Paint chips and coffee grounds keep me awake at night.
The lonely, baggy-eyed stranger with sight wary for headlights.
Great murderer of self and carrier of glad tidings for dogs.
With nose stained color of Earth and eyes stained color of rain.
Only one mother.
Only one father.
One in the same as by all.
Elbows cut deeply by Ida's scratch.
Ego cut deeper than that.
Empty space, gimme, gimme, gimme.
Wilting flowers on family room tables leave everything humble as hell,
while the dog takes everything for granted.
Familiar shapes and sounds threaten humanity while everything else
quietly changes.
One golden band on your middle-finger while ring-finger smiles.
She who understands the bite of rain on spring-stained fields.

The riot of March rain swings through the hills and into the orchard.
Ma and Pa are getting soaked, I bet.
Feet trampin' through mud and straw for many foggy miles.
They let me believe in the wet-winged discovery of truth.

This truth, the low neon light of lowlife bars while red-lipped German
girls beckon from cigarette breaks in the distant corners of the world.
I cried for your brother under a bright red light after the *** and coke had done me in.

When I awoke the next morning, I took a train to the Amersee to make sure that there was a church that I could get drunk inside of.
Please, please, please let there be a girl in the Alps wearing cowboy boots.