She found a corner to corner herself in,
yet she broadened her prospects,
and so she grew out of her love for me.

There it was, her car parked in a lot.
there's a whole world out there, does she know?
Dumb-****** *****, my own street isn't safe anymore.

My ****** bandages
cover the wound,
my imaginary band
is playing top of the roof.

Take
my
number,
take
my
victim
card,
victim
scarred,

singing
is
hard.

Standing center,
rage of frost
flooding
through arteries
to fingertips,
icicles dangling
from my ankles,
bass guy from the unnamed
session band cleared his throat,
looked over to the guitar man,
he was looking down.
I was dying with a flower in my hand,
making monuments out of the audience.

To the left of me was an angel
smiling,
drawing ***** on dollar bills,
stuffing them into the pants
of whoever passed by;
some feinted modesty
but most implored,
writhing,
******* themselves
crying "more, more more!"
To the right of me a
cricket heehawed-
involuntary- 
and played a clown;
there were two psychologists,
one ripped off his clothes,
took fighting stance,
beating his chest and howling,
eyes glowing toxic green as his
colleague got on hands
and knees,
held a stethoscope
to the puddle of *****
accumulating beneath him,
brow creased,
listening intently.

And yes, I finished your manuscript,
under duress I guess.
I felt like I'd perfect the phrases
in the only ways that I knew how.

By clenching curses into my teeth,
allowing the howling soul
to disengage and repeat itself,
completing that boundless,
ever restless, and eternal process.

My ****** bandages cover the wounds,
my imaginary band is much

cooler than you.

It's nothing.

It's nothing
that you'd be into.

Some people write all day.

With a head that stays inflated,
I hope I never become that way.

To believe, it's all important, what I have to say,
would indeed be a sad display!

She called me




She called me
a little *****

in which five knuckles
and four spaces
were the only faces
that ever turned a light on for me.
Or off, as a matter of fact.

Write it on a flier, or
tie her up in the back of a limousine,
ask her to give you some sugar
and send you to sleep.

Just don't be weird about it.
And seriously,

pay attention,

you just might


burn something.

I think my voice is changing.

I press four fingers into my forehead
and smoke a cigarette like that one writer
I was too cool to ever read. You know,
they treat you like a ******* drug?
A ******* drug!

Past lovers,
and their coat hangars,
I don't wanna talk to 'em,
I don't wanna touch 'em.

But I do;
it's easy to cut into
those veins once you've
found 'em.


*I'm sorry,
so prone
to wasting time,
I love when my head
spins on an axis
all of its own.

Deer pilfer a red nut under a re-flip reed.

Sunday was sad.

I used to have a dog,
his name was Jimmy.
More happiness than
you could ever give me.

Poetry so eloquent,
I read like you,
I bleed like you.
Prose I find so arrogant.

Baby, draw me
an album cover.
One that's in tune with
all my thoughts of you.

I used to have a bike,
it had five gears.
One for every path
but fear.

Baby, I don't have
a dime, but I make
a **** good cup
of coffee and the
cigarettes I roll
for you will be perfect
every time, I promise.

As you fanned me
and fed me grapes,
you let the sweat drip
down your lobe.
On a night as wet
as this, slip off
your robe, expose.

my fingertips scaled
your knuckles,
fumbling the thing
you held out to me,
burning so brightly.

All before you stopped
to talk to someone
more important
than me.
You moved so candidly.

You sat down at the bench
In a dress all black and
backless.
I've seen it in a dream.

With the moonlight flowing
down the river, your neck,
and spilling onto the banks,
your shoulder blades,
your hand crept across the keys
like the most beautiful spider
I had ever seen.

When I was sixteen
I would trade
my allowance
for some feelings
every Friday night.
I'd pull on the strings
and pull on my hair
until I was discordant
and bald and
still in the dark.

I tried hard to see
what they wanted me to see
in country, when it came to metal
I just couldn't feel the steel and
hip hop failed to have
the same effect on me.
When I was a sick teen,
see, that's when I found indie.




What did you think you'd find in the avant-garde?
beautiful, new, perplexing, plexi-glass box
where rock stars go to suffocate
and die
(keep kitsch alive).
Really,
what did you think you'd find in the junk-yard?

Glad I missed the rhythm of those loops.

You keep walking out
to see who's going to chase you.

But honey fairness is and fairness was.
That's right,

fairness is
and fairness

was.

I'll be straightforward with you,
I speak in riddles and rhymes,
have you got the time?

I don't have
any flowery words for you,
the **** if I know,
fair chances,
careful glances
in my direction,
could you fall in love or in line?

I won't chase you.

It wouldn't be fun.

I won't chase you,

but it would be fun

to watch you

run run run run run!

If I trust
my intuition I will never die.
If it's a
crooked institution I won't
ever hide.
Say it's sold,
say it's told to us,
I won't ever fold to it.

This is the new way,
this is full on mastery
of a hidden language,
feeling
the part you **** with
and being oh so...
languid.

Did it
ever occur
in
history?

In the
purple sky?

Probably
not.

Don't hate me.
Blame your
freedom for letting me
cover up folly
with pride,
set good
taste aside,
and be this waste.

I've got a glass of wine in one hand, while I'm trying to keep my balance, as I take my socks off with the other. I stumble, and land abruptly on my bed. Half a glass of Merlot sloshes onto my cream colored cloth sheets and I slur some sounds, shooting for '****' and '****'.

Lily takes her heels off downstairs and creeps up to my room; she moves easily, as if hovering a few inches above the ground as to not let a single sound reach my bludgeoned ears until she laid down beside me. As she began to loosen my tie she pecked softly at every inch of my newly exposed neck, tender, and begging.
My eyes flutter as she whispers,or whimpers (I can't tell)

I know no one's perfect,
but why do you gotta act so far from it?
Jesuit, you're desolate, but I don't know
where I'm going, and I'm slowly dying.

I know that we make
bad choices in mates and you're a mistake,
but I'm lost as to what the cost might be
because right now you're so good for me

and I think I can carry that weight.

Lily,
I've learned a great deal about love and languages tonight.
Just barely masked by metaphor, I couldn't think of a more cliche
way of saying I love you.

Little one,
try not to be

so broken.

Save a shuddering
breath or two,

you've already spoken.

Little one,
emotions,
energy

is spent,

vent,
vent now little one,

cry on my collarbone.

Nerves and naves
may fail you

but I will never leave you alone.


I need red.

Give me purple,

fuchsia, and maroon.

All of the colors that sear your insides;
carnivals come too soon.

Little one,
let it out,

just
save me some.

I haven't found glory
on the street or in the fields,
the latter being too gory
and the former ******* my heels.

I don't have the words,
it's shaking up my nerves,
I'll take a walk.

Play low class, gamble for cash
with tiny marbles made of glass,
the gravity outweighs the mass
on this tiny marble made of gas.

I can't fly with birds,
it's shaking up my nerves,
I"ll take a walk.

I haven't found glory
on the street or in the fields,
but I'll tell you my stories
because they're real.

I hardly have my eyes
open while I'm driving
anymore.
I will not swerve,

baby, I swear,
I will serve you.

I need you
at the day's end,
pull back the
pavement for you.

Goin' down

tail end.

Not a statement
concerning you.

*You said you like to make love in the dark 'cause it's a lost art and you told me to calm down, to relax, you told me that it's okay to explain things the same way 'cause being too original used to get you killed, and you fed me jazz and you licked my lips,
you drew two hearts, one on my car, and one on my hip.

The dedication
was ingrained
in his fingertips,
(like Bowie,
like Bob), yet
there was no
boldness,
no brilliance
in the decay,
(like David,
like Dylan,
lord willin').

And so
I asked him:

Shall I
dare

to play
Baudelaire
over six flights
of stairs?

No?

Is it really worth
that much to you?
Is it worth anything at all?
Is just getting away always good enough?

And then I said to him,

kid,
sometimes
you gotta bury
'em.
And this is coming
from me with my chest
resting on the ground.

Snicker snicker, giggle giggle,
it's funny,
the way your pen wiggles.

We never say what it is to say, that is, what is the pertinent daring of the day.
And on top of that-
though,

all that which that is on top of is all of the above?

Just that?

I can do...
I can
do...

better than you.

She loves the beat,
bass so heavy
it hurts.

She loves the heat,
ecstasy,
short skirt.

In the middle
of these times,
I'm square.

I'd like to be
with New York City,
if she'd ever take
a bore like me.
But
in the middle
of her times,

I'm square.

I'd like
to hear her
digitally
repeating,

with her
lips pressed
against my ear,
soft whispers,
heavy breathing,

*they can't stop me.
No,
they can't stop me
from dreaming.

I see you blinking
in the summer sun.
I take you drinking
in the gutter slum.

You sit there
and you read your poems
and you stare where,
you stare where you should just go!

No Morse code! No Morse code!

Gotta find three of these-
three of these that fit...an angel couldn't laugh-
I would laugh! I would laugh!
No Morse code!

I figure the fragments are all black;
I figure the fragments are all

stagnant and all black!

No Morse code! No Morse code!
Ex facto!

I see you blinking
in the summer sun.
I take you drinking
in the gutter slum.

You stare where...
and you stare where...

My name is not Matthew,
I'm not Thomas but take a little bit of me.

My name is not Andrew,
I'm not Peter, but give a little back please.

My name is not Bartholomew,
I'm not Jude; Philip always insisted but he was rude.

My name is not James
and I could care less 'cause I heard Matthias was a mouse.

Andrew couldn't give a **** though he didn't mean to curse.

John told me that Simon said Peter was sorry.

Did you really print a bar code on the cover of it?
If that's what you'll do to put a dollar in your pocket
you can have it.
Maybe if you weren't so ugly you could have sold your body as well.
And your soul.

I used to have the most sensitive skin.

Just any old graze could
raise the hairs on my arms
and send me into a shiver.

I used to love being touched.

Your skin is like plastic
when you breathe and stretch,
a wretched figure with
more than one world of
pain endured.

But you know,
it's interesting
(our skin),
now that I'm
calloused.

Stella told us she was bi.

I stared down at my oysters,
covered in parmesan,
taste like the ***** in Frenchtown.

With my silken tongue,
flicked another from its
shell, let the goo drip
down my lip, and run
up my wrist.

Snow, snow
on the tip of her nose
sick of sincere
now spare me some change,

low, low
lo-fi guy,
his is coming at the wrong time,
I'm
all out of line.

Learn, learn
what did you learn?
What did you learn while
burning the truth?

Burn, burn,
what would I do?
What would I do if I wasn't
burning for you?

Snow, snow
on the tip of her nose,
chicken head chokin'
on a piece of advice.

Feeling high on these trippy waves
could have guessed your bugging
eyes wouldn't stay the same.
dancing on the nerve endings,
the frequency shows itself,
strobes in and out phase.

In and out of phase,
feeling high on these trippy waves
be brave tonight,
and in your case,
be lighter than the page
your heart was written on.

Flying in a florid fit,
I'm cutting close to the cosmos.
Off the top of my head
I get dizzy, sixty green gleam stars
half a yard away from my pink threads.

Let me think of a time I wasn't with you,
it's so hard to choose, confused
by my ruse you follow all the clues
to my blue room.
This night is ******* up.

I should be in the garden
with all my friends,
laughing at all the trends,
singing for hours inside my head.
Instead I tread on a few fibers of
brilliant blue and pink threads.

Stay awake, take it slow while I kindle and glow.
The effect will never dwindle or go away.

Sixty green gleam stars
that lit up my blue room.
Like I've never felt before,
these mushrooms.
Fumes from hash, I kindle, I glow.
My blue room has one window.
Nothing like a ******* drug on cue
to take me to the blue room.

Look below,
as the distance grows
with quiet gin, two violins and a piano
pick the perfect piece to paint the scenario.

When I miss you
I write some ****,
but this isn't it.
There's a trail you take
to the room the moon
turns a pale hue of blue.

Stay awake, take it slow while I kindle and glow.
The effect will never dwindle or go away.

My pink threads aren't very far
from sixty green gleam stars
I put to paper with lead.
This view from my blue
room will keep you awake,
with a feeling to fake for it.

I won't back out.
What do you want to do?
With a passion
for the fashions of a time passed,
I've forgotten how to analyze:
what makes me a *****?
I've forgotten why
I'm sleeping alone-
I'm dreaming-
alone.
And my dreams
are but mine alone.

But...

I'll rig the smallest ship
and I'll challenge the stars
because the gods live too far away
to deliver me...

when your lips
are the sweetest figs
and I can't see
through the fox-bark mist.

I apologize,
is there any power,
any power behind this?

Sangrias on Saturdays,

a better way,

we got sicker,

the stairs spiraled,

quicker than a Winter's day








and a jet plane






is a

dalmatian




in a weird sort of way.




That was stupid



to sa-

vor

one sort of angle

over
another sort
of strangle
hold

would be a mistake,

one of great consequence,

something to wince at.


Keep wincing.


I know.


Red haired,

struttin' down that stage
like the Summer fox,

strummin' that
southern rock,

get me off, get me off!

I'm stuck

in love me mode

so give me

a good


night lullaby

and tuck me in-
at least.

freckle faced teenager, giddy up!
freckle faced teenager, give it up!

I'll be there,

I"ll be the one.

I'll feel hair

and I'll pull for fun.



Snow.


Roses.


Snow and roses,

Fall always forces
and I can never go back to
the cotton my blood was soaking in.

Snow and roses,
Fall always closes
and leaves me wanting.

I can never go back; ****
the rotten fruit our wine was soaking into.

Coffee on my breath,
wearing a frown.
Sunshine, my sweater,
my soul turns brown.

Lips slick with chapstick,
chics' licking sack n' ****,
drag off a ******* *** n' lean,
obscene in the sense,
the ******* ****' a drag queen.

Rival the bible,
hell to sell any,
whats worse, church
bells smell ugly
under my nose.

I chose the shallow dirt
road to death, even the
tallest tales hail the same frail fate.
Fill my urn to earn my fill,
**** it.

There is no still
frame to capture the moment,
fracture the film and leave it alone.
Yellow toned, below me,
sallow, cornered in color coordinates.

Drenched cover but dry at the core of it;
dazzled by ****, dazzled by diction,
you write the dirtiest fiction
and I'm the ******* ***** in it.

Leather bound, cable wound,
leather bound. Black.
Leather.

When will I be able to live my life
without having to sleep through half of it?

Will my stomach
ever stop aching?

Why is my skin
crawling?

Which part
of my soul dies
when I check my gut,
stick a skewer through my brain,
pinch a nerve in my neck
until it pops;
what gets left behind
when I make a compromise?

I sleep with the pigeons,
I sleep under bridges,
a deteriorating photograph
is all I have.
She left with that winner,
the one that looks like an athlete
but he's actually an artist
you know, the one that gets noticed.
I can't blame her, I've lost it all.
These are the types of injuries that occur
when the ethics are below your pay grade.
So now I sleep under bridges,
the grass is my bed,
and I
bathe with the pigeons.
I keep a hat on my head
while I read the paper with my shoulders
hunched over, although I don't
get cold anymore.

Agitated at how this guy has me figured
out, I just want to throw him on the ground.
I look up at the board in front of me
now and see
that Bukowski has me cornered again
and I want to scream expletives
as loudly as I can, but I catch myself
just before I begin to vent because
the three and four year old children
all around are the only people that
don't yet hold me in complete
contempt and I'd like to keep it
that way.

To construct a consistent
world view, a chore more
than anything else, really.

I don't know if you're right,
I don't care if I'm wrong,
keep singing this song,

ba da dum, ba da dum,
ba da dumb
dumb
dumb!


Young, lover of fiction,
dont force it.

You don't need a dictionary
to write a poem.

Really man,
Roxanne?

That song

is

so

****-
ing

old.

Obsessed
with these
western scales,
embrace your anxiety.

It will probably
make you a better person,
that is,
if you ever
considered yourself human.

"Deeper" means "meta-",
make an analogy.

Rigid, with tears trickling down my spinal column
and escaping any other way they could,
crushed up chrysanthemums in my hands,
without moving a muscle, running away
any other way that I could.

One meaningful conversation
with my father in my whole life,
it was after I drank half a bottle of gin
one night in Cincinnati.

He raised me the best he could.

Once, in a dream, I ordered a ****** mary
and now I wonder if that means anything.

If it means anything good.

Put a bottle opener
on my key chain today.

A **** poor
puddle of greed,
wouldn't it be
terrible
to have fifteen
people,
exactly like you,
all in the same room?

Your perfume,
a concept
rather than
a fragrance,
I must
accept
the difference
between
being upset
and let down.

There was a bible,
its' pages fluttering on a freeway.

Glass eyed,
running from our final hour.
Crass lies,
nothing tastes as sour.

There is no self reflective, only what infects that ****** ****** state of mind, fraternal and stupid. Responding to text like what it used to be, that's why nobody gets me, a dog barks at eight nineteen and I become more aware of my mortality as I lay down to sleep. Until the night became the day, I sat there with my tooth decay, we never exactly were the type of people to break bread on. I told my dad I needed new experiences every night or I couldn't write, that I like to strike matches, and sometimes they light under houses. Don't make a habit out of breaking mirrors, otherwise it will reflect poorly on you.

Hearts hold out,
they're under arrest again.
Making love on the lam,
at first you were
reluctant but I know
that you liked it.

For you, I stole a locket,
yeah, I picked pockets,
and I'd build a whole
rocket ship just to get
to you.

You'll have to search and seize me,
You'll have to shoot and freeze me.
Hearts hurt now, there's a lot at stake,
We're all criminals, look at the
trouble we make.

There's a city glowing in my ears,
biting blur of the nightlife.
Figure I've been here for a while.
My supplies were piled high,
now they're in short supply
and I'm high.
The walls of my
apartment are red.

I wait until the streetlights
flick on before I flip into a
somersault, I wait until the
streetlights flick on before
I call you out tonight.
The walls of my
apartment are red.

Dead presidents, don't
answer for me,
I paint the walls red.
Dead presidents couldn't have
seen it coming,
I paint the walls red.
Dead precedents, don't correct me.

Could have been a fool,
could have been a rule
you didn't know, so
when your friends are
wrong sing a song that
won't offend anyone.

You kept me waiting for hours,
you were shining. In a dress like
blood and flowers, you were shining.
You better sell it hard tonight.
The walls of my
apartment are red.

I know
that I know
what I know.

But I also know
there is a lot
that I don't know,

she says to me,
confidently.

Obsidian hawks
hang from lamp posts,
lining the Gothic
architecture of our hearts,

the shadows,
turning me yellowish
gray, leak out
life
in the strangest way.
The
silhouettes sway
and moan, listening
to the wind whisper
through their
hair, the stories
of dreams
being embalmed.

These lanterns want
to keep me awake,
longing in the retro-
red, belonging
to the sweet,
the concrete dead.

Bright star,
you look
like garbage
to me.
And these sickle
souls bleed
on everything
in between,
blue moons,
left with traces
of where their halos
used to be,
a halogen lamp
reverie.

Obsidian hawks
mark the page
where the ink
met the river
and decided to
run off,
saving room
for prayer,
or maybe another
layer of meaning,
something,
at least
seemingly true;
I wouldn't know,
but, vultures they say.

Simplify your poetry.

Make it fit for a pop song.

Simplify your poetry,
make it fit for me,
your little *****.