosquito bites
The back of my neck
I'm scared
Of the sounds in the bushes
Scared to step

The snap of a twig beneath a tiger's paw
Ah, its you who finds me safe and sound
Curled up in a ball on the ground
Scared of the sound in the bushes
Just the sound of butterfly wings
Scared to step
On the path that leads home
I'm just a scaredy-cat I guess