TRUE

There's so much lying

Involved in telling

The truth



I was hungry

But not starving

When I first met you



Any reason will do



In my soul

There's no soul

But in my heart there must be love



I'm digging my own grave

As war rages on



We all need something

To lower the highs

And raise the lows



(photo by Scramz)

SCHOOL OF DYLAN

Stoned baby blue
In Memphis
Just like a woman
You got to go
To school
Today

Tangled up
In the arms of love
And the hands of God
Looking at Jerusalem

White hat
Black coat
Red striped trousers
And sensible boots
Of leather

(A wide stance)

It’s hard
I know

So
What did you see
Darling ones
Blind
And broken
Children
Twenty miles out of town

I thought
The answer to my prayer
Was you
It’s just not as fun
As it used to be

Walking thru
Washington Square Park
On an asphalt
Wave of warmth
And fulfillment
We stopped a perfumed lady
Before we visited
An old friend of yours
On Bleecker Street

Now I'm on
Highway 61
Or did we just miss
Another road

Too hot to sleep
Not dark yet
But we’re getting there

He was the
Best Mind
Of his little group of friends

Not the smartest
Or the most
Clever

But the kindest
And it’s still not dark yet
But I’ll get there

A ballad of a thinner man
Oh me
Oh you
Oh my
Oh mercy
A new one

Like a rolling
Stone

Good night

 
(photo by Gerard Malanga)

ME AND YOUR SHADOW

You shoplifted my heart

A sweet-tooth
And a tiny fucked-up face
in negative space
It was never mine to take

“Love is that feeling you get
Right before you vomit”
You once said

The silent song
And diaphragm
Of a drowning man

Sure to break
For dancing apes
At masquerades
Filled with hollow grams

Mirrors and magnets
Oceans of Mylar

I’m the kindest kind of smile
You could ever devise
Now I’m overdrawn
I’m undercooked
Unsung
Done

Roll out
Roll back the old songs
In the Woe Is Me Hotel
The hush puppy lobby
With a coat check bell boy
Who waits in an ivory stroller
Decked out in plaid
The way out way my man

“He’s in the wood”

That neighborhood
Is a whole lot of hand jive
And a little bit of thought
I’d like to check out
Your inner adult
More than that new club
And you would’ve liked me
To have been a pretty girl

But frankly I don’t remember
What was in your best interest baby
When your ghost tried to catch a cab
For a headless tribute on a vending machine
It was a granite list memorial
A witty cellular stone

You were such a kidder
I was such a mystic

Can you handle that
Miss Amazing
Ly disconnected

Strum

Your family name
Ended with you
Another cycle
Another moon
pulls me into
who?

I see your lips
Lodged in the velvet sky
I’ve stock piled some stars
In this majestic roof
Fretted with golden dreams
For you

A night complicated by windshields
Voices lead me
But I’m too frustrated to explain
The pain

We tried to skip rocks
Box set lists
Trap hub cap
Congregations
With our matchbook bluff
We juggled the dirty looks
We lived life the way it should be

Empty

Constituents
situate your selves
On water
And watch

You’ll suffer the short wave sea sickness
With a trademarked tweak

He had goose bumps on his bicep
I didn’t expect him to reciprocate

Head beam billons
A belief in spacecraft flutters
Like butter
Four directions
Misperceptions
baptism in sweat
beneath wingless angels
wrapped in sheets
oscillating constantly
everywhere
a sharp point
pop in the perfect tempo
on the downtime
backbeat

I called



And hung up
On your machine

I used to send those hugs
Across miles
I’ve never been able
Or agile enough
To pull it off
For real

Candy skin jam
Homespun scars
Chapter rape
Boyish litter
Alien gold shards
Shipwreck
That’s my moody boy
That’s my bee bop stance
I drowned in me

The sooner you rise
The sooner you fall
In love

The sooner you try
The sooner you know
It’s too deep to feel shallow
It’s just me and your shadow

From bed to futon to bathroom floor
A little bit of teenage smut
We never melted we simply cracked

Bear your back side treat
From forth the fatal loins
Or so it goes
And so it went
The same chords
With a different grimace
Roughed up and ragged
We accentuate the comedy
Pensive and plaintive
Sensuous in the universe

The last fare
Paid in full
And painted
In retrospective red

Ah yes
He was an angel
He was a petty thief
He was a junky
A saint
He was my best friend
He was a liar
A poet
Drummer Boy
A complete stranger
He was a kid

I’m chained to these statements
They keep me down
In disbelief
The fine truth I’ve blurred
And obscured

So don’t believe a word I utter

A private school
A public hanging
Just a touch
He was on the nod
When he offered
That stray endearment

A lone viola plays
in a subway station

Forget the movie
Just listen to the soundtrack

I wasn’t his lover
I was his enabler

Do you know what corpses say:

“Lost envelopes--
Road kill blood”

Call my bluff
I’m not capable of religious
belief now

I was young once too you know

Burn a hole in my pocket
A sarcastic burden

I’m a weak link
I’ll sever mine for old time’s sake

But if I had held my breath
Waiting for him to kick his habit
I would’ve been

6 feet under 
5 years ago
4 drinks later
3 bags since
2 hits after
1 last time

the sooner you rise
the sooner you fall
in love
the sooner you try
the sooner you know
it’s too deep to feel shallow
hey it’s just
Me and your shadow

Another broken promise
Another frozen tear
The morning sun is golden
But it’s cold when you’re not here

Have you ever
Have you ever
Ever heard

The sooner you rise
The sooner you fall


(painting by Rene Ricard)

AFTER RUMI

I try to sleep
On an empty feeling

Face down
I stare at the ceiling

A pregnant pause
Stardust and television snow

I can't get enough of your face

The dumb grins
And senseless sentences
Confused thick lips
Steamy silhouettes
Against the shower curtains

All the particulars
Behind a white door

In the battle to see
Who cared less

I lost


(photo by David Siskovic)