body frozen and rigid
lies
(like we always do, they say, the lies we tell)
still as a corpse waiting on the slab
for the knife
(but i never had to wait for a knife)

it's not a question
whether one likes it or not
what will happen just happens
as inevitably as the lesions and sores of paranoia
fester and spread the craziness far and wide
til all we know know we are not to be believed.

Yes, the world's a crazy place.

that girl over there
(she's not a nice girl)
raped and beat and fucked and kicked
and that is that whore's life and
that is what happens to sinners like that
who drink and drug and know but stay
(everyone knows, they all say)
he would never unless she did something
so it must be that dirty girl
and it must be okay cause she's just a dirty girl

it must be okay.

And the brother says, that golden child, sullen
she drinks and drugs and takes all she can get
so it must be okay and
she is using her body to get what she wants
and that is what her brother thinks.

He told me so.

that daughter of his is raped and beat and kicked and fucked
and she doesn't tell him no and
she doesn't fight back even though
she fights with others
(they stay away from her, the other kids)
but never raises a finger to him again because
(she's afraid she will die)
so it must be
that it's okay and
she is just a whore and
this is what her mother thinks.

that daughter of his is raped and beat and kicked and fucked
and she doesn't tell him no because
(she tried before to get away)
she knows she must honor her mother and her father and the wages of sin
is raped and beat and kicked and fucked some more
and really she doesn't know any why because
this is what she knows, it just is, and
she doesn't feel it any more so
it must not be that bad and
she goes away with his drinks and drugs
and leaves
only her body
to be raped and beat and kicked and fucked and
beat and fucked and kicked some more
and really she isn't there
and she doesn't think a thing at all

poetry in ruins
pain by proxy

what we can't believe we speak
what we speak none polite believe
worst of all is the one who does
just enough
but that is beside the point now

it was a new south city with the old south sensibility
where we never did belong
the virtues of work and church and country club
protecting the polite, the good, from the filth we bring

once then we went swimming, close to the earth
to see the ravens prowling the park
standing guard
against the way they choose to live
a pleasing symmetry, grace and substance
pearls and cocktails
over and against the rest of us,
in our remnants of chaos and violence and disorderly
mindlessness

first you plant something
the ground, the earth, tells me what to plant
not what will grow
so i do it and then to hell with that

they should live by their own rules
whatever they got i could care less

they got no idea what they got til maybe that last second after the trigger is pulled
when it's finally too late
maybe then
crumpled dusty and used-looking in the late summer heat
who's gonna make it pretty now?

later in the night a small rain chiming in the garden
cools finally the suffocating air
calming the night if nothing else
letting the others move on to talk of forgotten
silliness, feral smiles sated , the primal hunt

a shitty way of looking at things
the lackness
it never wavers
the savage smile closing in
we know what's next
everything gets too much
a familiar but nameless prickling clambers though our limbs
takes us in its grip
to that final and inevitable loneness

we feel the whorls, the eddies, the currents
carry us along and are weak against the tide
perhaps we just don't care
just this minute

maybe later
before the locusts come

we weave a soft shroud against the day, the memory
the light that shines on the truth that is unspeakable
the unbelievable we cannot speak
we know well the feel of cotton swallowing our sounds,
stilling our soul, what's left

there's something to be said for silemce

in the night the cold wet rain soothes
prowling round the corners
teasing thoughts like thin wet twigs
they bend with the wind but we
we snap them off like a tornado of summer
leaving behind only shriveling brown laces of death
nothing else

death has its own perfect symmetry

this is sane as we can expect this lifetime
this one we have come to with the inevitability of our madness
the faceless invader of malevolent gaiety
coming through a field of sun-drenched poppies
improbably yellow in the snowy ice born of fear
and finally
silence

The rimless horizon above.
Caverns of guilt, yours and theirs.
On what was everything
Taking a walk surrounded by
Seeing a song above my head
Spinning a dream out the window to free
The sun falls away

All the people said
that was what was what and every day

One body else then has to walk
Time to bring in the guns
One long overdue thought
losing my mind to Jesus

Duct tape keeps the words from spilling out
Like a refuge, but cold
Like the dark air at the bottom of the sea
or an avalanche
Immoveable
Not even the whitest heat of hate can penetrate
the duct tape
keeping the words from spilling out

notes

it interests you not so why the notes?
Here I smile and that and I talk when I have no reason, no business, no idea
only the bruises to show for it
We're not so versed in these matters, we just empty the piss pot
is all
like a parlour made

if I said to you
all my life they said
do you know what i mean or who they are or even
what it means, all my life?

there are those who know to run the faucets
twice a day in the winter to keep the pipes from cracking

there are those who know - they say they know - what i'm made of
but if your life is to empty the piss pots how much more could there be?
More it's the lack perhaps,
we all know a lack even if we can't name it

there are those who know the everything, the all there is to know
even through clenched-teeth denials
with fists so tight the blood is drawn
a chorus of death efforts
with no awareness.

is it what it is

no screaming during the baby's sleep
don't wake it cause then it needs
demands to be taken care of
screaming again with no words to say
asleep you can forget the baby
asleep it needs nothing

you're not the first one
the girl in the camera already knows
we had a first kiss, thought i liked it
but now, now is so cold
the vigor of insanity calls me out
like sirens in the sea, i go

all it is, i am, we are, lazily unformed
on even the most beautiful evenings
there is no time to listen, less to talk
it isn't til later i will want to kill myself

the only difference is
you are bigger
older,
they say you are wiser

i can't
it's not fair
i din't do anything
still
all it is is lazy

i never met the arbiter of fair
i suppose that would be god
but we have not yet made acquaintance
i called once, or many times
and more than those were calls unmet
i am not an invited guest

simply adding the years
the things we see and you
have no more innocence

And you never had a say in it either

i'm gonna scream
not me, no
but someone's gonna scream
and i
can't wait to hear

do you spose it will be louder, the scream
than a single shot?