Saint James

The streets are still out there
And people still go to bars and die burning on the interstate
Dancing twisted metal all inside
and hot
Your best friend talking about work
and how the stars will somehow save him
Black sky watching still
Inside the television eats ego
Brazen and naked beneath half torn sheets
I take inventory of the fridge
My gut is a sloppy drunk unaware of
the damage,
Like me
 
Couches are coffins
And girlfriends are always tired
 
Listen man, I understand jazz
 
I just can't dance anymore

Last Night

Through myriad days mountains emerge

A tiny thing managing grandeur

Wind the hand from which you bear resemblance

To yourself

A feat worthy of noting, as you have never smiled

These heavy movements you struggle to employ

Alert no one of your existence

This is no tiny thing, I promise you

So,

Cling onto the things you thought you had loved

For they are the only buoyancy you'll find

In the strong undertow of regret

Toneloop

The road swallowing sky

Your radio played the things we thought we loved
That familiar feeling tomorrow won't be okay
Settling in my stomach
Somewhere between the bourbon and the gas station burrito
It happens again, you forgot to add water
Overheated, both car and boy
Emergency, flashing in red

We walk for miles, tones of Poe imbued 

Our bodies twisted, overgrowth in the forests of adolescence

The black of night between our lips

Beguiled boy stiff in Sunday's best

The wolves releasing chambers of heavy air 

Echoing the soft intentional vowels inside your mouth

You cling to my skin

The hair tightly pulling away from my arm

It's okay, I understand

I grab your head and wince moonlight drunk

Suddenly, I forget the car broken down by highway marker nine

Then, you swallow

The Outsider

I am sisyphus

You: the absurdity of meaning

The boulder and the mountain are

Mother, mourning humanity

I am the revolt in the machinery

This struggle shall not

Consume me

Dirty Old Man

All of it has left me
The women, the friends, the stories
The moon has grown lonely, lately
As I rarely scream at it anymore
Sunken into pages of a bad novel
I am a character
My life has turned into some sad avenue of normalcy
Drinking quietly inside
While the cigarette slowly burns my fingers
My brain can't help itself from
Banging against the side of the house
While I piss on the siding
Inside that apartment awaits
Everything I own, and despise
An ordinary love that sits and waits for death
I am a character
In a bad novel

Last Days of a Prep Cook

Images cascade like arcane avalanches, tired still
Water resisting form
Spiteful of governed universe,
I conquer my flesh

Bludgeoning barrage of grass blades stamped out
Dirt empire drowning downward

Fists flowering forthright in the company of flora
The flames of our departure devouring fauna
These goddamn Hands marred bloody tools of misfortune

By decree of debauchery this town is anchored to alcohol
Depressed vitals vaguely clawing at the tree line
Browning foliage reminiscent of dead meat

The only memory
of our humanity

I must admit,
I weep as I watch the beef burning in the pan

The Road

“Rosebud” hangs in the air

The road swallowing sky

Radio playing the things we thought we loved

We walked like we were somewhere

The mountains we traversed

Reminded me of being lost

A single, razor sharp, can of beans at your teeth

Feasting on the life self-possessed

I never did prepare all that well

For long trips

Cities only seen from freeway exits

And Roadmaps

I know I am one of many

An endless chattering of egos

Suspended between the blackness of the infinite
Multiverse

I'm quiet now, at least most of the time

Dead trees pawing at the windows

Clothes scattered about the floor

This is all okay, I think this is all okay
Long strands of hair in the bathtub

The memory of her shape

“She was here, so many of them were.”

In the cellar, I keep some of their things

Boxes piled up, reaching for rafters
It's not the absence
But the silence I notice

We, all of us, know how to let go

So go ahead, push past the ether
Show them

The familiarity with which your heart

Caves in

The things I have done

Have happened, period

Libido laying waste to some

Ego gnawing on the bones of others

But there were a few

Who I truly loved

Moments, women, friends

Who I truly loved

We, all of us, know how to let go

So go ahead, push past the ether
Show them

The familiarity with which your heart

Caves in