I.
I saw it all through the eyes of a child, knees scraped ****** at the altar of remorse
Who couldn't sing a single hymn without his voice breaking off
And who lost himself in the laughter from the congregation
I took it all in by pieces
The way the dreamers lusted for Icarus, but ultimately settled for getting high on the ground
The way the dreamers became junkies and the way the junkies died like clockwork every hour on the hour,
To be reborn as prophets on a newsreel clicking their tongues about the fall of America
Please
Get down off your high horse, brother
America has fallen and now you're just embarrassing yourself

II.
Mercy for the lovers, they know not what they do
Mercy for the restless, the senseless, the savage
Plucking at chords till they find the voice they need to reach heaven,
Sipping gasoline from the cupped hands of the sons of the revolution,
Mercy for the revolution, they really did mean well once
But their anthems caught on dead air and they drowned in the high tide of their own self importance
And we didn't mourn but we'll sure build them a monument,
A manifesto pieced together from scraps of torn up prescriptions, misspelled names on coffee cups, tobacco spilling out the seams of broken cigarettes
And it will proclaim to the world,
These are the fruits of your labor
These are the lifeless things you bled your youth dry for
Sanctify them, sing their praise from the highest peaks
And receive payment in your next life,
A hundred hymns per heart broken, and a thousand pardons per spirit swallowed whole
Mercy for me, you know I couldn't help myself

III.
We are looking at the underbelly of an evil machine
So when I speak the apocalypse please know I'm being serious,
Lazarus has just finished his third cup of coffee today and he isn't even pretending to be amazed anymore
How could I get that lucky?
Could I unlearn the branding of my soul or am I next up to the chopping block?
If I ever hear the wind cry Mary on the downswing of the blade falling to take my life it won't be soon enough
And I will look back on all the bruises in creation I've left,
In milky white flesh turned deep purple,
In starry American sky lit up by dissent,
In innocence exposed to the fluorescent light of sin,
and yearn to leave each one again,
Just to experience what it feels like to stain something beautiful one last time

IV.
A beautiful boy drags his grandmother's ashes down his throat into his lungs to spit back up epiphany after epiphany, balanced on the manic edge of destruction
An angel faced girl dreams of mountains, the whole world a church to be celebrated
A harlot sings desperate in the street to attract just enough attention to make it through the night
The devil lights another cigarette and waxes romantic about the one that got away
These are the heroes to whom I give silent thanks,
These are the criminals to whom I give violent condemnation
These are the faces I pick out of the static behind my eyes,
These are the hearts I wear stitched into my sleeves
I'd be nothing without you

V.
**** me once more in the neon lit halo of your love and this time give me a shot between the eyes, just to be sure
For I have seen the end and I'd rather just get it over with
String me up between the billboards for life and loneliness and hold me still in the holy visions I have of a last judgement
Shoot me up once more with my drug of choice, the sadness I spent decades mixing in my basement till I got it just right
And let me explode one last time,
Let me be vivid and shameless, let me scorch their retinas and blacken their brains till they start to see things my way
Build me a monument worthy of the king they thought me to be, not the king that I was
Write my eulogy on the back of the receipt for my soul, and never let the ******* tell me I didn't get my money's worth
Martyr me again, and this time I won't back down
I promise
It's the least I can do

I never thought I'd need anything that I couldn't keep tucked in the inside pocket of a worn out leather jacket
Till I knew fear the first time, licking my cheeks in the dark
Gasping for air in the front seat of a cherry red Americana funeral hearse, going 90 miles per hour to crash the gates of Heaven
With life and glory spreading out onto the pavement
And I was afraid, like I would be afraid for the rest of my life
Till I drowned my youth in the muddy waters of a river I only knew in passing,
Which flowed from a point I'd never see, to somewhere I'd never know
But I never found a bridge, and I never let it go
And I shook, like I would shake for the rest of my life
Till I saw the ghosts of stars reflected in the eyes of a young girl, who wanted nothing more than to make me clean, and good, and happy
Who kissed like karma, cherry red remorse stains that took hours to wash off my face and my neck
Black hair on my black sheets, like a portrait I might paint if I could steady my ******* hands
And I turned my back, like I would turn my back for the rest of my life
Now I taste sin each time I wake, rolling through the timid mist of my days,
With the ache coming in next, and the smoke not long after
And I apologize to the Midwest sun,
I'm afraid I haven't been a good friend these last few years
But the night speaks so sweet, and she makes promises neither of us will ever keep
Our first sin was a lie we told ourselves
And now we're too tired to correct
So we'll keep the course wherever it leads
For this,
All that I’ve done, all that I’ve failed to do
I will stumble through the best apology I can give
But you won’t believe it,
And neither will I

I rise to the come of your poem
And fall stricken with fever to my knees, again
Fever is my veins and I am addicted again
And I will writhe at your mercy, as long as you'll have me

Carve your Hallelujah into my flesh
Break my throne, cut my hair
And still I will wear you like a crown of thorns
Three days hence, we will both be reborn

In the dark of confessional
Naked, you were worried I might ask too many questions
But all I can think of is
How many litanies could roll off my tongue
Before Heaven opened to receive my penance

While Eden burns,
I bless the scars crossing up and down your body
One by one kissed by angels with tongue
And signed in the key of some long forgotten saint

Sin, ******* you
Sin like you've survived the Rapture and you're just waiting for the end
Sin like Paradise bores you, like you were meant for the other side
Sin like I know you can

And so to this, my love, your alter,
Let me lay this last benediction

Cross my heart, lay me down to sleep
My soul is cheap but it's yours to keep
And should I die before I wake
**** the Lord, I'm yours to take

There is a story here, if you'll have it
In the haze of deadbeat ghosts and week old smoke that clouds my judgement, I have witnessed prophecy
And now I cannot return, though I once thought myself King
I can only move forward, in step to the funeral dirge of Father Time or some other holy ******* they call master of puppets
So I am forced to contend with the notion that I am a pawn, after all
Which begs the question, am I less a puppet because I can see the strings?
Do you believe that God lives between every set of parallel lines?
And if I sing, how loud must I get before someone stops me?
So to honor my brothers and sisters, and a generation at war with apathy and glamour, I raise an appeal to SOMETHING or someone in the stars to wake
And take my hand, for I am too weak to tread the surface of the sun alone
And if I ever manage to return who will be left to sing?
For the puppet and the master, to this fiery waltz are we destined towards eternity
And should I look upon his face will we know each other, naked beneath the armor and the smoke?
And will we laugh like old high school acquaintances, or will he press the lips of a gun to my temple and tell me I had a good run?
I'm afraid I'll die not knowing,
Never looking back, not even in the face of Armageddon
I only hope for some scrap of paper, crumpled up and tossed by the side of the highway
Written by someone who knew all along the way,
And who deigned to let me in on the joke
I guess that'd be alright

Sing me to sleep, Allen Ginsberg
The entire fluorescent universe pulses and breathes in your chest
Or mine, or his, or Hers, particularly Hers
And I wish nothing more than to be nothing
Or everything
Tell me, were our souls cut from the same stars?
If I trace the hieroglyphics of our scars will I reach some understanding?
Will I ever look upon your papier-mache mountains or caress your Mohammedan angels?
Will the blood red sun burn my bitter heart out before the Benzedrine kicks in?
Tell me, will I touch the face of God or grasp at phantoms forever?
If this is the apocalypse why do I feel such discontent?
I wish nothing more than to be the center of gravity
At which all things meet, and break, and fall away
To drift in to emptiness like crumpled up phases of the lonely moon
Tell me, are my veins pumping gasoline?
Was I born to die on the road, and what manner of Valkyrie will lift me to my rest once I do?
And who will I thank, once I am there
For the opportunity to sleep?

******
Animal
Savage
Dead man walking, right?
You going to ******' score ******?
You going to ******' score?
You're ******* right I am
I'm gonna hit the lights and let my veins glow electric
I'm gonna turn my blood black and spray it all over the walls
I'm gonna sleep tonight in the abyss, baby

******
Are you hearing me are you feeling me am I getting through to you do I ******* stutter?
Are you ready to get out of my way or die *******?
I'm going to tear the ******* roof off this place I'm gonna skin you all alive
Till it's just me and the messiah complex dealer with the keys to the holy city
If this is a standoff then let's have at it if you wanna play cowboy I'll show you cowboy
If we were made in any image at all it'd have to be the rats, right?
Well I'm the big bad wolf now and I'm done ******* around

******
Deadbeat
Family man
Feel cool with that gun in your hand?
Feel cool with that hole in your neck?
You're ******* right I do
I'm going out in style tonight
I'm going to find the rawest nerve and plug it into an amplifier
I wanna hear God cry

******
Is this happening are you seeing this are you ******* kidding me?
Is there anybody even on the receiving end?
Is this a sick ******* joke I'm choking on ***** and hate and I have enough rage to bury everything
I don't want to rest until I watch everything suffer
Am I sick? Am I losing it have I lost it already?
What do I have left to lose?
What manner of beast is this now?

******
Wretch
Vermin
Is that it, huh?
Is that all there is?
Don't ******* patronize me
That's gonna be it, alright
I'm gonna finish it the way it began
Dim lit basement, flood of chemical angels
Beauty in the most high
And death will show me sympathy
Because junkies die alone

Now for the poem, let me be worthy
Let me roar and shake and rattle and tear the roof off the conscience
Let it rip me apart and bare my broken ribcage to the abyss unafraid
Let me fill with fire and speak the voice of the Divine, let the human experience be made lucid and the soul of the devil cleansed
Hold still in my Hallelujah visions perfectly captured Polaroids of the spirit, the fevered music that vibrates palpable through the air
Hold me to the standards of the giants upon whose shoulders i stand
And let the ones I love know that I am with them, stronger than any power empathy could provide
We are deities all and stitched from the same grace
This is for Clarity, for Jacob, maybe even the Prodigal Son
With tears in my eyes I submit to your mercy, baptize me in the electric current of a decade long cold war
Let us destroy and rebuild and create a new world to hold dear
Decorate it with the shavings of suns spent and discarded endlessly on repeat
Let us be the gods we see etched into our irises
Let us be the ones who write doom on the walls
Who else could we ******* be?
We are the same, irrevocably
It's on and we can't turn it off and so we'll push the limits until it all burns out