Rough rusted railroad steel in my palm

Dogs are following me in the woods

It's a long way to the river yet

Running out of battery

Dark tracks rattling hard

I found you in the gravel,
the wet muddy gravel

How far did you travel,
in sunlight or in shadow

River winding high,
receding when it's dry

Reflecting clouded skies,
perceived through panfish eyes

Here chipped secrets lie,
downstream our dreams do fly

All we can do is try
scattered like flints awry

Wise in worldly ways?
I'd rather be a fool
Who dies honest anyways

A handful of heat, coffee tastes sweet in the bottom of the mug
Splayed out, dissected human bug, body chopped and tugged
Catalogue my suffering, patch me together with hemp twine
Ignoring every sign and warning, falling is soaring interrupted
A life defined as loveless, a body bled out bloodless
This mud is sticking to my brain again, no way to win
Don't you hate it when it don't work out
Hanging around until you can't leave
Cried all my tears and can't grieve
Nothing left to even believe

Hello old friend
I want nothing to do with you
But here I am searching you out

Hello old friend
I thought you left so long ago,
But here you are, crying

It must be a dream
Brain letting off stream
Sanity flowing down stream

Southbound or bust
By rubber or rust
Getting nowhere on trust

I’ll crawl if I have to, not even fuss
Turned mean as a rattlesnake,
Heart choked out on dust

Why do I keep coming to these places?
Attempting to siphon something into this void
Vicarious joy, vicarious hope, still dream of the rope
Can't cope with this anymore, the wound is forever sore
I'm getting sick of trying, lying to myself a bit more
**** your good health, choke on your worthless wealth
Burn down another Newport, the tenth or twelfth

A shot of whiskey for the rain
A shot of whiskey for the pain
My efforts to stay insane
Let's take one for the rain

Burning down another menthol smoke
Pulled from packs like ***** jokes
Learning that it's all or broke
Flick away that **** and croak

All to be said was spoke
Between us in the end
But something brings back memories
Which I cannot defend, that send me

To places gone,
How does one
Swim back up
Stream?

Seventy eight cents accelerated into a slapped palm
A nod between us to prepare this nickle dime handoff
Passenger in this body behind a wheel
Slave to yellow white blurs on blacktop
Can't stop thinking I should drive up all the roads I drove down,
Manic around town, sporting a frown
Like a clown with mismatched shoes
Filling blank space with blues and *****
No cruise control to pull me down this road
Foot bears the load, frame bent Ford
By the grace of the Lord still breathing
No longer careening down unfamiliar paths  
Not the last laugh
But close

Voices overlapping
Drinks spilling
Cigarettes smoked
Eyes cast down
Looking into nothing
Bottom of a glass speaking in tongues
Words cut rough on broken glass
Plastic cups melting on your lips
Pop the filter, **** the poison
Repeat
They're mixing up the bones
I hear them clacking between cracking old fingers
Sitting on the edge of joy
Trying to **** up some piece of it like a campfires warmth
Lost on the edges of this cold light,
spectating skotototrophically
Digesting this dark light into a cancerous liver
A dying heart
A screaming spleen
A voice alienated by foolish freewill
Selfish and final
Silent and screaming
Wind and ice breaking all the cedars, bowing their souls into the creek
Cracked limestone coffin, burning away our limbs and bodies
The bones keep spinning, the lies keep blending into begonias and bar tabs

Crown Royal in a Coke can, warm rain fills the midnight blackness
Sitting on the flight deck among the tie-downs, staring into the wake
Something inside me says to jump, blind and mindless, deep into this Indian ocean


Rifles in a pile, triple canopy and palm groves
A beach made of trash
I stand in this screaming greenery, something inside me says to walk
Lose myself in this impenetrable, howling green


I wake to myself walking and talking, who was here in this body before me?
People speaking to a flipped mask
Words hollow as reeds in the snow
Something inside me writhes at this restlessness, beckons my head beneath the waves

The night they killed Osama bin Laden,
we drank the bottles down to the shards
We screamed
We pushed all the sand off the third deck
We racked every bolt in our soul
We shed every piece of body armor
We spat into the face of this childhood stupidity
War movies and old men talking
Watching the whole world fall down
Why did I find myself such a fool,
to carry a rifle for nothing

This whiskey is washing it all away
All the night and day, all that spit and say
All that broken clay, pots in the garden growing weeds

She likes cabbage in her soup
I like whiskey in my belly
I hate to lay it out like that
But it will work out better
in the long haul

Place that stone for me old friend
Place that stone at my head
Bury me down where the grubs and weevils live
Stake down four corners of my soul
Fly me taut like a kite

The way it works out ain't work 'tall
Just a bunch of laying, smoking, drinking
Spelling tall tales out the back of a burlap sack
Cutting onions fine, fine
Cutting garlic rough, rough

Pick all those tomatoes little girl
Get that basket full
We'll be walking back to my little shack
Cut em up with salt, on my tomatoes
On my **** watermelon

These broken eyed blues are blue
They look at me like I looked at you
Left me knowing I knew not what to do
A fool for you, a fool for anyone you knew
Two plus two is two **** few
What's a poor man to do

Whiskey when I'm thirsty, whiskey when I'm dry
Whiskey in the morning, whiskey till I cry
Me and this old whiskey, in the same place by and by
This whiskey cannot hurt me, this whiskey makes me die

Paddle this old river, the banks go sliding by
Polish this old trigger, wipe carbon from your eye
Put down that amber liquor, it's eating your insides
Go and find that river, it is deep and it is wide

How many individual cups of grief sit on this counter alone 
holding pictures of their sons and daughters
The distant sounds of shelling 
Dreadful walk of a slumbering, evil giant 
drunk and wheeling
A galvanizing hate, one that grinds teeth to gum
drives all tears from their spring eternal
dries one's soul into shriveled reeds 
dry, crumbling thistles

Winding down a well penned road, written like red leaves and hickory smoke
Wandering down another limestone dust dirt nothing, little slice of heaven in the sun
Creeks rolling, eyes wide on Folgers and a spent cigarette, walking a mile for the next pack
Pack on your back, climbing up crevice and crack, quiet nights with thunder and fire
Fire and rain, eyes in pain, wipe away these tears from mine, I already ran out of all my time
This Crown goes down nice, makes my feet dance drunk, makes the moths come circle
That stuff makes it worse in the morning, but **** the morning is worse anyway
That **** makes me sick, but I **** it down like a horsefly ***** up blood, slapped silly
Third degree sideways emotions, a burning train wreck of bauxite and broken dreams

Mundane, molting in the shade, moth under black light
My heart grasps at dusty winged angels, hiding from a sunbeam
A glass empties itself down your throat, vile pitcher plant soul
Gripping and splitting my lost life asunder, efficient self destruction
Clear water corrupted, blue air bereft of blown wind
In this surrounding stillness I bury my head like a child
Attempt a portage around my grief, a bottles relief poured amber
Peeking through a promise of broken glass paths to hell

One day he will follow her to the sea
By way of creek breaking through cold pine root
Through stone and sand, through outstretched hand
Through this silent land he laps languidly
Rushes relentless, rests in pools, rolling blue jewels
To the sea, on to the endless sea, meet her at the shore
The salt and the roar, the recession of wave and water
Starlight's son and daughter, mingling in the tide
Drawn out from this great divide, down into the depths

A bee tumbles into my water glass,
rights himself on thin ice cube,
drinks from a droplet,
disappears drowsily
down wind

Tumbling and rolling, strutting and strolling
Watching the moon go bowling across the sky
Big dipper wonders why Orion is bending
Wonder what his mother was mending on his cloak
Go for half broke, or just half of that, a casual chat
Fried up pork fat and biscuits, just missed it
This ship is listing, but I'm listening, commissioning blues
Nothing to do, listened to how the grass grew, dared and flew
Always a little to short, change and the sort, burned my last Newport
Watch me sport a smile, strutting and strollin' for another mile

Strong coffee, sticky flowers
Newport hundreds, zig zag power
Stand on the chasms brink, then cower
Wait patiently for horrid pre-appointed hour
Softly disemboweled on this leaning tower of lies
Blind and deaf to choking, hopeless cries
Ten thousand miles of hell as the crow flies
Defeat snuffing out these shining candle eyes
Take pity on the man that tries

Skating down cracked sidewalk waves

Shedding this mind enslaved

Shredding in the name of peace

Inner peace, not some short term lease

The real deal, official seal

Watch me steal away down this sidewalk

Hear my wheels talk under streetlight

Disappear into deep night, no fright

Riding concrete waves out of sight

Knowing this feeling is right

Little pieces of hope sticking out of rubble
Dull razor dragging away the stubble
Popping my own little ignorant bubble
Couldn't imagine the trouble this would bring
Hear the darkness sing, feel the rain sting
The fluttering of owls on a wing, swirling silence
Emotional violence of day to day existence
No effective resistance, just incredible distance
Watch our spirits get smashed by cinder blocks
Throw away all the keys to my locks, hide them under rocks
Snapped like dry stalks, stinks like wet socks
Long talks with no resolution, no solution
Would do better back in the institution
Insanities inclusion, mind always moving
Always losing, put this broken toy back on the shelf

I am grass crawling out of the ***, once all the flowers have rot
Delicate green, spreading your gentle fingers, same color lingers in her eyes
Spent too many tears trying to forget the feeling of making those eyes cry
The years do fly by, but now I just find myself trying to make sense of them
A jumble of puzzle pieces from different sets, cutting and pasting my soul like Papier-mâché
Waiting on the day when I can honestly say I don't need you

Across mountains, on the fleeting foot
Left is forward, right is south, but I dream of north
Of distant peaks, of turbid coast, at the bottom of the end
Swallowing my tail, fishtailing sideways
Walking through the creek, dead limestone spire
Tripping down the lee shored dreams
Crimson port songs, starboard green moon
Bring me to those mountains once again,
to climb

Tossing stones into shallow pools
Putting on these blue socks & walking away,
but these blues keep stalking down my neck
Dropping from my lash, from cheek stained red
Shame and bitter contempt
Sorrow and chewed Nicorette headaches
Dead breaks of trees waiting to burn,
on a match to turn things sideways
Wide days spent dreaming
Long night spent grieving
Childhood spent teething for truth
Rot out tooth on Baby Ruth and root beer
Never close, forever near,
I'll see you around one day my dear

My tears bleed into the sea, pleading for foam to take my breath
Sand shifting between knees, I'm so tired, I must simply rest
Remembering the days of new islands and new seas
Watching them appear off port bow, new mountains, new trees
Lee shores and bioluminescent dreams, flicking smoking butts into dark foam unseen
Staring into undulating emptiness off the starboard aft beam

No matter the effort, the end result is determined
Your hair will grow into the ground
Impounded  corpse into claustrophobic confinement
A cacophony of black birds in parking lots, on buzzing wires
A symphony of cicadas subsiding to silence
If love was violence you'd leave me dead and smiling
Worth every last **** cent

That ****** up flag flying
Is a waste of cloth!
Lower it immediately, a blanket now!
There is a man sleeping on the street, a sheet of cardboard!
Give him this lie of a sheet,
To wake up warm!

Don't know why I come to these places, such inflated expectations
Waiting on someone to walk up to my cocoon soul, do magic
A dwindling pack of Newports, another sour beer
The hour of its end draws near, yet I stupidly sit here, waiting on nothing

Distracted by a wisp of clouds,
I find myself on this lonely shore,
In distant hawks I soar vicarious,
wheeling through white powder,
Showers of droplets mix with salted tears
Watching all the years run past like sprinting deer
How they flew, far and near, to here, in quiet repose

It's a hard thing when they want to skyline you
The ones you were meant to trust
Told to trust
They burnt you just for the fun of it
Scraped your down to a skin
Some lobotomized form of the former self
All the wealth in the world couldn't change it
Maybe that is the explanation for my derangement
Estrangement from reality, duality of sanity
The man in me says I need to do better
But I tow myself down, into the seaweed and mud
Into the rotting kelp sanctuaries of self produced failure
Pulling the dry pills off your tongue
Rubbing the morphine into your gums
Picking you up off the carpet, but you smiled
Smiled and looked me in the eye  
I will remember that always, how I carried you,
to the van in a white bag
Cutting your last lock of hair, walking down the street, weeping, please bring your children inside
They don't want to see this

Pouring myself out of an empty bottle
Pooling between the weeds
Soaking into stone, utterly alone

Night time comes and we check the locks
Draw all the blinds, set back the clocks
The only stars out drip dimly through

It's late, or early, I lose track
Newport light right from the pack
Burn a resolution into your palm

They talk of revolution like it's a song
Sing along, memorize the lyrics
Spit it to the rhythm of gunshots we're hearing

Weeds growing in my garden
Fighting to die, wilting dry
Why even bother

Speaking into the speaking stone
Listening to the listening tree
Breaking the breaking bone

Half empty green bottles smashed to sharp emeralds
Cans crushed into half stars
Passing cars like comets

In the dark place we find each other breathing
Console me with your tears
Bleed the last drop dry

In my cypress root home, it's slow water here
Red dots on my ears, no current, slow
The river flows, but I'm accustomed
My little root home will hide me
Moving in secret, quietly
Fanning my nest violently
Under tree swimming tiredly
They came with rods and hooks,
bent on their cruelty
Pulling me out of my river,
into their gaseous sea

Burning down another menthol candle
What vein is better than the throat
Pour your poison into me
Grapple with the loose looted copper of my brain
Burn telegraphed tears into my artifical arteries
Burn your green hexagon in a glass pipe
Watch these clouds speak their native tongue
Blue skies crush you in their tide
Cactus growing out your eyes

Flies on the lip of my coffee cup, dancing with their sick, fat, bodies
They're on my legs, in my hair, stuck in my imagination like gum to shoe
I can't stand to look at them, dancing in the air, landing with no care, putrid
Wipe the crap out of the corners of my eyes, out of the crevasse of my head
Empty empty empty
I somersault from the summit, crack back on every cornice
Fall where every wild thing will find me, bury me with their teeth, a proper burial
The flies will then come, even though they were not invited

My lover lives inside of long exposures
She breathes inside of my flashlight
The shutter gazes wide eyed into darkness
I write her notes with this wavering beam
Capture my fast fading dreams by sunrise

Tonight might be the night, higher than a kite
Taking flight, out of sight burning gas
Smoking stress waiting for panic passed
Dreams melting into dripping glass
Time worn into candle wax
Picking up the slack, pennies in a stack
Light a cigarette, blow it out your back
Things in the dark quietly click and clack
Pager chirping in the encompassing black
Excuses lined up on the rack, smashed into the cracks
Walking on pins and tacks, following well worn tracks
Weave your set of facts blindly, dare you to find me
Unwinding, double timing down rabbit holes, smoking bowls
Collection of spines and skulls, shining piles of trolls tolls
Man slaughters man by rows, right hand ruthlessly brutal
You're sweeter than the frosting on a toaster strudel
Wait around another minute you'll see, my plastic artillery
For whom does the bell toll my g? It tolls for thee, it tolls for thee

The tea candle has burnt out
The cigarette has burnt out
I have burnt out
Coffee grounds in the last cold sip
Staring through bright, shining, window worlds of happiness
Plastic pallete, static ballet, crushed can alley, cardboard kingdom
Leaning on the leisure palm, societal balm, self righteous cents
Filming false charity for likes and views, make sure you subscribe to the channel too
Who do we listen to, linear division of red and blue, no middle view
Winner skews the history, in charge of our own misery, executed tenderly

Walking through summer snow, where who knows, wind just blows, on my way
I stray off, run amuck, find myself stuck until tide lifts me, bereft of care
Caught in my own snares, all these **** tires are patched up spares
Movements at night with silence scared, no one dared to ask why, prepare yourself to die
Tears cried over nothing's things, compressed **** between mattress springs
Life wields brutal stings, sharp as coral reef, ****** kicked out teeth
Turning a new leaf on the same old tree, trying to see the same thing differently
Mentally a mess, twenty eight pills from wake to rest, cigarette coffee stress
Looking west, soul undressed and shaking, all the promises end up breaking
Nothing survives its making, everything inevitably shaking to stillness

Soaring clouds cloak rising sun, vigorous brightness, morning whiteness
Lightness, creeping upon those weeping sightless, dark blindness lifting in slightness
Rightness becomes a non factor, heart like a melted down reactor spitting smoke
Go for broke, break it all, the inevitable fall comes swiftly, will twist thee into submission
Nature's battle of attrition, cruelty ingrained into life like burning brands
Souls sold in cans, tossed as carelessly as the cost, collecting moss screaming
Deeming this a good time to care, a good chance to dare, not to be ensnared
Time cares for those before the same as for us, oxidation of rust, reduction to dust
Why must one must, death is all one can trust, breath blown away in a gust

The distraction machine, our plastic dream, sew last seam through bottom lip
Tipped off of ship, sheet bound tissue is ripped, living form clipped to fish food
Always in a bad mood, waiting on the never happens, inevitabilities stacking
Reef wrapping around your sea urchin heart, leaping off cliffs with no running start
Failure practiced as art, life pushed around in a cart, walking on rusty needles and darts
Hate wheedles silently into our hearts, once that ice starts it keeps spreading
Look at where we're heading, treading ever closer to the chasm's drop
Brain stops with the thought, caught in the dark and you must move across
Ever conscious of where the next step might toss you, tumble and humble and break you
Escaping will make you take two, reflect, we're all subject to the same strain
Fear is a head game that even the sane can't contain, one must simply maintain
We think things are tame, but beyond the flame, eyes strain from a loud darkness

In the valley of Indus, green flowers blooming, ever consuming
Hostilities brewing, no undoing the doing, bones entombing
Blood stewing in streets, red stained white sheets
Cannons from fleets, artillery fills beats backwards
The unheards, cut words, pills scored on billboards
Falling on our own swords, invoking false lords
Burning all the bridged boards, diving in after trellis
The lie is what the government doesn't tell us
Can't even spell us, don't mention U.S.A.
Gasoline pours down in the place of rain
Pills to relax my stupid brain, stay in my lane, just stay sane
Pull away plain, never seen from again, poured down the ***** drain
A master was once a child untrained
A head shot is just a human unbrained
Standing over creek like crane, white feathers remain
Pour bleach on stain, derail speeding train

A hawk across swiftly sweeping clouds
Nimble nimbus, left to right, north to south
Fluid spraying out of mouth, moths meandering
Slandering ourselves, shelves growing empty
Last piece in your puzzle heart fitting gently
You lent me, a spark of empathy
A chance to see things differently

Weave me into your joyous network cruelly
Entombed in humming cables spooling
All the edges are skewing
Hooks luring in the dark
Fatal spark ends transmission
Good intentions, outweighed by outcome
Harvesting doubt under hot sun
Can't hide, can't run

Creep up with the creek up, stones screaming smooth
Storm letting loose with switch flipping moods
A couple dudes smoking roaches, domino porches
Pour this, in your cup, double up and drop down
Eyesight brown sepia, let me up, ****** lip bite
Skin stretched tight across glaring grins
Last cycle spins out the pins and needles
Devoured by this lonely evil, search turned into retrieval

I keep chipping off pieces of myself
I wonder how long until it's all gone
Lies drawn across our foreheads
Black sharpie marker stink
Spray paint symphonies reformed in a blink
New colors, new ink, mind on the brink
A drink in the morning, cool water
Sun presides over the daily slaughter

In spite of it all, we stand here smoking
The dark is speaking a common tongue
The rain is beating a common drum
In spite of it all, the fire churns
Young heart yearns for age
Brainwashed rage taught page by page
Enslaved by minimum wage
Final stage predetermined
Doesn't matter how much you're earning
Look at that cigarette you're burning -
Bring that Camel through a needles eye
Same chance as seeing pigs fly

Your eyes are on backwards, you're speaking in tongues
Expelling rancid breath from corrupted, rotting lungs
Breaking all the rungs on your plummet down the mineshaft
Rehearse, react, try to quote fact to the faceless
Spaceless outside brain, watching rain stain window
Bend low and embrace me, or mace me, debase me
Give it time and time will erase me, and thee

Up in those dry hills
Eating oranges, squeezing lemons
Fog like fingers in the morning,
billowing up the rattling crevasses
On the cusp of the cornice
Cutting cables in our recklessness,
our burning plastic dreams
Broken glass seams sewed together
with a blowtorch
Become one with the roach, the rat,
prepare to live and die like that