A City that Lasts

approaching this new thing
means the death of the old thing
last year, next year and the in-between days
it's during this time that the world forgets to spin
but shouts in reds and yellows
it seems to stop
but it doesnt
and it wont

the leave-buried avenues
that stretch their hands
to the river
barely rushing through town
everything is slow here
nobody is moving
everyone is dying
but without a sound

i look ahead
at the bright lights
volcanoing from the sky
onto my dirty street
it's mostly empty
but i do hear shouts
bangs, booms and "what the fuck?!?"
from the vaulted ceilings
and terribly-ventilated homes

and then there's the cascades
staring down on us
yet hiding
the antisocial hills burying us
barricading us from that beautiful coastline

and then there's us
we sit on the bed
some nights we don't say a word
other nights we stare helplessly
deep into each other
while the night is wasting
and sonic waves blast from
robots and screens meant to entertain us

and then there's Him
who pulled us out of dead skin
rescued us from fire
waste deep in a bloodbath
that paid for us
our past, our present
our future

now everything is timeless,
sacred and abundant
as we live this life
in expectancy of a city
where nothing shouts
nothing bleeds
nothing steals
no one dies
everything sits
stares
moves
jumps
works
in
perfect
shining
glory

amen.

A Letter to My 25-Year-Old Self

i keep looking to your reflection
i've seen you in mirrors in homes
and apartments past
but lately you look like a stranger

you wear my clothes
you have my face
my facial hair
my unkempt hair
but i don't remember you

i saw you in the fog
as a shadow with jeans
and t-shirts and records
tucked under your left arm

now i don't know who you are
or where you think you're going
but after all these years
for once, i have to admit
that it's you cannot follow
and where i'm headed
you cannot come

but i'll miss you in some ways
i'll miss the shallow confidence
that you have displayed in bars
and behind drum kits, and with
broken pens in your right hand

i'll miss the long walks
where we'd deconstruct
every thought from the day before

i'll miss the way you
seamlessly anchored me
to your loneliness

but i wont miss the knife in my back
i wont miss the way you lied
and betrayed and gave in
to every selfish whim

you ruined me
in front of family
and friends
and lovers

now you must go it alone
you must go your own way
you must die
and be buried
surrounded by nothing but
dirt and your own
rotting bones

yeah
i'll miss some things
but i'm glad you're gone

118th Street

i've tried my luck clenching my teeth when i sleep
leaving one eye open, so I can see the smoke
as it seeps into my bedroom window

the smoke clouds form a half-crooked smile
then the smile says with a lisp,
"everything is broken, and you are a ghost"

i close both of my eyes
i loosen my teeth
i let my gums bleed out
and i smile

i try all of this
night after night
in the shadows
that bury me
and my woman
between bedsheets
between winds
and layers of ice and cold water
pounding against our metal roof

but when i wake up
as the sun pours through
my rain-soaked window
we open the blinds
and we give it another try

Divisadero

i remember long days and nights
when i sat beneath your shadow
drunk with stupidity
and blinded by flashing lights

you pelican of shackles
bracing me for what is to come
in the form of lies, betrayal and rage
i never thought my knees would bend
no, not in that way

my thoughts bent into ellipses
struggling to pull it together
like an old man
straining his neck, tongue and face
trying to form words out of nothing

i say to myself, "it was only a city."
but i can't shake the romantic memories
of late night walks through your
dampened alley ways and side streets
as i saddled up to the unknown

i said "hello"
you ignored me
just like everyone else
but i shouted your name
it echoed through the palm trees
until it crashed against the leaves
and fell back down to earth

just like i did
in 2010

An Overwhelming Sadness

i'm afraid of what happens when my lights go out
when i lie in a hospital bed
and my eyes close one last time
and forever

when my blood stops pumping
when my heart seizes up
my lungs close up
and i am no more

i want to know
that when i wake up somewhere else
in another world
there is a smile, a wink
and open arms
speaking the overwhelming joy
that has been hidden from me my entire life

but i'm still frightened
and broken by the image of a woman
who i have loved and been loved by
weeping violently by the bed where we used to lay
and laugh and make love

death is cruel
and bound to devastate
and ruin
our joy

Oh, what an enemy you are
and how you have destroyed
everything i have ever loved

I Was Born a Liar

i grew up in a family of lies
where half truths
and little white things
were good enough
for saving

because that's what it was all about, you know
preserving things that might have been lost
transient things like love
and family, and regrets

spinning out non-truths
kills a lot
it goes before us
with a knife
cutting the arteries
of discomfort

i learned to lay waste as a small child
trapped somewhere between the back seats
of old buicks and chevy pickups
i learned to quip with tenacity

my falsehoods were not really anything
not to diminish the real life that dies
with a dishonest word, but i was protecting
or, i was saving my own things
but i was always killing them
or making things worse

i grew up in a town full of lies
"we're just small-town folk
with wild pack of values"
so, for a long time
i didn't cuss, drink
or fuck
though, to be fair,
everyone else was

i heard strange sounds at night
sometimes the sounds just resembled
crickets, but other times
it resembled a scream, a cry for help
i'd ask the only ones that new
they'd say "oh, that was not a sound."
i would absorb another lie

it was all practice, a breeding ground
for the lust and evil that would depart
from my blue and dying lips

like i said before
a lie does not merely exist
it goes before you
and kills everyone you love

Hideous Towns

stuck in the same room again
no words to spit back out
we've sucked them back
into ourselves

as i scan the room
i see the space
where the record player sat
i used to spin those records
violently

but now i can't stand the sound
of the singing anymore

there's no retreat for us
not a moment of slumber
as we walk into the streets
as the little sunlight we get
in this dreary mountain town
blinds our tear-stained eyes
and drowns out all
the hideous sounds

now when i get home
i just want to go to sleep
i don't want to laugh
or talk so tenderly

i just want to go to sleep

Identity Crisis

i broke my bones today
for a while it felt as if
these hard parts of my insides
held it all together
but they crumbled

i lost my mind today
as if keeping it around
would have held these
frail, and crooked bones together

the earth gave way beneath my feet
every bottle of gin that i have every seen
poured themselves into this hollow pit
and i watched all the people i love
burn to death

and you ask me why i'm so sad...

(In a Sense) You Have Gone Before Us

as much as i try to shut you out
and put you deep into the ground
i wish i knew where you were
i wish i could just find you

you were cool summer nights
in a dirty old town
you were failed camping trips
into the unknown

you were skinned knees and tears
along the gravel road
from our run down childhood home
into the woods

you were high fives and jokes
and complete misconceptions
of the external world
we had yet to see

then at some point
we all woke up
we were all past 25
and you were gone

there was no exit strategy
no going away party
no cake, no ice cream
no swimming in the lake

just this sick feeling in our stomachs
as we looked around our respective empty rooms
wondering what had gone missing
wondering if we would ever see
that innocence ever again

Ignoring the Hallelujahs!

in my darkest hour
as the lights are going out
and the face of the earth
has gone completely silent
there is a King

i sit here
late nights
in a cold, dark and empty room
ignoring the hallelujahs

the police came
put me in the backseat
as i told myself
this wasn't really happening

oh, Lord
when will I ever be at peace?

when the blood stops flowing
through my dirty veins
and my heart leaves me
with things I can't explain
There is still a King

Guitars in Their Graves

as i listen to the old folk songs
about time and its march onward
i think about our old record player
as it sat on an old wooden cabinet

the cabinet looked as if it could
fall apart if the ground shook
even if for only a second
the music end in one collapsible moment

it was on the living room floor
of my dad's run down mobile home
that i learned what music was
and how to hear the notes

It started out as a listening project
Johnny Cash, Johnny Horton, Marty Robbins
and Elvis would serenade my entire family
through the truly dark times

though these men are all long gone
i hear the refrains strummed from
old guitars, and shoddily recorded drums
and blasts of horn sections
taken from older soul bands
where they originally belonged

I hear the cries of heaven
as they come through the Zenith stereo
and I hear the wails of dead men
strumming guitars in their graves

and i know that
some day
this same fate
awaits every man
guitar
or
not

a wolf in my bed

someone talk to me about guns
not happiness or success/excess
when it all comes down
i just want what i want
and i don't care what You think

i'm not a greedy man
or a dangerous man
though, some have labeled me
wolf, liar, thief and manipulator

there is no more of that in me, i guess
because i want to drink, but i can't
i want her to be happy, but she isn't
so, i sit here in this devastating space
wondering what will happen in the next moment
because what is happening right now
is frightening, and there's no way to know
if he will be merciful
or, he will be silent

i've grown accustomed to the peace
of not hearing his voice when he calls
the nights that i sleep like a baby
without revelation, or his "awakening"
this human tomb

"practice resurrection" they said from the pulpit
without knowing exactly what they meant
i ran and run from it
because in the end it is more frightening to obey
this invisible ghost, this cunning manipulator in the sky
all is his, and nothing is mine
and i should be grateful
in this merciful nothing
but i am not
so i guess that makes me a wolf

No Victory

i am barely human
crawling, screaming
wretched in my one filth
in the mud and shit
on my living room floor

not like a lion
not like an eagle
does or would
but like a fucking pig
a thief
a liar
a rapist
in the closets of my mind

yeah
there are skeletons
and there are open
and bloodied wounds
and yeah
there is you
your whole heart
and your whole soul
laid bare before me

like a college freshman
longing to give herself
to sweaty, lying evil men
to be made clean
through deeds
cloaked in mud

yet
there can be no beauty this way
not in 100 years of covering it up
it will drenched in ugly labor pains
but no victory, never any fucking victory

Un-Son

i've severed myself from your spine
i've burned down your house
sold your shit
and told you to fuck yourself

i've wished you dead
and smiled
like it was a privilege
a good news
a light in the darkness
your blood spilled
on the ground

i have declared you
worthless and ugly
and told jokes
at your expense

i am your un-son

Whiskey-Induced Joy

as i flipped through old photo albums
it occurred to me
that these faded grays
and yellows
have truly faded
and that many of
these people
i would either never see again
or completely forget about

as the years roll on
some things become more clear
and others just become more confusing
just like in a Raymond Carver story
or something

but my joy is not
that the past makes more sense
but that the future happens
upon me fearlessly
like a rabid wolf