leveling, graveling, gravelly groans exude my exhaustion, canonize all my tomes. this home is afloat on a yellow black moat of bile, hate and quile and vile pains in my throat. let's drown in the basement, it's filled to the brim. let's jack up the prices while the pickings are slim. you all washed through me like debris in a stream, you cut me to ribbons and left me to bleed. melting alone, showing off white bone, you can ring that bell or you can huck in that stone. on the phone is the voice i've been dying to hear. there's nothing for you, better luck next year. when everything was suddenly, utterly clear. to shut off these shut outs, i'll cut off this ear. can you hear this night? it's starry, starry. can you see me mouth out sorry charlie? there's no good taste in this art space. straight porno and snuff films, i should be disgraced, but i'm titillated. it's tantalizing, and as i move to the movement, i'm self-aggrandizing. i'm filling with air, i'll float it up there. a chairman sitting easy on a big easy chair. so do you like my party tricks? i trick out clicking sticks to get my kicks.

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The First Eviction Notice

A temple corroded. eviction pending.
embrace me, old nights, gray sky, streetlight.
lyrical descension. attention fading.
breathless i'm a mess. kissless i'm in distress.
i'm barely breathing.

this crowning anguish, looked up nervous reflex.
i've got to build up from the inside.
a relapse. reflection. distorted.
repression's smiling spitefully.
longing for you to sew up my seams.
i'm barely breathing.

i've abandoned old identities, skin i couldn't fit into, songs i couldn't write, my voice will fade into this starless night.
can i get much blinder? can i kick myself much harder?
have i accepted this, to torture myself? you can't see me.
have i invented you?
i'm barely breathing.

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Navigating The Windward Passage

drinking deathwish nights can't save this.
glasseyed slackjaws scream from safe homes.
i've got it worng. time and again, song after song.
you've got answers: killing to please, swooning disasters.
so inventory me, drop me in your fishbowl.
i'm dying to breathe through your tight pigeon hole.
a dead man in dead dreams ...
when i'm gone you won't miss me.
you're dying to fist me (honestly, now!)
out of the close and into the fire.
out of these dumb little quips that inspire.
outright outrage enrages you now. you're lifeless and sticky.
kicking dead cows. fuck you sound.
one shot, all wrong. one lie, all gone.
so cry for yourselves, i'll die with my own help.
these words are mine and this grave that we share time after time chokes my life outwhile you ask yourselves what i'm crying about. well, these tears that are falling are wetting deaf ears. you cry your protests and say i don't care. and you know what?
i couldn't care less if you're repulsed through and through. a dead man in dead dreams when it's all said and done, did you really think that you were the only one? you were here before you, you'll be here when you're gone. just another lemming hummiing protest songs. fuck you sound.

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Your Gravest Words

all these words trip over cracks in the sidewalks.
uptown, one year. i'm distantly distressed.
i'm finally coming close to ghost.
i'm dancing on your gravest words.
i'm toasting all the coldest stares.
all the loneliest of eyes.

i am a satellite never getting signals right.
you are a constellation. i can barely make you out tonight.
the city lights are burning too bright.

i cut and paste these sections of maps into my days.
sunspots. almost feverish. can you feel me shivering?
i'm finally breaking out of orbit.
i'm clinging to your finest words.
i'm draining all the angry glares.
all that's building up inside.

and the dreamers ... walk slowly through the crowds
nothing can stop us now.

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Boatless Booze Cruise (Part 1)

jackknifed, my strife, take it easy, sit outside. i just died one thousand times yesterday. lay down. drown out, drowning in these cries and shouts.
changing so fast that it stays the same. encryption ensconces this cryptic cliche.
if it's not stupid, it's more of the same. i'm too tired to care, we're too busy to think. so let's sit bakc and laugh and watch the ship sink. the hull and the bow and the smokestacks disappeared and we watched it go down with a streaming bronx cheer.
thank you dear.
i will sleep and get up and eat unaware.
winter is coming, can you find your coat?
let's go watch the water while the bodies still float.
slit my throat. it's more than a tad overdue
slit my throat. i can't die in here 'til next june.
i breathed, it was smokey. i cried. it steamed. i dreamed that i slept and i actually dreamed.
don't forget to forget that you forgot me, because when i show up at your door i'm gonna remember that you are my firend and fall asleep o your floor.
(repeat shit ad nauseam)

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Brickwall Views

don't break too many hearts.
don't take too many arrows in the chest.
cry comfortably, let us all know what you're thinking.
is there a gesture i could use to clearly express i'm at an utter loss for words?
is there a part of you that's torn? that's larger than life?
that'll hold on for one more night?
i've got a speech to make.
followed by a big parade.
northside. closed eyes. all charades go on forever.
hands tied with fools pride. in a slowly fleeing summer.
just throw your hands up at the sky.
no use trying to explain this.
the clouds are mirrors. i'm disguised.
i'm not all that entertaining.
the city looks the same until you notice smaller changes.
it still knows us all by name.
it holds us close to its heart (now repeat)
all my hopes are unaligned.
this diagnosis is self-designed.
northside. closed eyes. all charades go on forever.
hands tied with fools pride. in a slowly fleeing summer.
empty rooms don't have pictures to talk to.
brickwall views demand uninspired afternoons.
the days are flooding into months.
the nights are staring into centuries.
i've got some older pictures of people i see once every couple years.
intrigued or unamazed. "you were so much different back in those days."
and now this smile has a bitter curve.
now these eyes are unenchanted.
and all we see is a faded image of what we used to be.
how can we relate when we don't know a thing about each other anymore?
is there a gesture i could use to clearly express i'm at an utter loss for words.

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The Corpses Of Our Motivations

catching up in the basement that i call home. dismantling discussions on a piss soaked telephone. i'm all grown up. i've thrown up these feelings lots before. you're sitting in the park while i'm staring at the door enough self mutilation. i've waterlogged and choked one hundred beers, another week ensconced in yellowsmoke i'm no devil, i just have these demons keeping me awake, pushing on my go-leg, laughing at cut brakes. the corpse of my motivation hangs in the closet to the comfort of the grave. this coffin's full of nails, rails and pipe and glass, rotting under yellow growing grass. five in the chamber and i'm flying through the air. i've tied my blindfold tightly, i'm cutting my hair. i'm a bullet and a target, and i'm drenched in splattered blood. i've learned my lesson one time but once isn't enough. so dry your hands, wash 'em clean of me. wave your victor's flag on your pile of debris because when you die like a hero, you live like a slave. i'd rather die to see it change than live and watch it stay the same where the corpses of my motivations hang on the gallows over-ripe with shit like colostomy bags (pie anyone?) there's a party in the woods and a dance in city streets and a rumble down the avenue of fifty thousand stomping feet. and the fire is getting high, igniting sweaty powdered brows. and if he hasn't saved you yet, he isn't gonna save you now, ...and you're more beautiful than you were on the day that we first met. my angel of the not yet buried dead.

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"I'll Take What's In The Box, Monty"

the sky burns black blue bruised over these lights from the station, these shitty cars, these liquor store signs. let's walk and pretend that we're at the of this scraping, this burning, this "the hard way" learning. i'm sick. you're tired. oh yeah.
the leaves lay in graves on cracked sidewalk tiles and on backs bent concave under weights. i'm not fine, and i'm not the one crying. it can happen to your well, i'd love to belive. but i'm slamming this bottle on this same damned street. i've melted. i've felt it. it stings worse than pain. apathy, exhaustion, it all seems the same,
fire away.
sit next to me, we can talk or just kiss. you can rub my palm and say better than this
your smile makes me cry when it's not on there right, and i'm not fine and i'm not the one crying...
i'm dragging you down because i'm lonely and i need you around. so smile and sleep... and in the morning creep out the door. i dunno what you stayed this long for.
fire away.

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Right As Rain (Part 2)

i'm mortified.
i'm morally antagonized.
my door is locked.
the shades are down.
the lights are off.
my movements are minimal. my sounds are inaudible.

i'm dull and void. these razor thoughts are paranoid.
i'm a footnote in your sentence.
i'm a last name in an index.

scavenger savior. don't forget to never remember
you haven't laughed in such a long time.

my tongue is tied. so tight it's left me petrified.
i stay up late. stumble home at a pathetic pace.
it is a time thief.
it sings in late sleep.
swollen screams are salivating apathy.
bottle clinking belmont neon.
a city sea of sinking freedom.

it's right as rain.
one salty kiss
stays forever in your fingertips.

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3AM QVC Shopping Spree Hangover

limp lines resign themselves to margins.
like a drunken vampire, i miss the sun. i killed this summer, now it's done. let's split and reconvene in a warmer space. i'm scratching my head turning nights into days. don't talk to me about boredom. don't talk to me about pride. i sucked it all up, i swallowed it down. it's fine.
gangrene hangs on every word.
bullshit endings to stories unheard. it's unheard of to me to not fathom doom.
so, what did you find in my emperor's tomb?
some notebooks, some tee-shirts, some bad spelling errirs.
strangled syntax, broken bottles and chairs.
this here is my legacy. i leave all of this to thee.
drink at the funeral. piss on the corpse.
yell at the sun till your voice is all hoarse. i'm gone.
this is good bye. dead as a dream beneath a grey chicago sky.

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Abracadaver

bright and burning blue, stretch your arms out above me. i know that you still love me like you did. copper brown and orange red burn the words that i never said. i'm swallowing the pill. if you see me grinding it's a disguise. if you see me grinning don't trust me lies. when the ink dries we'll have another masterpiece. when the drink dies we'll have another restless sleep. the smell is so thick that i can taste it. it's stained so bad that we'll never erase it... try, try again and again it falls flat. falls rolling in and i can't find my hat. a magic dream haver, an abracadaver, use your mind over matter 'til there's nothing the matter at all. these columns are calmly calming me down. the white stripe of light from the sky to the ground is the biggest most obvious red flag, and it's waving away in the wind. and nobody sees the clouds or the trees, only the dust... and the fire within.

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