Friday, September 26, 2014

one for neverending love







and i will be me and
you will be the song i
sing with a mouthful of
blood and who was it that
ever promised you happiness?

how is it my fault
you chose to believe him?

why should victory feel
any different than defeat?

because love and hate



even here in the clean, cold light of early april,
in the solemn emptiness between
berkshire and speedsville, between  somewhere and
somewhere else, nowhere and
nowhere, the shit of civilization
growing up through the weeds and dirt, the
cigarette butts, styrofoam cups, fast food wrappers,
the wounded and the dying
 

the trees and the hills
 

crisp blue sky
 

no sound of traffic or of industry, but two
empty beer cans and a shattered bottle
on the side of a rutted dirt road
 

taste of rust when I
turn to kiss you
 

birds
screaming


Thursday, September 18, 2014

you and i lost in the forest of meaningless symbols





the sound of human voices in
                          august rooms


the sound of heat or the
weight of it


thunder at the edges


mountains grey in the haze or
blue beneath a colorless sky


asks where’s the map?


answers why do you need it?
and both of them naked
 
both of them waiting


and pollock is dead, of course,
                              and cobain,
                               and christ,
just to give you a better idea of WHEN
                                                  and
she has freckles on her pale breasts


he is never quite comfortable
in his own skin


says i’d like to see the desert and
she smiles at him and laughs


says but i need to get home


you see?


there are always places to go but
they will never be arrived at


there are some reasons more important
than others, or at least there
those who see it this way
 
one more time he says and she agrees


there is here and now and then
                                       (later)
there is the idea that HERE and NOW
are fading into the past


sits alone in a darkening room
and begins to understand this



Friday, September 05, 2014

excerpt 1






* *

drinking poison all day and she
said she was thirsty asked
why all it did was rain and then the
needle tracks of course and all of the
tear-stained apologies

the white spaces between houses

the smell of the river and
the same old argument

said the baby should have a name and i
told her there was no baby and
she asked why i hated her

she asked why i kept denying god

and the police had a  clear shot
but then he jumped

the streets were empty all
afternoon but i kept hearing the
sound of laughing children
 
kept getting off at the wrong exit

knew i was almost home but
couldn’t figure out why





Monday, September 01, 2014

someone and someone




was feeling okay was
slowly approaching
the idea of suicide
 
was four below
zero at two
in the afternoon
 
sunlight and the
taste of road salt

the ghosts of
old lovers

nothing to laugh at but i
was laughing there at
the highway’s edge
while the river froze and
the first of the massacred
children was buried

while the
conspiracy theorists
fucked each other
in curtained motel rooms

and i forget if i was
nothing but i knew we
were nowhere and it felt
like this mattered

felt like small birds
singing but without the
hope of spring

felt like frost filling the
cracks in the walls

colder than the morning
they found my father on
the dining room floor,
though the same shade of
grey, and at this point in
time all objects in the
known universe are
                  of course
still moving further
apart

at this point in time
your body
means more to me
than your name

seems like a waste of
breath to apologize
for things that aren’t
ever going to change