Omens,
Warning signs and aching bones,
Dark clouds and distant thunder,
The house will fall tonight and take me with it,
Spill me into the street to wash away come rain,
I sit at the table, watching cracks form in the ceiling over bowed heads and quiet contemplation,
I feel myself lifted from the floor,
I am formless in the living room, transcribing conversations to my skin in dead languages, my body a desecrated temple of hieroglyphics nobody can read,
I am breathless in the bedroom, feeling the heat of passion on my skin and absorbing none of it, fault lines manifesting under my fingernails as I sink into someone else's tragedy,
I am weightless on the porch, dreaming of one day being swallowed by something monstrous enough to have me, swallowed by something monstrous enough to profane the sky with its arrogance and come out the other side steel, unbreakable, sharp and remorseless,
When I return to my body I am deathless - I am the unwelcome traveler of worlds, a ghost haunting my own life, these friends and lovers have been host to a parasite, a restless thing of no shape and no blood of its own,
I resolve to surrender to the coming storm,
As I rise, they fall one by one,
My brothers to their pride,
My friends to their rage,
My lovers to their desperation,
And as I walk out into the street, I am caught by flashes of lightning and moonlight, and I turn back to watch the house crumble, brick by brick, into the lonesome fog of forgetting

Sing me asleep, Allen Ginsberg,
Now somewhere wrapped in plastic and oak, splinters of eternity under fingernails,
and hold a note high enough to peek into heaven but low enough so that I may climb into it, and live there, breathe there, believe there, flower of the world, open and take in the light, let me take it with me to dreams of machinery and wake new, oiled and energized, into a vast and endless morning, all sunflowers and tall grass drinking rain to hangover, get me heatsick and dizzy in the aftermath of a sunrise and let me wander these streets all year, plucking daisies from sidewalks and watching news through storefront windows, wishing on crime scenes, putting up posters on walls of the names of the companies who have gutted this land dry; I, and you, and we collectively, built these cities from scrap metal and twine, and when those hearts howl into that space who will answer them? Who will orchestrate this night when the angels retire? When I close my eyes will the valkyries come down? Who can I thank for the opportunity to rest?
When I close my eyes in that night, I will think of you, beat and never broken, Benzedrine prophets and papier-mâché mountains, sitting there in the center of it all and I will long to join you, to become the point where all things meet, connect, and are intertwined, and in becoming, to know, and in knowing, to find peace, and in peace, to rest

I'm a slave to my hair, my hair is a construct of ego, ego is a construct of superego, superego is a construct of id and id begs for release -
Water and space and light and room to live free from context, ravenous and unsatisfied, I reach stalemate on the come up and surrender unconditionally on the comedown, I'm getting sick I'm getting sick I belong in jail, I belong in an elsewhere that never manifests except in the moments half awake between waves of sleep and dreams, and waking light on skin I can't recognize, did Christ recognize his own skin on the cedar? Could he tell his body was holy slick with blood and the lashes of whips and nails driven deep into hands? Could he be honest about his situation then, and if not, who among us can be honest? Who among us has not sunk our teeth into something unreal and sweet? I want this, I crave this kind of waste, shot up with suicides and Americana, what is more American than apathy? Don't you agree? Don't you see you're just like me? I want a new way, I want pure energy. I want something so raw it bleeds in my hands. I want distant shorelines and lines of demarcation and I want to run full speed into something all night and never get there, aesthetic and substance, fighting for power over two guitars and a drum beat and a voice, droning out platitudes about forgiveness and an abstract sense of love, I don't resist anything in this way but rather become submerged in it, allow it to roll and crash over me as long as my breath holds, fire a rifle at the sun and call it a small victory but phyrric because it took more out of me than I'm willing to admit, and for nothing,
I'm coming unstuck, America you're coming unstuck with me, I address you as judge and jury and executioner when we both know I am guilty too, I deserve that mercy seat as much as you and I can't look you in the eyes anymore because we look too much alike, who pulled the trigger, who gave the order, who payed the taxes, is this blood on my hands? We've both built our egos on an idea of beauty that doesn't hold up to scrutiny, but the clinic is all full up tonight run those tests tomorrow, find out where it went wrong and smother it

Take the poet out of the voice, what is left?
What happens when we force honesty for qualitative judgement?
What happens to an art form when we force it to dance for us?
What does it become?
Is this a process of bastardization or a fulfillment of prophecy?
Take the poet out of the poem, what remains?
I want to know if this will outlive us, if we became Prometheus martyrs for something or nothing, or a story on someone else's walls, in someone else's heart, in something not so easily killed,
Or are we jerking off into a void? And if so, is that wrong if it works? What price is too high for honesty of expression? How much is too much?
This pen wants to die,
This notebook wants to die,
What have I done to them?

And we're driving through the suburbs outside Dayton two ticks past the minute the witches woke up and abracadabra'd some life into this place, caught up in the magic of watching streetlights reflect off the face you were too scared to kiss in the dark, searching those streets for a sign that tonight's the night, you know, the one we've been waiting for all those years,
For something to happen, for something to split the sky and the street and swallow us up inside of a greater purpose, we've been longing to be devoured ever since we learned what it's like to be alone,
But, there's a lot of dead ends around here, too many rooms and not enough exits, hallways and picture frames and backyards and driveways and messes that somebody is gonna have a hell of a time cleaning up one of these days,
I guess we can't get caught up in all that now, all that doubt, but when my shadow catches up to me on that long drive home he tells me,
When you stop moving, it'll all be over,
So I'll hang on past that exit and the next, waste another sunrise on some eyes too tired to appreciate anything beautiful, keep hell in my pocket till morning when I can let it go just long enough, just long enough to drift off on the promise of a day,  the day that all these candles blow out and we close our eyes and say this, this is enough, and someday you'll thank me for it

Daybreak through tree tops, smoke and mist and morning chill and pale,
Some nights I dream of war, cannon shells and walls of fire,
Some nights I dream of shadows, grown so long they might cover this land end to end in twisted cold caricatures of selves,
Some nights I dream of love and hope to die inside of it, to wrap myself in it and in doing so become it's avatar and archetype, to float formless and weightless above these cities and take in all that pain, all that waste and ruin and in this way become a bulwark against it,
Leonard Cohen said once that there is a crack in everything, and that's how the light gets in, and so when I close my eyes tonight in that great expanse, in all that raw energy and all those people swept up in it, in that great wave of history and turmoil, I will pray to be lifted, just this once, into that open mouth where earth meets heaven and heaven meets stars, and crack it open with my bare hands, so that the light may come down

I chose an eternity of this,
Sunken eyes, deep divisions, stranglehold of memory and fondness, melancholy high, morning after in radio static chaos, nothingness with vividly painted imagery, something from nothing again and again,
I feel you in my chest, in all pockets of mind and body, like Siamese twins joined forever, I cried the day we were born and now I place bets on which of us will go first, me in my wrath, or you in your sorrow,
Your hands run up my back now, in the dark somewhere far away, cold lips on my cheek and hot hands around my throat,
You're asking me, what color I'll be buried in while I scream at the night,
Is it always like this?
Is it always like this?
You pull me into the floor,
I hold on and I sink,
I can't remember now, which one of us was holding the steering wheel,
Which one of us twisted the cap on the pill bottle,
Which one of us held the blade,
Which one us was nothing, who didn't need who anymore
Which one of us decided to destroy ourselves, in order to destroy the other
But I remember screaming,
I remember throwing my head back and releasing you into the air,
And asking you again,
Is it always like this?
Is it always like this?
I catch you on the comedown like we were trapeze artists,
I hold you close and you kiss me hard,
And you whisper,
It is always like this,
It is always like this

Heads swimming, tail lights spinning out on back roads, heels ablaze, daze of feeling and complexity - context that governs harshly, danger that waits, disease that lingers, hides in hair and clothes and bedrooms and comes out to watch you sleep, eyes behind glass, whispers in the dark, so slow it hurts,
Strangers in passing, lovers in waiting, stoners and liars and thieves,
I didn't know what to make of this then, ghosts of autumn haunting cell block courtyards haunt minds mismanaged and clouds of smoke, dangerous things that live here and don't pay rent,
5 chimes on a bell tower,
5 warning signs for 5 years,
5 roads traffic jammed to 5 kids funerals dead this year from 5 needles, one pricked vein is all it takes to collapse an empire of ego,
I remember when there was good in their eyes, now all I can think of is how fast I can drive home without falling apart on another highway,
Something is better than nothing I say,
Lured back to that place by the smell of something sweet, see, that's my problem,
I get too close, I bite in before I've taken the necessary precautions, I just can't resist the scent,
I catch my eyes in the rear view, leaned back and hazy with nostalgia,
You can't stay bitter forever,
You can't stay angry forever,
You can't stay here forever,
One time is all it takes, one perfect try,
So here I am again, dwelling on the threshold,
Asking the people inside if they know any good songs while they tie the rope they've been saving for me,
And if there will be light left in the sky on the other side of this,
Cause from where I'm standing, the night ain't slowing down for nobody