A foot in the Grave.

1/25/11

 I've had a foot in a grave and a fish on a wire
 And when I pulled both out I was none the wiser
 My eyes are all sore and I've become quite the bore
 And my back and my spine are circlin'

 I'd drop everything to be a fish on your hook
 And to roll around in your early grave
 Because the look on your face is still the one you gave
 When we first met, and you were so shy

But my thoughts swing like they're on a string
And I always wonder what I might be missing
And my soul wanders off into wide blue fields
And it's hard to keep it tethered to you and your coffin

I live in a place all gray and green
The lifeless souls are like nothing I've seen
And the temptation to taste different types of lives 
Keeps me wandering further down a rabbit trail

Sometimes I think it'd be so nice to live a simple kind of life on a path that's beaten black and blue; I'd beat that path to death with you.

I want to be an old tree with you, when my mind is sad and soft I want to speak to you
 But sometimes I just want your lips to grow over with vines.

Coffee Table

    She held his face in her hands like it was the whole world. But he didn’t mean anything to her. The other girl was pouring a drink in his mouth while she cradled his head. They took care of him as if he were some vulnerable and sick king. They nursed him through his drunken night and left him alone and sleeping by morning. 

    She remembers going outside, crumpling by the white fence and just screaming out crying in heaving, soggy sobs. The white fence and the bright sun made her imagine that she must be in high contrast and that her face would be like a yawning space of flesh color with great black holes heaving and gasping in the sun, like an enraged and bleached tadpole of a person.

    Because, you put a plate down on your coffee table and then you light a candle so you don’t waste matches every time you take a hit and then it’s burning so long that a weak spot forms in the side and the dam breaks and the wax pours down onto the table and then you start playing with the wax while watching tv and you’ve thrown the burnt match and pieces of wax onto the plate and then the plate becomes just for wax and burnt ends of things and then you realize you live in a house with two plates and that later you’re going to be cradling a man’s head as if it were the whole world and you sink and you go outside and cry with a wide open mouth like a gasping tadpole in the sun.  

To a Dying Woman.

I thought it was when we were young
    That we had to hear the words...

 "Where does it hurt...
       Where does it hurt?"

Ocean Floor

And they told us…
that his footsteps went straight into the water
and no one followed after
except a ghost called lust

And we wanted to follow
we wanted to know his name
why was he ashamed?
What didn’t he want us to know

They saw his body floating belly-up
and we could tell by his eyes
that he had seen the ocean floor

And then we knew
he lusted after what he didn’t know
and what he didn’t know was that lust followed him
into the water

And it pushed him under
and it made his eyes bulge
and it made him go further
even though his insides did explode
his arms still propelled him
to see the beast beneath
the great amorphous behemoth
that encompassed the underneath
of every drop of water
every counted sin
his eyes saw the droplets
evaporate beneath its fins

As it moved the world with each breath
beneath its body lied the place of death

The fires eating the flesh

We wanted to go into the water
and see the breathing floor
see how it pushed and pulled
the waves across the shore

See how it coaxed and taunted
the dreams of all man
see how it deeply wanted
to crawl upon the land.


This poem was also featured on Randomly Accessed Poetics on 04/01/2012

A Street for the Dead

Grave News: Vagabond

I can't sleep with all this sound
And I can't eat with the birds around
When I see the water I want to go drown
When I'm up high I want to hit the ground

I've got a plan but it's full of holes
And I've got a soul that is growing old
I've got places I don't need to go
Patches for my clothes that I need to sew

I have scars scars scars
On my chest through to my heart
And I have words words words
They fly away with the birds
and are never ever heard
I have plans plans plans
But they have no legs to stand
And I have pain pain pain
And it is such a drain
To let it go again


The sun is setting on me


I have beds all over town

Splinters

I feel lack luster
And dusted
Dusty white plates busted
On the floor and spreading splinters
A porcelain powder dreary winter
Working its way into the grain of the wooden floor
And now we can't walk with bare feet anymore

Featured on SYWZine on April 11th.