Tuesday, April 30, 2013

save us all from love and hope




was breathing in the tarnished weight of silver skies,
was trapped there between forgetting and forgotten,
21 years of pointless starvation,
air thick with the approach of rain,
distant pulse of passing trains,
and the child in the back seat made no sound

had no hands

looked a little like me, but i no longer took
responsibility for any of the pain in the world
 
i no longer walked
when it was easier to crawl

had finally become my father
 
 
 

Friday, April 26, 2013

Sisyphus, Further Upstate




Nothing new, nothing you haven't discovered
yet, only America, only I will make you sing
it louder, will make you scream it, scream
AMERICA!! like it's the answer to a question
you can't imagine, like you're hanging from a
rope of used needles, hanging from a rope of
spent time, and it's a man in the back of the
room who asks the question, and it's a man
jumping from a bridge and onto the freeway
who answers it, only not with words because
words are too easy to misinterpret. Words are
too human. Humans are too careless. Just ask
the man his fucking name already, before it's
too late.


Sunday, April 21, 2013

kingdom of heaven




had hands of rage, had the
soft glow of a martyr

debated god with the
sick and the crippled

everything is within your reach,
you see, and
then you piss it all away

you stay fucked up for so long
that the idea of getting clean
scares the hell out of you

look in the mirror and
the poem is about me

stare at the sun long enough
and the infinite becomes visible

don’t trust in words

don’t put your faith
in the intangible

not all absence is an
emptiness waiting to be filled



Monday, April 15, 2013

if and only




the city without hesitation
where the forest ends and if
god can only exist in empty
spaces, then what?

ask kay in her final
moment of blindness

ask her again after
her suicide

understand that nothing
you and i do can ever
be defined as love
 
let autumn leaves spin
gently down into your
river of poisoned blood

let the children you’ve
lost crawl through your
back yard gnawing on
whatever bones they
can find

salvation is nothing any
of us ever approaches
with open eyes


Saturday, April 13, 2013

ernst, lost in the forest



fistful of light





and we are all friends
here except for the ones
who would do you harm, who
would turn you in or fuck
your husband your wife your
lover son daughter and we are
all mindless joy and we are
all dust in the eyes of
someone else’s god

we are all the moment of
obvious glory before
the instant of inevitable truth

come in, then,
and have one last drink




twittering machine





Thursday, April 04, 2013

red velvet hammer






these animals that have starved to
death with their stomachs full of
plastic and technology

these beaches black with blood

did you want to be loved?

have you swam through the
filth of 200 years?

listen
 
ask for lorca and i’ll give you himmler

i'll give you the shovel
                    the rifle
the bones of his children and
what would you build from them?

who would you nail them to?

hold history up to any mirror
and what you have is the future

throw the people you no longer need
into the street and wait for them
to come crawling back

kiss the pain from
their silent faces



a HUMAN CATHEDRALS review






 
 
 
 
 

Wednesday, April 03, 2013

love song





eight years spent building
this wall of silence and
no one on either side and
eight years spent dreaming
about violent death

radio static and violin music
down some sunflooded
november interstate

says she wants to be in love
                            like
it’s all she’ll ever say

says the drugs are better
                         than sex
              better than god

doesn’t ask where we’re
going because she
knows my eyes are closed