Left unpainted,
The sky is a bland reminder,
That the sun sets,
Left unheard,
The ocean is a bland reminder,
That waves crash,
Without the susuration of the leaves,
Ah...**** the trees!
Left unspoken,
The heart is a bland reminder,
That love exist.

if you cut me open
you would hear music

Tattered and torn,
Beaten and worn,
Death is the only healing place.

I didn't want to wake
up this morning

(people who like the winter
most of all enjoy making their
own warmth)

be my summertime?

here's to a package of
Marlboro Reds
in the hands of
someone other than
the Marlboro Man
standing in
for those slack-jawed outlaws
my heroes now lack jaws
tongues
lungs

I swear it's been too long
since I inhaled manhood
The Great Darrell Winfield
rolled
packed
and filtered
into the only thing I know
that makes a man a man
the essence of
cowboy boots and farmer's tan
in every drag

see, I inhale my heroes
all the dusty red-necked
cowboys
Darrell Winfield
and my dad
men whose lives
went up in smoke
to coat my throat
in my own self-righteousness
I'm frightened this
is all that I'll have left
of him
lung cancer
and the lingering stench
of cigarettes

he always smelled
of cigarettes

he'd pull me into these
firm embraces
he held so long
that he'd suffocate me
in tacky business
and cigarette smoke
masked only
faintly
by a poor man's
cologne
still I breathed him in
until I'd start to choke
it was too much man to handle

my grandpa told me
“smoking doesn't send you
straight to Hell,
but it sure does make you smell
like you've already been there”

he was
a grown man
cursing
crying
lying
dying by himself
trying to drown out the inferno
with a case of beer
but sobriety finds you sometime
and I'd rather suffocate in cigarettes
than lose him altogether

and even if he smells like Hell
at least that means he made it back

Impossibly close, I'm
beginning to believe you were
actually here with me, dreaming
away all doubts

metaphors are
rubber bands
we may extend them
as much as we like
we may shoot them
at our classmates
we may impress
our professors
with the shapes
we can contort
them into
but the more
we extend them
the more we
wear them out
and its very possible
that with all of our
stretching and extending
we could render
our metaphors
useless
*snap

Courage, such courage,
To behold in ones mind,
This fate undeniable,
And to continue,
Courage,
Such elusive courage.

A wishing well,
Old pennies thrown in,
New,
Brilliant,
Shining,
They shall be yours again.