The city of Bongwater was a city of sin,
An epic journey of the man who did the bins,
All that binning at 5 am made a terrible din,
Monday mornings in Bongwater's city of sin,
Drive down, bin man,
Drive round the roads,
Sophisticated urban,
Tip those bins down low!

The epic of the bin man in this city of sin,
Driving into parked cars made a terrible din,
"Told you not to  park near the bins."
The callous bin man yelled in the city of sin.

This is the epic of the bin man in a city of sin,
Past the schools, he ran over some kids,
"Told you not walk in front of bins!"
Our hero yelled at the rest of the kids,
Drive down , bin man,
Drive round the roads,
Sophisticated urban,
Tip those bins down low.

The epic journey of a bin man in a city of sin,
One day, he hit the water mains with the bins,
Fountains erupted in this city of sin,
Bin man's demolished Bongwater, city of sin,
Drive down, bin man,
Drive round the roads,
Sophisticated urban,
Tip the bins down low!

An epic journey of the bin man, in a city of sin,
Driving into light poles in this city of sin,
"Who needs power?" he yelled above the din,
Driving around Bongwater's city of sin,
Drive down, bin man,
Drive round the roads,
Sophisticated urban,
Tip those bins down low!

This is the epic of the city that didn't pray,
One day the bin man rolled their bins away,
That was the epic of our hero of the bins,
Driving round Bongwater, that city of sin,
All that binning made a terrible din!
Drive down, bin man.
Drive round the roads,
Sophisticated urban,
Tip those bins down low!!!

there is a
way,
  a truth,
       and a light,
and
  I'm often
    reminded,
        it isn't mine.

there is a tradition
and a constitution,
gods in powder wigs
talking through their
wooden teeth,
and I'm often reminded
my thoughts are fiction.

all new friends are quickly
old,
all parents
die of heart attacks
after analyzing high crimes.

there is a
way,
  a truth,
       and a light,
and
  I'm often
    reminded,
        it's outta my sight.

there is a piece of Anna's hair in my teeth,
there are blackbirds circling in a hollow sky,
and I'm supposed to have no doubts,
and I'm supposed to avoid shouts.

all babes get slutty or drown in bongwater,
and I'm expected to call them cute,
all patterns have a strange affinity for ******* me,
and all love is adrift in a staggering, stagnate sea.

there is a
way,
  a truth,
       and a light,
and
  I'm often
    reminded,
        I'm out of line.

In my graduation t-shirt,
and it fits right,
she finger-and-thumbs
the switch on my desk lamp.
Lights on.
And I'm getting too thin.
It shouldn't fit right.
"No, no. I want it dark," I say.

"Tell me what's off limits."

Her eyes, big and wet with bongwater,
wash over me. I'm pebble. I'm allowed.

"Why?"

"I want to know what's off limits
so I know where to set my goals."

I believe in love, even at first sight.
Just not the eternal kind. And I love
her when she says things like that
because I created her. And when
you create, and the creation reaches
perfection, all you want to do--
destroy. Hammer to head. Crowbar
to Parkinson thighs. What's off limits?
What's off limits? What's off limits?
I can't stop.

Before I respond,
with adolescent delight
she tears me open by the pearl snap.
She lifts her arms up.
Surrender? No. She's a sycamore.
I'm the wind.

Body bare and body scattered,
congregate at the inosculation
of her trunks. She's a sycamore.
I'm the wind.

Wavering.
Leafless.
***-addled.
And the breeze doesn't do it.
And the seasons don't affect it.
Gale force insanity.

I climb her branches.
Beard wet with her.
She wipes her off.

I climb her branches.
I can't stop.

Grows into me.
Trunks entrap.
Elevated, she.
And I, well, I

stumble.

Hit the wall.
Concrete, everything.
I press her against it
so hard, she turns to waste
and passes through.
I press her against it
so hard, I can't stop.

Autumn acorn fingertips,
a river emptying to ocean,
and she asks,"Is this off limits?"
as she turns me sharply
and my back collides with the wall.
"Is this off limits?" she asks as she
pounds her head into mine.
"Is this off limits?" she asks as she
claws my face.
"Is this off limits?" she asks as she
licks to heal.
My will says yes.
My flesh says no.

I can't stop.

Twenty-five pigeons are doing **** rips in my living room.
In the middle of my living room
twenty-five pigeons
are doing **** rips
of **** that they bought
off my next door neighbor
who just happened to have some lying around.
There are twenty-five pigeons
doing **** rips in my living room,
and they will not stop watching
Battlestar Galactica.
The twenty-five pigeons
doing **** rips in my living room
ate all of my Cheese Nips,
and they drank the last
of the RC Cola I bought.
I try to get
the twenty-five pigeons
doing **** rips in my living room
to leave,
because I hate it when they do this,
but they just coo at me
and that shuts me up.
One of the twenty-five pigeons
doing **** rips
in my living room
accidentally knocks over
the ****
and spills bongwater
all over my ******* carpet.
The **** cracks.
They start flapping their wings really hard
and ******* everywhere,
because they're pigeons
and they're mad.
But then,
one of the twenty-five pigeons
produces some hash wax
from under his wings,
and now there's twenty-five pigeons
doing knife hits
of hash wax
over my stove,
and quite frankly
I'm ******.
I run in
and start waving my arms
around,
and scream,
"Get the **** out of here,
who let you in anyway?"
And the head pigeon drops the knife on accident,
and they all fly out of my living room
and into the sky,
all really blazed,
leaving me here,
mad,
with a bunch of stains on my carpet.

Eager, *****, I washed my hands of you
in Rippling Creek on the 1st of January --
the beginning of the beginning.

As you turned to driftwood,
the friends and cross-eyed strangers
asked what was I thinking when I let go of you.

My mouth stitched by bongwater haze
all I could do -- watch your notched body soak.

Now on the 18th of September,
sitting in Fox Hollow, USA,
the shiniest of suburbs --
the sober of the sober--
In honest,
I say I'd rather have you alive and hating me
than dead and loving me.

If I lied in the grey dawn,
it was out of love.
If I lied in the grey dawn,
I was out of truth.

I'm alone
fending off vultures prying in with fake Facebook profiles,
taking threats from fathers who long ago went blind,
and this much I promise to you and Fox Hollow, USA:

I will quarantine the past.

"What are you doing here?"

It was the wrong place
for pale, blonde Ms. Molly.
She was into God and other holy things
like Sundays.

2 a.m.

Everybody turned a shade of grey,
meaning nothing to me,
only Molly,
her crystal blue eyes watercolored
by murky bongwater,
at my personal Mother Superior's home.

"What?"

"I said, 'What are you doing here?'"

"Just bored, I guess."

"****. Really?"

"Yeah, this guy-um...****...Chris-no-"

"Brooks" said Brooks.

"Brooks is like a friend of mine. He sits
by me n'stuff."

Somebody put on Neutral Milk Hotel's
"O Comely" and we all sang along.
Innocent, our melody felt like
a jagged kaleidoscope.
I passed the ****, no hit for me, not tonight,
to appreciate Molly's smiles I wanted to be
coherent.

"You know, Josh, it's ******* weird."

"What?"

"That I haven't talked to you in four years,
and then we end up at the same campus,
and we are best friends."

She leaned over and kissed my smokey, worn
cheek. Her lips smooth, fine.
No one around said a word.
Everyone knew she had a man.
But are best friends allowed to
be lovers from time to time?
I ******* hope so.

consistency is defeat
going to work every day?
coming home?  every night?
TEQUILA!
***** BONGWATER!
look
my totality changes
every day and a half
i’m one slippery *******
so if and when i tumble out your window
it’ll be a nuclear event
molecules exploding
lasciviously recombining
promiscuously bonding with whatever
carnal stray matter catches my eye
by tomorrow morning
i’ll be snowing
all over the universe