My nanna said
"Kid,
Don't eat a whole-bowl-full
Of sugar
Cause when your tongue's
Coated in it
You can't taste anything else."
There's so much more
Than just sweetness
To explore.
I stopped having a sweet tooth
When I met you.
I still over indulged.

Some days you need
The rain
To sit in your
Gutter, or
Wash the roads
clean of your plans.

Some times the rain
Ends the day
Early
And closes the sun
Behind clouds.
I didn't want
To go out
Anyway.

And on these days
The rain
Hides your own drops
From your face.
What a perfect place to cry.

What a perfect time
To say
Goodbye.

I'd stand in the shower until the water runs dry
And there's no more drops to drip from my fingertips.
I still myself when anyone else would shiver
These moments have stopped being instances
And grown into forevers.

Let's run away from time and here
You can figure out the rest yourself.
Demons underneath us will be too weak to scream,
And I'll be too free to breathe.

Are you afraid of the future?
Nothing scares me more than a ticking clock.

Being wrapped up here hasn't been so much about family and friends
But instead something about yelling "I'm not yours"
To the walls and the doors
That have shrunk by the inches, more every year.

I see their hands come through the ground
And let them drag me down neck deep
Whispering I'm the only one and how I belong
Pulling me back into this hometown mess with a sickening song.

Am I afraid of the future?
Ask me what scares me when my time runs out.

some people never go crazy.
me, sometimes I'll lie down behind the couch
for 3 or 4 days.
they'll find me there.
it's Cherub, they'll say, and
they pour wine down my throat
rub my chest
sprinkle me with oils.
then, I'll rise with a roar,
rant, rage -
curse them and the universe
as I send them scattering over the
lawn.
I'll feel much better,
sit down to toast and eggs,
hum a little tune,
suddenly become as lovable as a
pink
overfed whale.
some people never go crazy.
what truly horrible lives
they must lead.

the flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul,
and the women break
vases against the walls
and the men drink too
much
and nobody finds the
one
but keep
looking
crawling in and out
of beds.
flesh covers
the bone and the
flesh searches
for more than
flesh.

there's no chance
at all:
we are all trapped
by a singular
fate.

nobody ever finds
the one.

the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill

nothing else
fills.

the women of the past keep
phoning.
there was another yesterday
arrived from out of
state.
she wanted to see
me.
I told her
"no."

I don't want to see
them,
I won't see them.
it would be
awkward
gruesome and
useless.

I know some people who can
watch the same movie
more than
once.

not me.
once I know the
plot
once I know the
ending
whether it's happy or
unhappy or
just plain
dumb,
then

for me
that movie is
finished
forever
and that's why
I refuse
to let
any of my
old movies play
over and over again
for
years.

some say we should keep personal remorse from the
poem,
stay abstract, and there is some reason in this,
but jezus;
twelve poems gone and I don't keep carbons and you have
my
paintings too, my best ones; its stifling:
are you trying to crush me out like the rest of them?
why didn't you take my money? they usually do
from the sleeping drunken pants sick in the corner.
next time take my left arm or a fifty
but not my poems:
I'm not Shakespeare
but sometime simply
there won't be any more, abstract or otherwise;
there'll always be mony and ****** and drunkards
down to the last bomb,
but as God said,
crossing his legs,
I see where I have made plenty of poets
but not so very much
poetry.