I don't know why--but **** tonight
And **** this town
And **** this guy that I'm becoming
And the steel ceilinged sky
     that never changes, night-to-night

And why, when streets all run together,
trickling off to asphalt seas,
     do nights out wandering get me nowhere?
Some elsewhere's
where I want to be.

I'll try to eat my plate of crow
and try to finish
though I'm full with midnight air
and half-cocked guesses
     and a frozen block of messes

Pull it off--that sky-steel-ceiling
Grinds a protest
Rusting clouds
     Might flake and rain an oxide winter
Flip the page up, one year down.

Snowdrifts piling up
as brain melts down to zero sum
Not sure, now, what functions become
but, sure enough, what's piled high
          in streets will become flood

Slide past corners
wash away
These torrents still insistent shakes
The quaking stops, now reach the sea
and rock on shifting waves.

Peer through striations clouding clouds and
                                                     sunlight
Soak into liquid, reach the bottom
                  grasp the floor
Handfuls of silt melt out through wrinkling digits
Withered faces, pickled organs: zero sum

Trickle down through strata--
read the layers
peel them back
Then, at the core, can settle down.

How I hate to be a ****     havering ire and vitriol
But with great bombast    I must barbily insist
That you  stop that ****.

There was talk of exploring
                         empty lots
                 until the sun came up
And laying dotted lines
                         on empty maps until
                  We found ourselves new homes
With softer beds and warmer sheets

Make it as far as frozen streets--
       decide to paint it black
                         when
             We've run out of red
          Our hands are getting chapped
                         and

We've been running ourselves dry
Out here beneath polished winter skies
Then right before
          our hazy, crossed out eyes
Come falling
           snowflakes from the clear
Think they must be the
           first five of the year
And lately, I swear all we get 'round here
Are busted plans and second tries

The chips are falling
    so let's cash our winnings
out and sup on underpinnings found
as tacit answers start to drift

As tacit answers start to drift
     the question's seeding up
     the frozen ground

And rougher textures make for traction
       so I'll get a grip and count
out snowburnt seconds
     'til we find the map to another
      point of black.

You're not the only one
Who wakes up feeling stuck
and hoping seasons fall asleep
to dream you up some better luck

When you and sidewalks talk
It's not an argument
They like to conjure up old wraiths
from when you stood in better stead.

So what's left now but one more Fall?
     And after that, it's more of the same again
Seasons come and go, that's how
the mountains get so tall

Too easy just to chock it up
           to thinning blood
and fast failing memory
Hard to say
     that each year's still weighing the same

We'll paint the town
          with a broad brush
          in brightest hues
But that won't change a thing.

We're washing in
On waves we ride
     on the Crimson Tide
Washing up
Drying out
     it'll be alright--
Six pack Pacifico, it's all sympatico
and copasetic
          but it's so pathetic
you're living hermetic
     You can't even smell the trees.

It's an age--or it's becoming--
     one of reckless living
     and sin forgiving
Finding time to be alone

     I'm not alone
        I know
    Just one out of millions
Cover streets and subjects and bare midriffs
     pull sardonic smiles tight

Disagreements turn to fights
     but not on my watch
           not on my watch
           not on my
WATCH WHAT I CAN DO!

The Stupendous Calamari,
   that is what they call me
     'cause just
          watch what I can't do!--

Got eight long arms
And no axe to grind
Six-pack Pacifico, that still leaves two, you know
     One to pick up
     One to dial
     Tell you you were right
     Five to put away the empties
     One to save one for tomorrow,
     For the Crimson Tide
     But you never liked
     Never liked that movie much.

And anyway

     Time to take some time to
                       take some time
I got some time for drying out.

Ten
Ten
Ten men down.

Dig them a bonny bed six feet beneath the ground.

They are tired.
And they're weary.
And they shouldn't be disturbed.

So dig them a bed six feet beneath the earth.