The Astronaut

When I pry myself from the cold hands of the carnival
I would rather not hear any apologies or cries for peace
Miles and miles of your sins
Like the blackness that falls after death
My legs lifting me above spinning worlds lost to the maw
Summers and winters will never multiply again
Purples and golds will never mix
The blackness that eats it all
At this height I am beyond madness
To search for the perfect song
To make this moment become movement and rhythm
          and speculation
To find me caught in your perfect kiss
Grasping like a child whose lost his balloon
          at memories floating away
Miles and miles on a missile
The dragon blowing smoke into the mouths of everyone
          I’ve ever loved
Aimed into the blackness
I let the machine into my heart
Cutting me open like a prison fight
Following the path of the ghosts of Mankind
On this the darkest day, if I find myself unable to carry on
           the mission
Cast up your blue eyes into the stars
Search out the slow red jewel  moving near the edge of the night
And it will be enough

04.29.2013

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Untitled 5/24/05

Another from my days in Denver...

The soot in my hair is a reminder

Carrying me across the mountains

Into the west

This train chases the sunset

And I ride ride ride

Chugging breath like a drunkard

She meets me

Halfway

Breaks my heart

And leaves again

The train carries me away

Into the west

Where no one can hurt

Because the air is pain

Damned

Two homes but no one to love

The sun is fire behind the high rocks

Snows drift

My hands are dirty

My mind is filthy

No one can eat tonight

She scares me with her love

Fear is not understanding

The wheels churn the iron

Round and round and round

Tomorrow I may not feel this way.

5.24.05

The Poets Who've Gone On

Chiseled teeth survivors
hardy har har scuffle prod and push one another
to take a bite out of my knees
my calves
my tender flank ass cheeks holding their own after all
these years
but daring me
to acknowledge my age
and slow down

They ride rockets and comets and successful propellant
falls from between their legs onto my shame
onto my hair
the love/hate relationship of my existence

They dress in tailored suits and they smile
for cameras and they say
“In New York I do this”
and
“In New York I know her”
but
I’ve
fucked a New York City girl too with 14^th St
yelling obscenities from the window
where the potted plants inhale taxi cab carbon dioxide
my head buried in her red hair
my face buried between her legs
the sweet gumball taste of her on top
of warm white sheets in the warm white summer city air

But she turned out to have insecurities and
fears and
a nose job and
perfect legs and
was, after all, a person just like you and me
despite the presence of that place or
her ambitions or
her friends or
the money in her purse or that toilet seat that vibrated when
the subway trains passed beneath
the building

So fuck you and your New York city ideas
sandblasting my decision
to practice my art in the thick brown obesity of
the South somehow staying
just above the waterline
spitting water lilies and leopard frogs from
my cotton candy lungs

Shotgun rock-salt Confederate cadences
calling coos into my writer’s window into
my writer’s skull past the black widow
cobwebs lodged along cypress rafters like grey-brown doves sitting
targets on telephone pole wires

She met me on the dance floor dressed in smoke and
red lights
stealing the sunglasses from my face bouncing
awfully close and leaving her breath in the pit
of my stomach crying years later in a motel  by the airport in
Knoxville
because I would not follow her to Metropolis fucking
those poets who did instead.

02.2013

  

Ghetto Children in the Streets

The wintry Washington DC slums...

The ghetto smells of cannabis
Animal eyes staring at me below
     thick hoods and flat bills
A school bell rings somewhere in
     the grey distance
A shrill sound in the frost
Clear and loud and sharp
As if this entire neighborhood was a school yard
     and classes are over for all of us
The streets fill with gay voices
Swallowing the raw January air into their chests
Spitting it back out in cackles and songs
Like the Potomac gulls on
     the rooftops overhead.

1.19.2012

To Die With You

I want to die with you
Ride like fire into burning clouds and
     crash with you
Strapped to an engine
Police cars screaming
We’ll hold each other and fade away
     into the night
Tops of old tress marked
     by the absence of stars
Into that black hole we’ll fly together
Always chasing the headlight
Shadows and gravel
A fresh cover of recently fallen rain
Your breath on my neck
Falling sideways into the forest
Leaping with you into the abyss
     of our insane future
Broken glass
Flashing lights
And the emptiness of love

2.2013