They come down the road coughing
Up beliefs between cigarette drags
And slight hesitations of who they are to others.
Orange-ish yellow unattractively
Embroiders their chests; they've got their protections,
Their unambiguous vests.
From hazy breakfast drudgery
To night's exhausted rapture,
The play the same stage, the same lines, the same players.
But this is living to them:
Shrugging at the future; believing just because;
Knowing the store still provides overpriced cigarettes.
Their feet rattle on tarry asphalt
As their tools swing away. Patterns
Are in their hearts, their caged, tamed hearts,
Stifling what they want to say.
They built the streets I drive on
As I fight with my nothingness
And I remember they must feel this too,
Just as darkly and definitely as the wheel feels the road.

Spurred on by scarecrow's
chemical coercions
convicts and sick souls
spill out into the streets
To slice dice
cook and eat
An orange jumpsuit army,
a crushing orange wave consumes
The neighborhoods and avenues
Chaos is constant
Carnage is complete
No single hero can quell a wave of madmen
well acquainted with violence
Like an avalanche of razors, and ambulance sirens
Wielding improvised blood letters
And bone snappers
Citizens scream and flee
Consumed by the visions
Contained in the cloud of fear
It is clear
it is going to be a wild time
in old Gotham tonight.

I saw you in the clouds today
A wispy summer hide-away
Tonight I've nothing else to say
I saw you in the clouds today

This afternoon I felt your hand
It made me tremble where I stand
Dreaming daylight, waking man
This afternoon I felt your hand

(In early hours I miss you most)
Out from the distance, growing close
I miss your heat, I miss your nose
(In early hours I miss you most)

One day soon we will be there
Together in the crackling air
And maybe all we'll do is stare, but
One day soon we will be there

the past moments blur
together in a rush of colorful
awareness, no more words to describe
conversation permeating the dark, sometimes
walking quickly and then ever so slowly

something holding the two to a bit of nature, as if
it were a magnifying glass to free them from anything
else, only breathing only freedom ever closer and
there's nowhere but here there's
nothing but now

keep it up keep it
up for as long as you can
the beauty the simplicity

all I write could be meaningless
and I would remain as I am
and no one has to know
how could anyone?

tonight it is clear
and no one else has to know

did you
see the flash? gone
off like a bulb to record
this company in wooden memory

don't tell me what you
don't have the words for
I understand

dreaming is only
one way

I want you to see yourself
through my eyes and through
my heart
for you to know
tonight
how you are
to me

I remember, don’t worry
As your words softly drift over me
Like a body in the snow.
How could I ever forget?
You hold him as my arms outstretch
My reach and I fall.
Don’t worry, I know
You can never loosen his grip for me
Or your grip on me
Around my heart.
Don’t worry, I know
I can never shout from the rooftop
As your hand strokes my face
And surrounds my throat.

my faces are the
about faces, my little breaths
are little deaths
I am like your cry at night

my time of day is seconds before dark
when suicide is a life-long contemplation;
a standard deviation from the sidewalk,
and the sunset is a reason

my day is the day when
suddenly,
your addiction makes you sad instead of happy
so why don't you stop

my breaks are all the breaks and
window sill stair fire escapes
used for smoking under-age
I've got it figured out early

my ocean beats against the rock of ages
I'll raise my fist and ***** on my own defiance.
I'm aching over my forgiveness, begging,
is Jesus still in pain?

well

Everyday there is a little less.
A little less consequence,
A little less shore.
A tired tyrant, an affront to a relentless sea.
Aghast at his cohorts,
They make friends of the waves
Joyously they swim and swirl through their deepest caves.
Yet down its long and crooked nose the tyrants gaze falls with ill favour upon the waves.
With a languid angst they trickle and sway,
They take a little more in a salted assault,
Day by day.
From sheer rock face, to grains of waste
All the tyrant can do is sit,
And wait.

It’s kind of funny, how
you and cigarettes are so alike, even
though
you hate smoking and
the smoke doesn’t like you.

I go to both you and cigarettes to keep the demons away,
you both give me company and something to think about,
you both put me at ease and get my mind running
at the same time,
and you are both a poison,
and,
and,
both
addicting, habitually, chemically even.

And lately cigarettes have made me nauseous,
I try to get the buzz and I quit before it’s even halfway
done,
And now you make me nauseous, and
I’m only getting the poison side of things,
So what’s the point?
I suppose I’ll just quit both
of you.