These punchlines unraveled on an Autumn morning.
My breath and my tension devoured the edges
of yellowed and dog-eared, trusted old pages.
This map's projections embracing me now.
Holding so tight. Pinned me down to the ground
described on the pages regurgitated.
                    Pin me tight to this town.
A flightless bird--I'm a rooster
                     bolted to your roofing;
follow each wind, but I'm never moving.
My phone woke me up on a cold Winter morning.
My uncle had died and they cancelled my flight.
It was only just me that missed out on his funeral.
And it's only just me singing "Midsummer Classic"
alone in this quiet and darkened apartment
                    "...Blue & Gold /
                    our city casts its shadow..." (Sundowner)
No albatross I, but a bird without flight all the same.

Ticking off the time
while the ticks and the flies
creep and crawl across my face,
burrow into my eyes.
And I think my swarming friends
               are feeling hungry tonight.
So I guess it's only etiquette
for me to oblige.

When the fiddler's tune
starts to slow down and waver,
I cling tightly to youth.
But I ain't getting no braver.
And the steps to this dance
still feel foreign to me,
even if I know the words like a fish does
               the stream.

Now this empty dance hall
is quickly filling up
               with ghosts wearing tap shoes;
guess this jig is up. My cup runneth over
with tired clichés. And I'm knee deep in *******
               but I ain't afraid.
          Not afraid to be alone
          not afraid to be alive.
          Never been scared to die
             or to ignore signs.

But I must be

scared of something...

Sunlight so bright
think I'm halfway blind.
Squinting through the days and
sacrificing all sight.
I'm still hanging with the bugs
               while they scratch and they buzz
before I finally pinpoint just
what I have become.

Lay it down, black it out
while water sinks into ground.
Break it up, break me out
and we'll drive into town,
alright?

Well you wanna go out dancing.
I don't wanna leave my pad.
I won't loosen up this necktie 'til my head falls in my lap.
               Then you'd be lapping up my words
               that are
                     curdled,
                     soured,
                     absurd,
purchased with inflated currency
and sold off for a herd
               of sappy sentiments
          for worn-out, bought-up malcontents.
Yeah, you're believing anything these days...

And I'm far too good a liar
               selling real estate
          on toxic, poisoned ground.
Filling in all of these forms
and putting dumpster fires out.
               Standardized.
               Attracting flies...

Follow darkened circles down...

To my parlor. Find me cutting up and dealing
               out my cards
and doubling down on all the reasons
I've been feeding you.
               Repeating 'til it's my turn
               to start eating plates of crow.

Now you won't take any chances.
I'm a golem made of ash.
I won't fire up the big band. You won't come sit on my lap.
               I've been dishing out these words
               that are
                    used up
                    barren,
                    burned
far too long. The chafing dishes cooled
and all our vittles turned.
               Buffet line sentiments
          for naïve, hungry malcontents
starving to believe in anything these days.

Well you wanna go out dancing...

I'm not gonna leave my pad...

Who has the keys to this Wednesday night?
I wanna ******* drive, I'll take the exit
               off I-90
  and these bloodshot eyes
  they won't slow me down
  or catch up until bar time.

Greyscale cityscape--it's blurred out size
               can dissemble time
and make a smudge out of our plights.

Not asking questions.
I won't need to lie
if I just keep quiet.

               Not gonna slow
                                     me down.
                  Not this time.

Door to the weekend has started creaking
and leaking light.
But my threshold's high
and we're not on foreign ground.

Dim reflection in your shouting eyes
calls for some more time
so it's one more round
and keep running for a place that's high.

Not gonna stop until these blurring lights
               and my X'd out eyes
can make a streak out of my sight.

No further questions.
I don't mean to pry.
So I'll just keep quiet.

               Deal is, you've gotta
                                     hide                  
                           me tonight.

Let's pitch the keys to this Wednesday night
and ditch this beat-up ride. Let's make our exit.
               Torch these bridges,
             flee through rainy night.
              They can't stop us now
             or catch up until bar time.

I saw your breath race up
to join the smokestacks' sigh.
You'd cried the night before and I
had cursed the coming Summer,
'cuz I've always liked the cold.
You told me, someday, all of this
would be flattened out and bulldozed.
Paved and paved and painted 'til
the grey goes on for miles,
and they'll never know we stood here,
never know we'd sometimes smile--
                                             true or falsely--
in the bitter Winter air.

I don't know about that.
I don't know if you're wrong or right.
All I've got for you are guesses
that all we ever had was time.

So, with the stopwatch spitting seconds
as the calendar frames lives,
realize it looks the same;
it hasn't changed--we never tried.

Sew these moments up.
A patch for one more year.
Won't "cheers" you--all that happened here
was a decade came unraveled,
now I stand by smokestacks, cold.
Told you once I liked the Winter.
It got searing hot and you walked
off and faded to a point.
But the pavement goes on for miles,
and they'd never guess we stood here,
never know the way we'd smile--
                                       true or falsely--
in the bracing midnight air.

Now I don't know about you.
Can't tell if you were wrong or right.
But I will keep on guessing
all we had was a convenient lie.

Fill the hourglass with seconds
as the calendar frames lives.
No. Don't turn it on its head;
the moment's dead: we didn't try.

It's like coming back to an empty room,
filling blanks with my mind
while I look for you.
It's the half-life
of my memories
that betrays me now as I replay through each scene.

Holding the bag
    of fast fading photos
and stumbling home alone past windows
that could've been ours.
Now I can't remember
my getaway plan.
That year's November
     dropped me into cold;
arrested breaths

               sold me out
     3 years, still scared to death...

...that the time'll prove you right,
that no indictment ever left a man so blind.
I'll sit in the dark, then lie on the floor.
But Justice can see you've gone so
               far on your own way
               and that's just fine.

When this empty room echoes,
that sound is mine.

Trip through the doorway in domestic dark
in this sick span of space
where it echoes stark.
And it sounds wrong
to my puzzled ears.
Nothing fits in this vacant place without you here.

What good's a home
     when it's all ghosts and regrets
and one lonely soul resisting egress?
These fumbling hours
spent searching for landmarks
that used to be here,
can't find them so far.
     dropping into slow
arrested breaths

               Won't go out
     3 years, still scared to death...

...that my memory's decayed
that the best of me invested got mislaid.
I'll sit in this room, in the thick, empty dark.
And, now, I can see you've gone so
               far on your own way
               and that's just fine.

Now the silence here echoes;
I'm losing time.

It aches when I smile.
My State's a disaster.
Coal rollers, burnouts and days full of rapturous
laughter and "Red Face"
down in Lusk in the hot days
of Summer--it's boiling;
Winter winds burn up your face.
I first learned to hate
myself in a snowstorm
on Dow Street in Sheridan.
My best friends are the slow warmth
that spreads through the chest,
lifts a cold heart, grabs popcorn and pints
at the Blacktooth on hundreds of nights.
And 500,000 simple souls are a sight.
Still they're just half a million salty
drops in the ocean--
A quick squall of rain on the Bighorns.
They've opened the floodgates for *******,
morons, bigots and rednecks
and rich, ******* ranchers thinking
          everyone owes them.
And their dollars are deadpan
gallows jokes down in Cheyenne.
But I've seen cheap smiles 4 miles wide
out by Sundance.
And I've got good friends that I still carry with me
like the potent, sweet, earthy afterburn of good whiskey,
or the smell of the lodgepoles in the Spring
up in Story.
And it's still my home
even though it's so empty.
It's still my home
though it sometimes seems ******.
That State's in my bones,
I don't think it'll leave me.
So please understand that some nights
when you find me,
you've stumbled across a small splinter
chipped off of Wyoming.