the art of lonliness
is an inspiring thing

We sit and write these pages
then burn them one by one.

on the subject of passion

you never go ass to mouth

chains unbound on sun drenched shores of no where

too many days blur wine and shine and breath between friends i can't dance with
sunflower explosion in the middle of october when the dairy farms produce sand by the gallon
oh whistful youth devided
wrapped in celaphane and dynamite
just a cough and a whisper between a man and his mouse
going fruitful passionate along an unsure highway while the talk of towns is distant they can hear the rumbling of the motor and the music pouring strong as any whiskey

Missouri Wine

Saw the night sky filled
with pin prick lights
like buck shot thru
a thick, black curtain

dirtroad charm kicks dust
up into yr eyes
and I suppose the earth is lonesome
enough to make that horizon certain

found a creek perfect
for wasting my time,
a night with no memories
and a bottle of Missouri wine

this land's got a grip
like it needs eyes
to make a move and
when it does you crumble

the air here is sweet
but the gravity tastes like medicine
maybe another cigarette will
make the night more humble

this creek is perfect
for wasting my time -
a night with no memories
and a bottle of Missouri wine

Lawrence, Kansas

shooting stars over Lawrence, Kansas
burning green, like wayward fireworks

like us, they're angles falling
shattered into dust, blanketing this forgotten world
and dying for the heavens they left behind

and of this world remeber
dancing free and running downhill
pockets fat with corn and dust from dry clay roads
in every corner music boils in the rat holes while the waltz preceeds the tango and disco wasn't born but stiffled in it's initial conception
no man has a key to a home they've not withdrawn from
and in the pussy willow after thoughts of burnt lips and malnutrition
we walk on with glass shard trampled underfoot forming a lasting impression on ourselves

note to self

the night, and i awoke to fading hues
listless, without the will to move
and once again for all your hearts
i got up and got in the car

now, i leave each night without regret
even when the moneys spent
but last night sure left me hanging
crumbling ledges, fingers broken

then all went red and I lost time
and by the way Missouri whine,
the dreams were never remembered
and mornings work was never attended

ich

livingston and i decree.stop.the moral ambiguity.stop.of coral door and hangmans noose.stop.the beauty of the lipstick bruises.stop.can you telephone with news of hope.stop.or is your bill oustanding.stop.tie a yellow ribbon round the place where you dispise.stop.lick a micraphone or a light socket and fry babe.stop.i live to see the hair stand on end.stop. and if i'm the cause then i can deal with you in stiches.stop.and i split in my good side.stop.lets cremate somthing special.stop.and mix the ashes into ice tea mix.stop.for better or for worse.stop.and the deal with nomenclature is really just a hollow log.stop.with teeth enough for five.stop.and ambition enough for numerology to rethink its boundries.stop.

I do

you’d think all the tiny flakes of glass
embedded deep in these retinas
would turn tears colours like crimson
afterbirth and intertwining circulatory systems
while shredding the light out in little skinny ribbons

it would appear to those who were left, bound to see clear
bound to their beds, lost in their mess
left to digest all the broken bone bits choked down
a glass of thick salt sweat, beading on raw meats
a night cap of chloroform boredom

and you’re safer to assume that with hands like yours
all the fingers and chords
ripping out tunes faces to the floor
and all the curves of every girl in the room spin
back to the bar begging for more

just a thumb roughly running up her
at the back of her neck and the base of her spine,
all pricking in time, vows and heroin
needles like old lovers
fucking up her posture

you’d wonder, wouldn’t you

you can have yr moments
and keep them in a box
wrapped up neat and put away
bound with chains and locks
just barely in yr thoughts

I got no need for any
walled up, hidden repository
cause these wild motions
leave as a trace only the story,
all this world has got for me

darlin,
lets swiiiiiiiiing
from the highest branches
and catch the falling atmosphere
like jumping through smoke rings

just past the silver lining

Of three butterfly kings and one little moth
Of shoes dropping like so many hail stones
Of hastily slipped secrets and gleaned ideas
That’s what my day consists

And what about the darker side?
What about the beds I’ve slept in?
What about ring I wear?
Already wedded to art and idea

There are places I’ve been
There was before a today
There are friends and fiends just behind me
And no leashes fit me

So sunshine you may think
But do you see only the silver lining
A thought to think when you look in my eyes
A big front has a big back

what a selfless race we've become
with our memorials and our
great concern for those who've passed on
miles etched in stone with our
greatest grandparents greatest intentions
and the result lying just a few feet below
and with a flower into dirt we assure ourselves
we're the ones who'll rest in peace

shake off your modesty you pigs.

oh you bumbling drunkard
why dont you go hide
with your other nasty friends
of former passings of time
i've got to pick up
from where you left off
just near every morning

county line

darlin, if you could
let me listen to the
whisper in your radio
for a while
and drop me at the county line
with just a lingering kiss
and the night full of stars

I Smell Pulp

Sew on a smile
And punch a new drywall hole
The fragrances of living
The taste of the things you stole

Slide buck blades across his fore arms
And put one in his knee
And when he's down, kick him some
But don't tell him it's from me

The punishment for trying
Is to wind up with the knife
The punishment for dying
Is to live another life

The crooked cracks of freedom
The fragments in your head
The fragrances of living
The stench of being dead

The Bastard

Your wrinkled Irish smiling windows
My hand against your back
Solidarity
It's just a word, don't read into it
More like, out of it
It's a pandemic now, but I'm not sorry
I'm not even annoyed
It's like gambling on your life span
Again
But why slide over and make room for a longer ending?
Let's break the ceramic collectibles in your china cabinet
Or is it a glass safe?
Vitrine?
While you cry you can sweep
I'm gonna go have a smoke
Companionship
It's just a word, don't read into it

Dot Dot Dot

At the diner tonight
Groucho Marx ate pussy
My sandwich came without cheese
And EVERYTHING is changing

At the diner tonight
Mom slipped me a ten
The bosses turned into lapdogs
And NO ONE showed up

At the diner tonight
Pretty girls smiled at me
They wished me a safe trip home
Your friends became strangers
A rockstar was crowned a god
Cartoons came to life
You moved to California and quit
The jukebox preached philosophy
Funk became a movement
And NOTHING'S where we left it

At the diner tonight
The ketchup and fries were on separate plates

a bottle of wine and
shattered bones
I'd say held up
well against the impact

ending up lying in
a pile of paint chips
trying to peice the wall
back together in the dark

this was a lousy set up
and that dollar store charm
didn't fool me at all
once I got a taste of it

so now I'll sing some songs
about the way you break my heart
and maybe stay in the park,
the statues are lovely and give good shade

I was hoping we could run away
and make love in the hidden
corners of the road, and linger
in the hidden corners of your skin

but now I'm sitting alone
in this dim trainyard
left with one last bottle
of wine and shattered bones
to match

sat in traffic and
watched the eyes
in rear-view mirrors,
sun shot and calm,
seeing through the
waking mirages

Skipping drunken
Home from yur place
And drizzly nights like these
Are ‘sposta feel weighted
And serious like sad writers
And tomorrow ‘sposta feel awkward
But I feel like skipping still
Drunken
Home from yur place

sky is opium purple
smells of cardboard ash
even the clouds are corrugated

and the road jumps out
at me, my legs fail to
keep the world below

every mile knows every footsetp's sound
every blade dulls itself over time
every line converges at the horizon

there's nothing to offer the wind,
feeling the atmosphere tickle gently my face,
as she whispers the world onto parchment

I feel like an idiot

When you turn around
Can you tell that I was looking?
And when we joke of love
Can you tell that I’m not joking?
And this
May make me vulnerable

But I think that you’re wonderful

You jerk; you’ve taken over my thoughts
And in my heart, created a thousand different soft spots
I’ve been pluckin’ petals saying “love me love me not”s
And cupids just sittin’ somewhere
Taking stupid easy pot shots

But when you turn around
Can you tell that I was looking?
And when we joke of love
Can you tell that I’m not joking?
And this may
Make me vulnerable

But I think that you’re wonderful

Well I feel a fool and a teenager
Every time I hear your laughter
How can my heart be so aflutter?
Cupid must be shooting daggers
These days

And now I’m afraid

That when you turn around
You can tell that I was looking.
And when we joke of love
You can tell that I’m not joking.
And now I feel
Vulnerable
Exposed and breakable

But I still think you’re wonderful

I want eyes wide and deep and clear
Like perfect emeralds
In crystal saucers of spring water

And to be in speech so enchanting
with tongue made of quicksilver
To pry minds
Or win hearts

I want movement so alluring
Fluid and feminine
in perfect pace and liquid gait

With a name not to know
But to worship or fear
Art not an artist
As an idol venerated
To be an empress revered

And should I fall to the dogs
To eat every bit of me
Bar the soles of my feel and my palms
So be it

And should I ask for the head
Of the latest profit
In exchange for a dance
I promise
It worth it

For I want to be
So charming as to unarm america

I want to be ethereal and perfectly attuned

I want to be a glass harmonica

forgive me this tresspass, and that carpet too,
i done tracked in the mud, and kept
leaving streaks on your polished forearm

if you're done with that elevator, i'll make
myself at home, with a neon exhale
tell me which gas is the most noble

3 tons of steel and all that force in a kiss
tasting of Luckys, pavement, and rye, under
childrens glass flag cautiously splintering

207

i win...

(on paddling past the break)

i can't really recall but
this must be something like
birth in reverse

i don't believe in the motions of the planets
anymore

all we are is the memory
that we exist
and we gotta live with these diasters
sometimes
and the halos and the aftershocks

i tell myself lies
about the mercury in my hands
you see,
mercury is fluid and self propelled
why can't we all be conquering generals and drunk kings

for an eye blink instant
i thought i was the big dream
but i was a billboard
for the fiction of the whole human race

all i see these days
are science fiction moonrises
and miracle children
and that ain't so bad

wandering ruin

wasn’t enough length in the shoelace
to tie your broken soul back together
and the holes in your socks
that still need patching up
know you’re the only one
that can break away from why you run
cause I see your heart is growing heavy
and your legs are just as weary
so it’d be nice to see you stop and rest
take off those shoes so your feet can mend
and put them up so they never forget
how to really walk again

misplaced and found

There goes that broken sidewalk
where we left so many footprints
through the bitter eyes
of the days first light
like a tumbleweeds dried up roll
over a thirsty deserts dried up road


All I ever wanted was your hand
and all I ever needed was a friend
one that holds you like they mean it
not under the waters deep end
but up high where you can breathe in
a piece of lifes' true meaning


Now I know I can stand on my own
bare bones to the cold
and unafraid to be alone
but I have no words to deny that
it’s much warmer with you by me
still though, I know

I can stand alone

where's yours

Hey now children,
I’d like the answer to a question
or at least a decent explanation
cause the road we’re on is kinda long
and even though it seems real far
it’s end creeps up just like a ghost
to take you with it home
So children,
what I wanna know is
and this is most important
have you all got a tight hand
wrapped around your towel?

still silence

No more food
No more fathers
No more fat and pain and bother
No more hot or cold
No more phony laughter
No more music
No more Hatter
Only empty wishes
In a fish bowl
Because for all my terrors
I’ve never been afraid of drowning

It was beautiful without me

It doesn’t matter
If the day is blue and yellow
When even riding
And fast music blasting
Can’t drown out
Choking sobs from your ears

I wake up crying
And red eyed and weak
And swear I’ll never do that again
But five thirty makes for a hard hour
And only moments of weakness find me alive
And I realize
That I am talent less
And love lost
Or never found
Is the only thing solid
In my life

volatile

we never talk about
lust and flames and
a wiff of ozone

like two chunks of sodium
we're a breath away
from ignition