The Songs You Wrote

From your bed you wrote another song about bondsmen and boredom
together again in a black and white closeup of backstreet atrocities
cordoned off by tape spitting lawmen whom you DO NOT CROSS
(the last part you sang)
because we’ve all been there
with perfect spheres on course
afraid a turn of the head would mean a failed reentry:
to burn up
or worse (!)
to miss entirely
stuck drifting through the streets
until the glass in the road becomes your starry night.

I’ll echo that a good song is like a house destroyed
and that deep down we just want to pick up the pieces,
see what was hidden in the walls,
and marvel at the confetti of pornographic playing cards
now raining down on this half of Missouri.

Machine of Death -- An Entry Too Late

AMAZING SEX
"So what have you got there? Looks pretty colorful, and how fitting you're using it to paint your cheeks that same red. That's cute. I bet you can barely taste whatever is in there. No, not barely, I bet you can't even taste it at all. It's just as cool and fruity as something your good ol' mom would serve you on a hot summer day. The glass perspiring in a way young kids just don't. Definitely not you.  No no, it was years before you felt the awkward dampness of teenage years. No matter--HEY, TWO MORE OF THESE--you're probably wondering, 'Why two?' well it's amazingly simple and obvious if you think about it. But you didn't come here to think, so you'll have to forgive my assumptions that you'd be inclined to think. Or don't. Really, it doesn't matter. The second is, of course, for me, as it's the quickest way for me to share that taste in your mouth. Which serves dual purposes, I'll let you know. The first being that I'll get to know if that's really something I want. Honestly, who wants to be involved with some putrid, over-sweet mess? Sickening, and the last thing I want to worry about are the calories I'm putting on just sticking my tongue in your mouth. The second is much more subtle and is greatly overlooked by the youthful masses. You see, a lot of people just go right at it, and sure, that has its place. Just like atomic bombs or those triangular bayonets banned by the Geneva Convention. But that's now how you do it if you want to do it right. See, you have to think of it like an airlock. Like you're traversing some great differential and you don't want your eardrums to blow out or your eyes to explode or something equally grotesque and off-putting--so you ease into it. Nice and slow, the change barely noticeable until wait-a-minute… your tongue is halfway down my throat! Haha! Oh, don't act so prudish. I saw your look back there. Yeah, the one you gave me when I was back there with the guys I came in with. And lest I forget, I've got your number right here. No, that's not literally your number, but if you read it I think you'll get my meaning. Printed today. I've got the prick to prove it. Haha, get it? Check the numbers; that's from an official Machine, and you know nobody can fake these things, anyway. Mm, this drink is amazing by the way. ‘Open the pod bay doors, Hal,’ if you know what I mean. Back to the card though. That's right. Now tell me that's not exactly what you want right now? Exactly what you need? Sure, sure--there's no way to be sure that it will be YOU, but when's the next time you get an opportunity like this? Think of the anecdote--the story! Shit, how many people can say they fucked someone's brains out and have an obit they can point to? But whatever, maybe I was wrong to come over here. You know, this drink isn’t even that good. Who would order this, except someone completely out of their league. Someone who really shouldn’t even be at a place like this in this first place. Do you know the bouncer or something? Look, the clock is ticking for me, obviously, and I'm vibing you're not the one anyway. So… what's your friend drinking?"

Tangram Tiger

I see in you the padded battles of matchbox dioramas
sabers drawn to clash harmlessly and dull—
where plastic death reaps over the die-cast and cutouts
sparing, but magnifying the spared ‘til their boots melt together
or their bayonets creep to hang bowed and useless.

There I am, gathering broken arrows on hills of stretched felt
while transatlantic babes stomp and splash in the pooling drops of my dreams.
They’re clocks, so meticulously constructed but flowing
and collecting in the folds of fabric, taut like skin on tribal drums
or the bold taxidermy that keeps your bed warm.

But what echoes in the primal scream of tigers no longer displayed?
Their lowest pitches I can’t hear, but see ghosts register and queue in doubles
readily devoured by aching mouths bound open and tongue tied
as they whisper expository plaques into cool earpieces
and dissolve slowly like communion wafers before their etherial lover.

The management is afraid you’ll steal the souls of the soulless
but I don’t think they considered where you’d keep them
since your bag’s checked and you’re sleeveless,
but they’re right to be cautious near the artificial tall grass
because you’re terrifying in those slimming stripes.

Row

Like a black and white fever,
the blurred grounds were bisected and spun
the lake pasted to the end of a kaleidoscope
his wrist bare and hair long
and rowing—
through veiny green waters stagnant as clotted blood
but overflowing with life
that would land on my brow
to annihilate itself between touching skin
so maybe that was you.

I liked to think I knew you
and that you knew me in some capacity
greater than just a photogenesis or a list of what I was not
so I’m curious how evil I was in your dream
that you won’t hold me in the night
because what if you were wrong
had it backwards
and I’m evil now?

I need you to hammer it out
like some scattering formalism
don’t worry about terms I won’t understand
‘cause when I finally reach the gold trimmed logbook
entitled 2008-????
you won’t even recognize me.

Smoker

Sometimes I wish I smoked two packs a day
so that tar may become my fifth humor,
all absorbing and nullifying,
like how all colors lead to brown when mixed together
which coincidently would be the color
I'd hack up every morning
expelling everything that's touched me,
a ritualistic cleansing in the shower
that'd require a chemical cleaner about once a month,
or so I at least think
because really everyone's like fly paper,
and the dullness in your eyes indicates you're almost spent-
what all have you collected
in the time since I last saw you?
I doubt I could handle knowing
until I've met a girl at least twice as nice as you
which I believe may take my entire life
so I guess I shouldn't have asked
without you first agreeing
that the rhetorical is all we have left.

Destruction

There are nights you can't escape the day he ripped your cat in two
where a choking in your throat
and the nonexistent smell of uncombusted gasoline
adds to a lightheadedness
normally reserved for Mt. Everest
or the last moments of some famous author
that no one else in your high school english class enjoyed
or even bothered finishing the book
'cause no one gets laid when they're affected—
a finer point your fat friend would never grasp,
wrap her lips around,
eyes screened by hanging locks to hide welling tears.

You wonder if he ever thinks back to that day
but that's like pondering the visibility of specters across other wavelengths
because really, empathy is just another frequency
and you just want someone to resonate with you
but be careful girl
because love hurts and so does fire
so it's best to know which you're falling into.

You've stocked your kit with the appropriate cream,
readied your bag before the door to leave it behind—
you visit like a conservationist on the moon
carefully sweeping to leave no trace or footprints
just a massive crater where you first touched down
and from where you take off.
Now at the terminal you stand upon the painted line
flickering displays vie for attention but your gaze is set
towards tracks and the source of liberated air
fixated on the thought of how that train
would fucking destroy you.

Heatless Engines

If you were here I'd tell you stories
about how all the broken hearts from the 70's
ended up on New Jersey beaches
but tonight it's so cold I can barely remember
if I'm wearing any clothes at all
so I know that you're cold too
in your room and in your poems
filled with heatless engines pleading "let me in"
oh, you know I'd let them in.
Like wound watches you are intricate,
filled with gems, and loaded springs
but for me you'll always run like new—
what's a boy to do
in love with the weekend
and a sweetness his tongue can't comprehend.
I think it's only fitting
if this is how all great civilizations end,
collapsing in the pre-dawn
with hair like copulating snakes
tangled and adrift in the darkness of space
and against their better judgement
hissing for more.

The Blizzard

Buried beneath snow drifts and bookshelves

you awaited my engine,

whose pistons and fires drove rubber through compacted snow,

but spared no heat for the cabin.

With precipitating breath and gloved hands

I followed tracks to meet you,

amazed by the continuity of open roads and uncautious drivers—

somehow oblivious to coefficients and inertia,

'til your warmth did greet me

and my hollow bones filled.

I thought about entropy

and at what cost we breached the disorder,

to share this moment,

as coffee became cold and my cheeks flush

and I learned in your room,

amidst chatter and mixtapes,

why watches should never glow

as the night became timeless

and on my way home,

I searched for an answer:

"Who are you today,

when you've fallen in love?"