To bury yourself beneath a wall of Sound

I find myself sometimes in love
with the sound of things
almost beyond my control.

And that noise,
tightly wound with
the tension of one hundred years
but pouring out release
rising and falling on
itself
all at once.

It is alive, but
it is not a snake;
it is too massive and pure
it is not a bird;
it is too human and heavy
It is all four walls collapsing on me
it is all the waves in the Pacific
colliding with all those of the Atlantic
The sound is God.

The distortion rising now;
I let it come as
my fingers fall across the strings
again.

The sound is now eating itself;
the static overpowered by static,
warmth bleeding into the room.
the deceitful speakers trying to hide from me;
they implode on themselves.

The sound is a heart beating in a room composed of paper walls that let the rain come in and the rain whispers that everything is so full of strength and hope and weakness, meek years, half-hearted attempts and the ones that almost killed you, fake nostalgia and trying like a child again, mostly you but sometimes the collective idea of you, and maybe that time we spent the day in the field in our underwear or even the time we got lost in the city and couldn't get home again but we didn't mind so much.

On how to Answer her Question or; the moment and the madness

"Why do you drink so much?"
She asks. "It's not attractive."
He was unable to pause
the bottle had already been nearing
his lips.

(Not an easily interrupted trajectory)

He drank from it deeply
and prolonging the moment;
one part spite
one part incredulity

People, yes,
people drop things we call
bombs
from the sky.
Countless of their own
swallowed into a sea of fire
and radiation.
The congregation watches on
like the moment and the madness
were played by J. Christ and
the Holy Ghost.
And they clasp their hands together
like it meant something
to clasp your hands together

Choosing his words carefully
he answered.
"The only sensible way
to pass the time in
a nonsensical world
was to become hopelessly,
utterly
intoxicated by one thing
or another."

everyone, everywhere was hell
only the most depraved could ever,
ever bend knee
to that kind of atrocity
and spell it as victory
God is love
God is war
God is finding something to smile about when your heart and your daughter are melting in a mushroom cloud

And she asks him why he drinks.

Parades Sometimes

I kept too careful track of the time, I think,
Or where I was supposed to be
I let the water seep out onto the floor
I filled the days
with dull and nondescript
off-white placeholders
I was rushing from place to place
looking like I must be headed to
some silly skyscraper
or maybe a cramped venue
or lunch with
Patrick S.

I'm sorry you died
I didn't know much else to tell you
But maybe you can show me your moves
sometime
in my sleep, where,
I'm still kind enough to cut off
all of my hair
or my lungs and kidneys,
throw them to children,
while i wear your smile
like it's a parade

(I'd reach for the liver too
but then I'd stop
realizing sheepishly, of course,
it's not much use
these days.)

There is a grey sparrow in my closet

He never comes out when I ask him to, and he only comes out when I try to sleep. "I'm really tired," he'll often say, but I don't believe him because he never goes to bed. I spent the first night trying to teach him tricks. You would think a sparrow that spoke might have a natural affinity for tricks, but you'd be wrong. He doesn't.

The second night he stood perched at the top corner of my protruding closet door, threatening to throw himself down from the edge. "I can't do the things I used to," and then he rattled off a list of activities woodland creatures might do in a day. I told him he wouldn't die, as he couldn't help but extend his wings in mid-dive and save himself from the terrible fate of my cold and wood paneled floor. He tried to prove me wrong but he only proved me right.

On the third night he sang to me a song he wrote, but he kept forgetting the lines because he was too busy considering whether or not to suddenly burst into falsetto. It made the parts that could have otherwise been moving seem cheap and irrelevant.

By the fourth night I had grown tired of his bullshit and closed the closet door.

The fifth night, I felt bad and opened the door just a crack, and he had prepared more songs for me. I was never going to sleep again.

On laying in bed all day and ignoring the cat's cries

The rain took away everything else;
it didn't matter so much because
all i wanted to do was look at you watching me
stare at you

And it's not as if I tried,
but I knew that if I had,
I wouldn't have been able to find
anything
else
that mattered

I forgot my bones had broken
retreated back to bed
And I too
want to be awake for this.

And now as I; in a post-modern tone and with great Apathy, will explain why waves subside and how Blue Birds sing of only the Moon

It's been cooler lately,
in the mornings.

Walking out to my car

The best possible alternative
to sitting idly, waiting for
something
to happen

Adventure and chaos form
on my walk to my car
even when
it's the only destination

A blonde walks by
stealing her man's arm
and his tennis racket.

A magazine salesman
presumably with no where
left to go,
watches the sunset and
drowns himself
in bottled water.

And this shrub.
This fucking shrub;
it has to be alive.
Sinister, scheming,
It rustles and sways
every. single. time.
On a still day without breeze.
No animals hiding in the leaves.
This shrub is going to rise,
roots and earth and malevolence,
come up from the soil
and swallow me whole

Some asshole drives by,
any man who drinks knows.
In a black truck, He
pretends to aim for the dumpster.
But any man who drinks knows
there's nothing quite like
a recently downed bottle
shattering and flying
across the pavement.
Or the kitchen wall.
But that is, well,
that's chaos for
another time.

Perspiring and feeling like
summer itself,
I reach my red hands down,
into my wrinkled pocket,
drag the keys out
across the fabric.
I find the larger one.

Where was I going again?

One hundred thousand love notes to you

You.
the only kind of woman that can
make me
scream,
burn in the frigid rain,
feel lost under my own weight and shoulders,
heavy head.
heavy hands.
heavy heart.

I'd write one hundred thousand love notes to you
If I thought you'd read them

Maybe keep them under your bed
or in your dresser
one in your purse
one for your pocket
I might even sign -- ever so carefully
with hands striving for such steadiness,
such eloquence that they'd quiver, at last, back into
the erratic jumble of nerve and bone
leaving just a scribbled
but heartfelt
"with love," or,
"yours"

It has been said that
many a good man has been put under the bridge by a woman
and the rest of us not so good men
have been thrown into the cold,
and the iron grips and roars of freight trains
by a woman

But I'd still write one hundred thousand love notes to you
if I thought you'd read them

Beating a Dead Horse named 'Originality'

There are no more islands in the sea
where
we can hope to find
buried chests,
coconuts not yet picked over,
strange creatures, that,
in our curiosity have not fled
from harsh footfalls before.
There are no more results
undiscovered, unexplored
the test tubes have yet to yield.
The findings have sought
to determine.

There are no more words
I haven’t stolen,
Beaten, and strung together.
There are no memories
you’ll retain from this
aspiration for originality;
If you see that horse
rotting in the lawn,
kick it for me one more time

Thoughts on the status quo, whether or not to blink, and losing your fucking mind

In parading realism, logic, and reason
we surrender
that which we've all fought for
And how we fight all the
fucking
time
to keep it alive, or protect it
or even to save the hope that
one day realism is killed
and i can go back
to dream

the impossible is only that which
you left behind when you hung your head
turned around
and stepped back inside
leaving the empty streets,
the gutters,
to collect all the wonder and burning and bitterness
and plans and bike rides and conversations
and pictures of summer and color in her face
and regret
you let tumble out
on
the
ground

But, cheer up.
you're young.