We are hands,
and eyes,
and feet, and ears,
lumps of skin,
and bone.
We are puddles of blood
filling the cracks
on the side of the road.
We are mush,
and porcelain teeth
knocked out and embedded
where the steering wheel used to be.

We are hearts, and veins,
arteries clogged up
with a midnight treat.

We are alcohol in the blood stream.
We are 60 miles per hour,
on a residential street.

We are a corpse,
Limbs thrown out like a compass,
Guts spilled out like a teenage poet.
But what we are not,
Is a soul.

We are objects,
We are play things.
For higher species,
Godly beings.
To smile like kids crashing toy cars.

We are empty,
We are just vessels in a blood stream,
Giving life .
We are white noise, screaming for our mothers.
We are a name in a notepad.

A statistic in a book,
Passed out at clever Christian fundraisers,
For old ladies who like sugar cookies.
We are a pop punk song
With memorable lyrics
And a catchy hook .

-Kevin T. 6/16/10

Fred’s a peddler of dreams
Between caked on make- up grins
And a dime sack of ****
He puts holes in logic
Like gaping buckshot wounds
While he sells his wares
To a corrupt, pretentious, college indie scene

The kids who sat in the back of high school dances
“Jesus I wish they’d play some Rooney!”
Are now ******* on the tongues of frat guy’s
Who’s favorite songs are narrowed down to a lists of hits
Played by Journey!

The same girls who dressed for cold New York days
In a California heat storm.
Who listened to Bob Dylan and The Doors
But now they’re covered in the sweat of a ******* without the hope
Of *******
Listening to Jay-z
Not because they like it, oh no!
They need to dance
And at least he sings
On key
While kids who made
Wordless promises
Sit in the back
Dropping LSD.

Fred’s a peddler of broken dream
Reach your hand in his satchel
For a fist full of glass shards, and rusted cutlery

He speaks in Biblical urban
Like “Thy shalt not give in, give up, sell out, buy in, peace out!”
And fred is a prophet on E
He’s the only holy man who’s ever meant anything to me
Or spoken a word more then the lessons I learned on Sunday’s PBS specials
I need Fred like a savior needs second chance
And I can find them at the bottles of these sugar coated alcoholic
Drinks.

And I’ll fade to a dim reminder like the scars
On the wrists of the girls and boys who wore the
Nightmare before Christmas hoodies, and understood so well
When they were younger that the only way
To achieve anything
Was to slice themselves under dull razor blades
In bathtubs payed for by parents
Who’s love was occupied by a 200 $ pay cut.
But now the bloods dried and the scars are gone
So 200 miles away and they haven’t learned
A thing
Or done
A thing
And when anything was possible
They need a multiple choice, with an E
For all the above

Fred these are my sacrifices, no love
These are old and weary so now I can sit
And watch the girl drown herself in alcohol
Fred to you I give her.
Put her in your bag of broken dreams
And sell her back to me as a blood alcohol
.40

Fred these are my payment in things I don’t own
The guys in meaningless vintage clothes
Dropping acid
And convulsing in chairs
Until their nothing but blink stares
And steady green lines
With the white noise swan song, and the time
4:40 am
Put him in medicine bottle
Marked “Lysergic acid diethylamide- For mild post college depression”
And Me and you Fred can share a nice chuckle.

Fred’s a con artists
He’s got an empty bag of *******
He’s got all the money he needs
He’s the **** all poster child
He’s the God I always imagined
He’s the best part of the week
He ‘s a lie caught between
Some tongue and cheek
And if I only knew what he said
Was a cautionary tale
And not some well thought out pitch or sale.

Well then Fred’s a messiah
Handing out second chance
In his knapsack.
But his advice
Is deafened by the constant hum and irritating beat
Of a floor drums that’s moving the youth into an early graves.
-Kevin T.

When I arrived at Brian’s house, the whole room smoked out.
I prayed to God I was walking into a witch burning.
But he was lying on the couch melting
into the cushions, being swallowed and chewed.
Like cud in a cows mouth, slowly sloshing around.

He’s rolling joints on top of college rejection letters.
He doesn’t want help in the most obvious ways:
he wants it in the way couples make suicide pacts.
Glass eyed, he looks at me and grabs
a beer:  no cheers,
no salute, or words
exchanged.

We drink the beer quickly
Aluminum tips to pink lips,
that moose **** taste of natty ice.
As our ******* banter bounces of the walls.
The light bends off Brian’s glasses and flashes in my eyes,
Like the scope of a ****** rifle.

He is fixed on the flashing blue TV screen.
If I’m here or not makes no difference

He puts the joint in his mouth, lights it up.
The flame ignites against his sugar glazed eyes,
his skin stretched tight across his pale face.
Bright blue veins all along his skin,
like highways on a map.
A corpse in a cheap Halloween
costume.

I catch a ghostly outline
of him with all his drop out friends.
Lined up, ****** on the couch.
Jack-o'-lanterns.
Carved with frozen grins,
so weary
and hollowed out.

-Kevin Theal

Am I constantly making the wrong decision?
or
is it all just happenstance?

I guess everyone was right about me.
So maybe all my words are just pre-pubescent *******.
And i'm no Bukowski but you're no ******* Neruda

If I smoke *** on Tuesdays
Or drink cheap beer with expensive people
It will all look like an average day
For someone like me
Not for the crowd
That smokes *** on Wednesdays
And drink cheap beer with equally cheap people
It’s a job for them
They’re mindset isn’t indulgence
It’s how to stay ahead of the curve
Because when you’re this close
It’s easy to get your face smashed in on the curb of the curve (****** up ladder climbers are all a bunch of thieves, liars, and murderers)
So I’m a couch cushion and here’s the big time! Ready to be incendiary?
I bet you are.
You’re the guy who put raisins
In the bran
So tell me, how it feels?
The money shoulder
Reaction
If you’re quick
You’ll shrink you vocabulary to verbal shrugs
And then?
Then you’re the quick ******* kid
But still
Envy is a cheap word
When buying cardboard
But my life’s a cut out
And I’ve been around some melodramatic histories.
Still,
Hits me like a ton of bricks
When I break a promise to myself
But still I got twisted
And the rest was a kaleidoscope (color ******* and not so formal hand grenade hand gestures. I’m most the same act with different band t-shirts)
Adventures should be shared
I’d be far more interesting in an Indiana Jones excursion
I just hope it doesn’t involve rush records
Not a personal fan
**** it…
It wouldn’t matter that much
It shouldn’t matter at all
All pipe dreams lead to the same sewage.
And out to sea,
With pretty things
Where more expensive beers are served to
Increasingly less expensive people
Although cheap newspapers would have you believe differently
If I lost the charm I never had it in the first place
I’ve got 20 years of ******* to back up my ego
So young intellectuals challenge me to a battle of wit
They choke on shattered teeth
And I do my best when I’m ruthlessly violent
At the core that’s what it is
First sight is like a ****** scoped me
And I’m bleeding out the throat
And gasping for second impressions

-Kevin T.

In case of Armageddon
Break the glass
And fasten your safety belts.
Actually **** the drill
Lets go wild in the streets with shot guns.
The gun toting evangelists
Pumping 38. And 12 gauge rounds into anything that’s not glowing or on fire
If the ground splits in half at least we know we’re going somewhere.

The bars near then end don’t serve anything strong enough.
You’d think the end of day’s could usher in some new era of alcoholism.
Maybe they’d break out the absinthe and write poetry with knives on the wooden bar stands.
Maybe men would walk in and request “something apocalyptic”

Right now I’m looking at these kids with this idea that lacks any emotional responsibility
It’s like gun’s without safety’s in the hands of kids
Some ones going to die (not get hurt. ******* DIE)
Because kids these days are impeccable shots.
The can blow the face of a man at 200 yards but they can’t get past the 4th  level of simon says
No these kids are doomed because I saw something great in a child
And now I’ll reap the whirl wind.
It’s like not stopping a blind person from walking across the highway.
It’s not a crime, but it sure as **** should be.

Put petty murders aside, when the bodies are piled to the sky
Break the glass,
It’s an emergency

-Kevin T

We sip green beer bottles under lime lights
With her ginseng tongue talking calming evergreen
And her eye’s are envious and big like granny smith apples
And now we’re downing absinthe on the other side
Laughing, getting drunk, and eating green grapes
Her skin is smooth and cool jade
But fragile
A cut under a blade of grass
But it’s emerald, and it’s all the riches we need
Because while everyone was playing life like a game with rules.
We were breaking fences and creating unfair stipulations for others.

No one is passing the finish line if I keep moving it up.
It’s not me raining on a parade
I’m closing down every street.

But still…
We have the pill poppers and the drop outs
The can do’s take up all the good face time so they say
But all I see is a weak person
Socially awkward isn’t an excuse

So if we’re all
Wild animals
Then we
Eat our young
And if you’re into that
Then we’re talking business
But until then
Write your eulogies on crumpled up bath room paper
I get the bland fairy tale story, rock band, slam poetry, baked cookies, digital photographs.
And it’s force fed down my mouth
Like a baby
**** it all
I want things to better
And I expect so much more…

If our lives are just a waiting room for something better
We’re stranded
So I’m leaving behind the white walls
And the cool
Linoleum
Floor
So I may be wildly foolish
But a slight chance at splendor
Is better than misery as a sure things
I'm moving up the hill
to see the other side
-Kevin T