Where the Wishes Come From

Where the Wishes Come From

An excuse for locution
It does not come for free
A desperate price to be paid
Yes, there is always a price
The wages of loss
Too blind to see the truth
As it stood before me
With arms open wide
Wild eyes and beating gums
Flat and dull words
They still cut through
Linked by common threads
Spun by a demented devil
You call him republic
Death by an amateur’s hand
Is still death
With bullet holes and bombs
The flesh falling off the bone
Bound to the oath of exile
Disguised in dappled light
Like a tiger searching for love
With the corners knocked off
All spit and polish
Melting down the corruptness
Into a smoldering liquid
A frantic bellowing maniac
As silent as appropriate
The ticking clock sends chills
Down your spine of resolve
As I bury your dreams of revolution
In the back yard with the dead body
It rots like bees
It sits on the fence post
Thinking up lies
To tell the neighbors
How their house burned down
While I laughed and snorted
My last line of cocaine
I watched all burn down
In a smoky haze of finality
The firemen scurry with their hoses
Between their legs
The big one carries an axe
He looks defeated
As he watches the fire
It consumes a lifetime
In through the gaps
The fire flickers
Hungry for the lies of fortune
I am sad for my loss
The white powder was my only friend
And now I snorted it all up my nose
Such is the way of evil bastards

Peaches and Gunpowder

Peaches and Gunpowder

Travel across forgotten lines
As the monster digs in its claws
Wonderful in spite of everything
A hurried stiletto
Into your ear
The blood laughs despite itself
And you still miss the tears of the dead
The crossing of a border
To refuse a guest
A morbid element of opening
They all open wide
And you, a dying ember
Before all living witness
Struggle over it all
Eviscerated to the bone
Break it open and suck out the marrow
Exposed as a pile of worms
Locked inside without a key
There never is a key
We never find it
I wonder if it ever really existed
When I was a small boy,
I heard stories of its existence
They are nightmares now
This is not a home
It is a dungeon
I cannot leave
My chains are self-made
I love them more than life itself
I only look outside my window
I watch life and it watches me
No other bond to measure against
Asking about the bruises
They always ask in a quite voice
And their eyes cast down
The ground pigments of life
Like some haggard saint
Some smoothing and trimming of the edges
Fading from twilight to night
No more bright eyes for enthusiasm
Not a mystery, but a romance

Fluting on crooked legs

Fluting on crooked legs

A bright damp future
Wet tongue of tornado
Stucco splattered wind
A birth of never
Rippled finger touch
Riverbed kisses
Die surrounded by doom
She’s popping balloons
And speaking to the ghosts
Touching their core
When I touched your lips,
I was changed forever
It pulled itself right out of my mouth
Spread its wings and flew out the window
Feeding on your desperation
Making your big things small
Making everything small
A turn on the wheel
Carried off by something mighty

The sacrifice of knuckles

The sacrifice of knuckles

Golden tongues
Rampant dogs
They all must die
Throw them like the strain
Cover them with whispers
Their souls are old ghosts
Open the treasure
Smell the aroma
Call up the ashes
Blood knife cuts
The chanting stink
Of bones
Old bones
New bones
They all gather moss
Giving more
Of themselves
As your anger rages on
Against torture
Against injustice
Worry the worn
On this diadem
You fell for love
And progress
Always the caretaker
Two queer words
Chopped up in little pieces
Brothers of anger
Standing knee deep
In willfulness
All naughty boys
Under their feet
A death machine march
Gone away
With a thousand tongues
Living on dimes and nickels
The secret lives of knowing
They crawl out of words
Stand upon the metaphor
Watch the ink dry
Like the blood of dreams
So slowly
Yes, I know
They can’t be true
But, I think they are
Lost spells

Wandering blade

Wandering blade

Of the darkness
Century tattered
Scorn the crime
Of five hundred years
Unfinished toil
Before the face
Disfigured shape
Battering blind
Suffer the kindred
Cast out
Cast out
Tilling the curves
Those lovely curves
A single eye of bewitch
Oh that eye
That held me to the stone
Nailed the boards
A mound of solitude
A jewel of adoration
Dance on the wave
Dance you jezebel
Disowned satisfaction
Of white shirts
And tobacco stained fingers
Playing the piano
Burned by flame
Burned as a druid
As the world turns
Turning on evil axis
Stepping out
Naked as does
Naked as midnight

she was a cannonball

she was a cannonball

ridden by the nightmare
her bronze head
round withered sweeps
a hater of tombs
and dreamer of dreams
no matter how horrific
children she gathered
in the darkness
the deepest black
all sleek with wildness
most foulest decline
not for the faint graspers
caught in the fool’s throat
walking naked
she whispered the need
a notorious ceremony
made the devil laugh
with her lashes
and carving
the wood and black
wax from the belly fat
all that she owned
crazed dancing vision
looked death in the face
and snickered

More than enough

More than enough

The tower of Babel
By an invisible cord
Through the heart
Of the world
Never in the shape
Of empty and alive
Thrown overboard
Turning with it
Everyone headed
to their own
destination
like a couple of snakes
the stone-faced gambit
the teeth of the oyster
they chew for eternity
fixed in the stardust
a jigsaw puzzle
most alert and canny
a steely awareness
turned loose upon the world
another hungry wolf