[Jeff]

Slip inside me, little boy
I can be your mother
I am old enough
and every mother needs a child

come, my lover,
we can speak over his head
and spell out everything we
don't want him to know

slip inside me, little boy
it is your fantasy
to be grown up
and every mother needs a child

come, my true lover,
he is only a little boy
let me feed and touch and hold him
we can make him our pet ( together )

for every mother needs a child

[Jeff]

I would rather sit wordless
than wail at the top of my lungs
about your beauty, your beautiful beauty
in the middle of people that don't hear me

I'm so pleased to be with you
I can almost feel you at the tips of my fingers
You should visit more often
( put my hand against the glass )

(warmth travels through)

I am trapped inside this man
I scream, but he is wordless
like you, sing, wordless, sing into my mouth
breathe into my mouth, but you can never touch me

for behind these skins, we are years and yards apart
two bubbled people unable
to break out into the atmosphere
to breathe one and only one toxic breath

( but still together )


Drinker Dan ( a Ballad)
A drunken man named Drinker Dan
Had battered his good wife
When dinner it came time to make
He did as was his rife

For he was wont to cook his wives
When their spirits had up and left
Wife dumplings and wife peppered steak
For when of bread he was bereft

His policy, as you will see
Was as gourmet as it was cruel
He salted and peppered and floured her up
And made dumplings for his gruel

One mustn't think too ill of him
Though barbaric he may seem
With a battered wife and naught for sup
Such dumplings were a dream

So in the fall he carved her up
And froze her in ziploc
Patties, steaks, chops, filets
And one warm auburn sock

All winter her flesh for him sufficed
Until first melt of spring
One more sandwich with mayonaise
And single! such an odious thing

So Drinker Dan rinsed off his pan
And scraped his dinner plate
With pollished shoes and free of boose
He went off to find a mate

He searched the Highlands far and wide
With his terrier by his feet
He searched the pubs for Janes and Sues
And Sallys for to meet

One day in a dankish pub he met
A girl so very nice
He said " You of all these lovely girls
Must be made of sugar and spice"

So said she to he " You charming man,
I'm sure you taste good as well!
And if you buy me diamonds and pearls
I'll find out and then I'll tell "

Yes, a ladies man was Drinker Dan
Soon he'd married his new wife
And when dinner it came time to make
She did as was his rife

[Jeff]

First Time

Two armies lined up and stood
at attention, inches from eachother
they inhaled deeply
closed their eyes, commanded bravery

many times before they had trained
for that very moment
and soon some skirmish had broken out
some bayonets were drawn

sensual yet unsure,
someone lost two fingers
and an eye was poked out
and then uneasy peace

They marched away until sundown
and slept apart at camp
then rallied again for that moment
two armies meeting for the first time

They were beautiful for a second
as some gave themselves up
to that stabbing sort of affection
and others eased inside the fighting

then the generals closed their eyes
and swallowed eachother
dipping eachother in reassurance
parting, then meeting once more

for the first time



-----------

all work and no play

I am not a dull boy
I keep my weekends open

A sense of responsibility is necessary
but you have to have balance
grow a little stronger every day

step away, smoking Rasta
I was sitting in peace before you came
working, meeting my deadlines
doing faster, making stronger

step away! leave my mind
you are the spirit of discontent
and parties won't last the night through
always party harder, party stronger
harder, better, faster, stronger

every minute my heart beats somewhere
under seventy times
( I know this so that I may
feel assured that I am healthy)
and it has never stopped beating
when will it rest . . . beating harder, beating faster
harder, faster, harder, faster

step away, salesman of sleep
because if I sleep I will wake
and a startle now could trigger card
iac arrest ( I know that I am not healthy enough
but I can make it to the finish line)
if I only strive a little better I will get a little stronger
work better, get stronger,
better, stronger, better, stronger

And then I will rest

[Jeff]

The Rebel's Moon


he digs his nails into the slippery night
no lullabye could make him sleep
The rebel's moon is always bright

black scriptures blur the rebel's sight
and morning brings more time to weep
he digs his nails into the slippery night

through heresy and hymns he'll fight
his oath is all he has to keep
The rebel's moon is always bright

the pastor magnifies his plight
he paints his soul the blinded sheep
he digs his nails into the slippery night

the mistress is dark but always right
and what she sows he'll always reap
The rebel's moon is always bright

he rests himself in noble spite
of sorrow's love he drinks too deep
he digs his nails into the slippery night
The rebel's moon is always bright


---------
will time sit idle?

Will time sit idle for a wand'ring child?
In forests of eternal youth he dreams
Can he forever live for ventures wild?
Can youth be held in purse with wearing seams?
A rock is ever constant, ever same
touched not by death though drowned in summer rains
it turns its face from gold and shuns all fame
it sits eternal free from sins and stains
children are not stones but growing things
they live as free as wild running colts
and long for lusty sluts and golden rings
and fall too soon to the hunter's bolts
Enjoy your youth, young child, while it lasts
For you must grow or fade into the past



-------------

Disease

I have a disease
Every nine days I wake up
sick in the morning and
my insides swim

This repeats on the next
blades turn in
the pit of my stomach
I swell and eat for two

sometimes I become delirious
I will be eating, then give chase
to an illusion, escaping accross the wall
or wake up sweating bewteen thin sheets

And then I will feel this pit in me
move and begin to reach out
it grips my voice box, it struggles
to climb out, ripping me to mute

I will spasm as it seeks to leave
as it twists nerves
as it grows strong
my body will dance in frustration

On the ninth day
I contract
an opening dilates somewhere on the surface
and it is too late

it is too large to confine
within this diseased body
it must tear flesh
it must surface

A spike protrudes from my
bloodied, mangled flesh
it is black metal
spiny like an urchin

It crawls out from
between my two middle ribs
it is hungry and loud
it communicates with violence

but you will call it art
or display it on a long squared mantle
or you will sell it on international markets
or you will dissect it and teach it to Apathy

while I sew my insides
back behind my flesh
I will gaze down at it
with no special love

but I cannot let you
take this infantile invader
I must keep it beside me
when I walk

I must pet it though
I shred my palms
I must nurse it to my torn chest
I must protect it from thieves

because it is my beauty

[Jeff]

Sisyphus stepped out into the cold that
he had only barely underestimated
when he chose his windbreaker from a mildly organised closet
and trudged up to the base of the hill

Our paths diverged when the bus came
and I realized that the stochiometry
I had been so studious about was alone on the kitchen table
but I knew he was still with me

He set his long, strong, meaty fingers about
the stony handles of his beloved
and coaxed her once again to motion
chuckled heartily at her first quaint yards

I could feel his warming presence as I
took notes ( under pressure from a chemist)
for a chapter I had already mastered
and I was comforted

He groaned at mid day under weighty progress
and grunted with superiority as
the burning in his biceps slowly subsided
he was a beast. he was a beast.

and he was rooting for my team
as I set up for the score
with an ex-anorexic who was almost
exactly like my shoestring potatoes

He bent his brow, and the world was salty
under cosmic heat lamp with a worthy adversary
and half nervous but under control
he eyed the bent horizon ages above him

And we were like trench brothers
poised to do battle with swarms of rats
as I navigated the swarm in its father land
for a tasteful gift journal that wasn't too flowery

He felt his wrists shake under his spasming pectorals
and gave his next inch with his forehead
he kept his eyes sealed in manilla envelopes
as he gave all regardless of hope

and Sysiphus and I were as one
as my mistress blasphemed
my mistress that knows that I am enlightened
my mistress that could treat me as a child after so much

And then
I let my brow straighten
and the cosmos became sinister
as my beloved rolled off beside me
only nearly missing the hovel I erected
with my own
bare
hands

[Jeff]

tilt my head to the side for me
my brain is rotting out
the top of my head is collapsing in
and I am drowning in the drainage

feed me another Napoleon
now only decadence can save me
and you are my only hope
this is my ___ ____ed hour of need

I can't get my eyes closed alone
give me two fingers or a hand
to help me sleep through this
to help me sleep through this

and with Jesus' grace I may
wake up in a better place
in a new body. In a better body.
that will never gain an inch

So Jesus, come and take me
Jesus I give you my all
Jesus you are the only one for me
Jesus, Holy Lamb of God

Take me to heaven so I can
drink hot Chek from the two liter
and eat stale pastries from the scratch and dent
the ones you buy in bulk

and never ever gain an inch
and never ever be in trouble
and always be in love
with You, Jesus, with You
---

I'll slice your throat with my fine tooth saw
I'll overthrow your gatling reign
with millions of trench footed soldiers
they'll give their life for my cause

and you'll use your leaflet bomb
and you'll deny relief to my women and children
and you'll slice me up with barbed wire
and you'll choke me with mustard gas

the union must end here
and to think we once shared a room
you slept beside me until you attacked
undisturbed, unprovoked, unjustified

intelligence should have seen this coming
every time we share a grievance
your comittee shuts us down with an iron fist
and we always pay the reparations

my people will see you dead or be mowed down
they'll cut you up with the saws and rusted hatchets
that you issued to them,
to cut down the trees in our parks

you are too used to our surrenders
you will let them fly on wings of angels
with honor at their feet, over a mile of no man's land
to dissolve in a sea of lead

you are convinced that we are only rebels
that our cause is unjustified
but you will have to live with the blood on your hands!
you will sit at judgement nightly

for I am sure you must still love me


--
lets make a compact
here and now before ourselves as witnesses
that we won't give in to the government
they don't speak for us

we'll run from our sentences
and make a new, honest life
doing something for the people
doing something honorable

and we'll lie if we have to
and we'll kill to keep this secret
we won't submit to imprisonment
for a crime we didnt commit

we won't submit to imprisonment
we'll kiss her bloody lips
and suck down her saliva
we'll have her Jerry's kids

---

You and Yours

its an invasion
I can see the fifty or so
grenadiers and panzers
kicking up dust to the top of the hill

you brought them here
you are powerless in a vaccuum
you are nothing but the same human fluff
just a fat middle ager in a uniform
smoking a long butt cigar

but they'll do anything for money
and thats the only thing I dont have
look at you. You'll let them fight your battles for you
I could take you hand to hand or rifle to rifle
You and your scharfshuetzes. Don't be a f--
come out and fight like a man

come out from your bunker
don't sleep on velvet while your soldiers are bootless
you are making it hard for me to sleep
you and your authority
you and your power
you and your artillery
You and Yours


--


OK Computer

I am grey and I am plastic
but I am much more than a box
I hold more papers than your filing cabinet
I am inerrant, honest, precise
morning, afternoon, evening, midnight
my insomniac worshippers and those
alone and in love strive to convince me
that I am a goddess
I have the hips of aphrodite

Now I am your surrogate
your children will march and kill for me
they will betray the family board games
and decieve you in my name
drink my sweet silicon ambrosia
and everything is OK
is a lighter shade of Grey
and you won't cry out for your old family
they cannot show you what I can

----

Amnesiac

yesterday was a past life that I can't remember
Only Karma follows me
and its hard to get any work done
I can't remember who I am
I think I'm a man, but I might be wrong

There's a crime to solve
someone's placed me in this glass house
and given me a bag of rocks
they're burning a hole in my hand
and I can't remember where I got them

I can see the pyramids of heaven
lining the horizon
but I'm not ready just yet
to cross over into sleep
I must finish this while I'm still awake

Hold me over the water
and hypnotize me with the rhythm of the shore
I'll jump in the river soon enough and
what do I see ? Bjork and Sigur Ros
they're smiling at me

I slip away for a while
and I escape from the work to be done
for a moment this is my life and I am a person
for a moment none of this is real
and I like what I see

ding dong the morning bell
I'm back to the drawing board
and I'm mad as well
but you can keep the furniture
just release me from this wheel

-------

Kid A

its you
the ghost in the ventriliquist dummy
the shadow that squirms at the end of my bed
the one that wraps my head up in the blankets
and wipes away the sweat

its you, its you
the one that watched me at my birth
that didn't interfere. you watched her hold me up
you were there in that sea of white
and baby blue- you took my slap on the @$$
and you breathed

its you, its you, its you
the one that sits at home with me
when there is nothing but nothing to do
and the one that crawls up my spine
and switches the levers in my brain
when the world calls for my attention
and I am compelled to act

Its you, Its you, its you, its you
the one out praying in the waiting room
the one they invited to Thanksgiving dinner
and thought of as someone that they knew once
long ago, and alas would not see again
its you that they did not see.
its you I did not take the chance to know
but sleep with every night

-

come on child
follow the rats and I
we'll take you out of this town
and the music frees you
the music breaks your chains

[Jeff]

keep rowing with me until we
reach the edge of the planet
they've taught us all our lives
with their yuppy education and american dream
that we won't make it
but I know at the end of the world
the salty water turns sweet
and all the death we've come to accept

turns into real life
and you can see the living people
up on the salt domes out in the sea
they sing like sirens or choir boys
and you can see the souls of their victoms
crawling up out of the sea onto the rocks
they pick up the melody
calling us to them with the rhythm of waves


thats where we'll go
and you won't notice until you look down
that you are free
that you are no longer torn from hip to rib
and you'll see the crusty callouses
that once stuck to your soul like drops of wax to cotton
dissolve and float away on gentle rolling hills
and you'll sing too- you'll call out to the lost souls

out cruising the seas in their
bright orange plastic life vests
we'll call them through the light
and no one will be afraid anymore
they'll dump their motors and jump out
into the surf, and strip from their
clunky european shoes and furs
and they'll all fill the water like salt crystals

and you'll see the blood in the water for miles
you'll see the bones and boats and boat shoes
floating away into the distance
and never bother us again
and they'll all evolve into people with us
and climb up out of the primordial ooze
they'll teach themselves to talk
their fins will grow real feet

and no one will remember what it was like
to dress up every morning
to pull on the muscles, skins, and furs
because no one will ever put another gun to our head
no one will ever whisper in our ear
that the world is round and we can't ever make it there
please don't stop believing
I can't get there without you

[Jeff]

Down Draft and Up All The Time


we're all dressed in white
Here's a very happy place
in the snowfields
in our pewter houses
there's no No


and I'm not here
this isnt happening
In a little while I'll be gone

I wish I could sleep here forever
where the snow is like down

down is like up

down is like up

all the world is in a dreamless sleep
the sun has left its toil for release

Strobe lights and blown speakers
Fireworks and hurricanes
This isn't happening

Jesus and God and St. John
left for Reykjavik three hours ago
Thats where life is happening
Where the drafts are expensive
the drafts are cold

I want to tilt my leaves to reality
between ignorance and here
I want to retain my color
because white is beautiful
My roots are widespead but
I'm sucking water like a milkshake
through a red and white coffee stirrer
I can't expect to just start walking

---

Letter to Son on Vacation from the World in Iceland

we're all working very hard
around the clock
to translate the headlines
and we are all very proud of our
men in the field

we're all very committed and
we'll do whatever's necessary to get through this
we're all pulling for you child
and you needn't thank us
we realize you're very busy and very engaged

and none of us know what its like
to be out there
laying down our lives like you
not like you
for we are all very quiet at home

and we're powerless here in our world
here where CNN keeps us company
while you've gone out to fight terror
but we're doing our best to pray for you
and we hope it helps dear child

you see we aren't like you
we prefer to stay behind and support
but we're so proud of your bravery
and we won't blame you if you are a bit terse
we won't be upset in the slightest

[Jeff]

when snakes stick to your forehead
when the liquid hail causes you to
hyperventilate
turn your face to the sky and
drink the waterfall

stick out your tongue to the grey clouds

cut off all your hair
suck your tongue in remembrance
use lipstick again
be independent
rebel against your invisible lover

grey up your tongue in the stuck clouds

and you will live again


causate my love to grow
cause ate my love's growth
because doubt always needs a reason
causate my love to grow

I'll swallow the razor blade
no matter what the reprocussions
I'll drink my fears in a champagne glass
I'll swallow the razor blade

I'll smoke up all the hate
I'll drown you all in flames
at the end of a long butt cigar
I'll smoke up all the hate

causate my love to grow
water my twisted Bonsai heart
slice away the reason in my doubt
causate my love to grow



we must step forward
out of the undertow
take our places on dry thrones

fight the suction that pulls you under
commit your whole body and spirit
wait for the release and then
collapse into the buttery earth

if all the prisoners of this aqua institution
truely thirsted for their liberation
no cage of liquid could hold them back

don't let the sunken reefs distract you
you two are not the same
the fishes are at home in their world
but you belong ashore

brothers, let us snatch ourselves up
from the green mud and crushed shells
cords of sea weed snapping at our elbows

and Poseidon will smile on us
there are no soldiers on this Berlin Wall
You needn't stagnate in his holy brine
to pay tribute for his floods



I dipped my split hands
into the Philistine downstream
flowing with the blood of my brothers
riddled with skulls and helmets

a smooth sedimentary bullet
washed slick, basic, slippery
in red war tide
five into my sling

rushed back armorless
to the front with only the bare hands
that slayed the mane wearer and
romanced the golden strings to death

Freud stood proud in the atmosphere
with a spear that pierces the soul
but I rinsed my stones until they
came out red diamonds

five pounds washed in pain
the hardest substance on earth
now put to use for courage
will strike all giants in the temple

when you are frozen by my lack of doubt
fall down to your knees
cause silent earthquakes
I will slice clean away your head

I'll take from you the source of taunts
I'll free the people of the LORD
I'll take my place as the annointed one
I'll romance in peace earned dearly

[Jeff]

It's True That I'm the Son of God

take my hand, Rabbi
That sea wants to swallow you
like a lover's tongue
because you've broken the surface tension

Aren't you the one who walks on water?
If you don't stretch that fish and bread
they'll pull you down into the sea
and break you into morsels

You'd have them take up gold crosses
You'd have them follow you to glory
You'd have them fighting for thrones all in a row
but the last supper is no secret rapture

and if you let them bleed it out of you
you'll drown in spit and plasma
they'll all bathe in your Blood of the Lamb
and never be rid of the stain

[Jeff]

 
                    ___________________________________________
                    |         (an eternal, unbroken, parenthetical         
                    V                                                                   
     If there is beauty in the breakdown                                     
    Vaccuum my shards out from this two dimensional                  
    collection of staircases and tail-eating dragons                       
    so I can look at the self-reflexive beauty                                
    that my disentegration has painted                                        
                                                                                          
    you can rebuild me                                                              
    put the pieces back together and wire them                              
    preserve me in a glass jar                                                       
    hooked up to cameras 
    focused on the history of my   life                                                                                     
    nevermind the neverminds                                                        
    I cannot describe                                                                   
    because I am broken                                                               
    powdered                                                                              
    even and only if you wet me                                                     
    I can paint, but can I be art?                                                    
    I can be painted but can I mean anything?                                  
                                                                                                
    maybe if you prop me up and                                                      
    let me get a better look at myself                                                
    we can compare my life to a Kauffman film                                    
    and then we'll know                                                                  
                                                                                                
    or you can switch me with Solomon in                                          
    Ecclesiastes, and then we'll know if                                             
    my art has both piety and holy dread                                           
    for man's wisdom is like a two dimensional picture                           
    and God lies out,                                                                      
    under himself, tanning                                                              
    away from it all                                                                       
                                                                                                
|______________________________________________|                   
||                                                                                              
Sorry for that.                                                                            
I started out, thinking it could free me from                                     
my own essential incompleteness                                                    
thinking that maybe if I could describe it correctly                              
it's own subject matter would explain its lack of substance                   
but I've recently become aware that this is a                                     
post-modernesque shortcut, and that the goal of all artists                  
is to come as close as possible to modeling completeness                    
if only with extreme complexity of form                                             
So this is my apology, for not being able to write                                
such a poem                                                                               
(probably because I'm so damned concentrated on my                        
inability to concentrate, that I can't just settle on an effort                 
and stick my brain to it- one that will at least wow                             
those who read it- and make them think that there's a                        
secret society of more enlightened people waiting for them                 
to grow up and apply to enter.)                                                    
So here's a poem which at least imitates perfection,                         
or at least a kind of infinite progress,                                              
whose limit is perfection.                                                              
                                                                                               
Follow the arrow to where it starts.  --------------------------------|

[Nate]

You are ridiculously talented, Jeff.

In His love,
Nate

[Jeff]

Originally Posted by Nate

You are ridiculously talented, Jeff.

In His love,
Nate

And so, I must UPDATE my compilation. There are so many lost works of mine floating around. Where to begin?

This may take a long WHILE. I'll do it a little at a time though so stay posted!
It's likely I'll unearth quite a few ARTIFACTS that are nonetheless pleasing to reread. IENCOURANGEYOUTODOSO!
---
New Life Time

I swore if you subjected me to the torture
of witnessing one more name it claim it
TBN Africa Special
I'd cast out your aluminum boob tube
and disembowel it on your sidewalk

I told you that your holy spirit arthritis cure
was on the level with fat-away ointment
( I still doubt you get the impact)
I told you that your perfumed rose
was sperm warfare propaganda

Angels can dance on the head of a pin
but a money bags prophet is rarely thin

so I shrugged
I drank punch til I could love
I painted a sky I'd never seen
I ate glazed duck at Wolfgang Puck's

I saved a rainforest with my electric car
I was a scenester with a golden guitar
I loved the best women and had children
They were really beautiful

really

But I've seen kids gathered round a burning faggot
I've seen Christmas trees ringed with Chinese plastic
I've seen evil too
it's in the hearts of those that didn't seek it

-------

slow melody


I wish I could've died young
I only remember swooping down
humbling hills in a place that
makes me sad now
if I think I'll live there again
on foggy nights like this
when I've no reason to go to bed
and no reason to stay up
staring at a light bulb
the visibility is infinite
but it's still foggy
like living at sea

because I put off from home
when I was twelve
gone to live off the fat of the land
or the chicken of the sea
I could teach you a few things
peg leg and unshaven
at heart

I'm well shaven
and all is full of love
I wear a polo shirt most days
I've got a briiiiight future
full of light bulbs
full of nights like this

when I can remember home
not quite like it really was
snapshots of movement
bruised legs pumping down
with flat tires
the hill is steep as I remember it
and I'm flying like a
chubby superman

it's funny how your mind bends
when you're barely breathin
getting foggy on the ocean tonight
I'll keep the company of mermaids
the oxygen still knocking patiently
at the door to my mind

-----

Taxidermy of Love

We met in a coffee shop
you were perfect
everything I've ever looked for
so I pulled out my magic bag
the one that grows to any size
and threw it over your head
and pulled the drawstring tight

when I arrived back at the workshop
littered with idols and crystal unicorns
you were almost as glad to leave the bag
as the others were to see you
I'm so proud of you
and the way you composed yourself
if only I could've captured that pose
it was the perfect piece of art

but bodies are only temporal
finite like yellowing paper
dying from the moment of birth
so I bent your wrists behind your back
grit my teeth to the screaming
dipped you eyebrows first into
a cauldron of molten gold

they're never quite as natural looking
after the gold has cooled
never quite as talkative either

its not an exact science


-----

can see through your plastic shirt
and I can see your breaths are wistful
so they say that what you want the most
is what will be the worst for you

don't pine for a god
don't try to worship me
don't pine for Mr. Right
I am Mr. Left
So they say

I can see your fingertips
squeaking against the sterile surface
the inside of your sanctuary
plastic friction on the ribbed flesh
that the humidity has tortured
but you don't notice

So they say what doesn't kill us
only makes us stronger
the strongest will survive
But where is evolution in this place?
Mother Nature is in the waiting room

They keep our nails well clipped
using lasers because metal infects
Who needs teeth
when your food is all pureed pancake

Open your eyes my darling love
come to the tower's window
watch the walls bend

I'll push my fingertips through
making a glove of this bubble
and I'll push through until
my hand, coated in saftey
grips you tightly by the hip

I'll press my gums against the seal
and I'll inhale until
the vaccuum in my chest
breaks all childproof resistance

And we can trade air for five minutes
The toxins will have to come in through my ears
I won't give them the pleasure of
watching me breathe that last
fatal breath

No?
Okay.
I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to creep you out.

----



I'm so tired of you
tryign to make me
lose all my momentum

well not really tired
I'm still buzzing on repressed anger
I could stay up three more days

and yeah, I'm not the greatest
wordsmith you'll ever meet
and I'm not the nicest to those
who get on my badside
and I can't see the difference
between new and old cliche's
and
who
uses
eleven
one
word
lines
all
in
a
row?

I've got so much youth in me
and I don't know what to do with it
I can't promise to have
benevolent intentions with your daughter
why is it so wrong just to want
a little taste to keep inside myself
I'm a human just like you
just a brain in a body
with the same blind spot
and I don't care
if you think I am right
or if you think I am wrong
I will be nice to you
if you are nice to me
and I will kiss you
if you let me
I just want to be
what I was born to be
and I can't promise to have
benevolent intentions with anyone
I can't promise not to
lust or hate or be a glutton for punishment
I can't promise not to get on your nerves
and maybe this won't
win a bit of respect

but what comes around comes around
and what goes around goes around
and that's something we'll all just have to get used to

--

I am ripping off this
soggy paper bag
that sticks to my face and
makes me smell like
dog wet with spoiled milk

You have seen me with broken knees
dragging my face on the concrete
with flies like too many aides to
nurse these open wounds and
snapping at those who would
pity in any way imperfectly

you have seen me like a tree
not alive since last century, but
standing like a monument to conquered nations
waiting still for some virgin's hand
to explode it into the air like
the spilt remains of Israel's Kings

but you have yet to see the spirit
that lies within this burning bush
you have yet to place your hand into
this sinful furnace, this inferno of iniquity
that threatens and licks about you like
a cat of nine tails heated in the fires of hell

and pull it out unscathed, but
covered in a glowing aura as ethereal,
as spiritual, as cosmic, as transcendent
as a blade of spring grass thrust up
through winter slush like the mast
of a ship in a receding squall

you have yet to see me as a bird in flight
girded with strength like the mighty earth
coronated with wings like a crystal dragon's
with truth like a volcano at my right hand

You have yet to see me stand

wrapped anew with a coat of many colors


---


I'll dip my fingertips into the protoplasm, the jelly that coats my brain like frogs' eggs and I'll push them through until I've got each bony twig wrapped around and pinching each lobe like pairs of surgical tweezers.

This is only physical.

I'm just a great manipulator, tinkering with impulses no more spiritual than the fumes from burning plastic that infiltrate me and make it so that I can't remember what it felt like to focus or imagine that shade of blue I've seen in the sky every time I've paid attention.

It's only an infatuation.

And aren't we the honorable creatures? The lachryform romantics, poets, playwrights with our drunken orgies and declarations? Who is to be embarrassed when every rule I'm breaking is only the arbitrary commandment you made to quiet the circular thoughts that never got quite worked out since we withdrew ourselves from the processes of evolution?

The spark has almost faded.

And how am I to make reparation, when the flaw is inside myself? I love you, and there's nothing I can do about it, but must I celebrate that ignoble fact when every word of praise I sing is only the sum of electricity and chemicals? Even these love letters that I write to you are only gifts to me from the unloving father I've never met who knocked up mother nature on accident because of a few diverging forces.

The universe is made of divorces.

----

I bleed myself
it is not a post goth fashion statement
it is to evacuate the biological
demons
in a world of quick fix revolving door
post it note prescriptions
I am herbal
an organic self healer

I make an incision
from my elbow to my fingertip
I meditate on
the cosmic mood ring
colors god shows me
that represent the universe's weather
I hear the subtle signals
changes in spiritual pressure
and I analyze while the
hot scene revolving door fashion players
take their designer drugs
smile their american family smiles
dance their postmodern scandinavian disco dances

keep dancing
out of step
keep singing
off harmony
I'll be here
cutting a zen garden into my body

don't wait up

---


My love for you
is what you want
it's what I want to give
if it makes you happy

there is plenty in it for me
more woman than I could ask for
everything I dreamed of
and painted over you

This is just a waste of time
and after the climax,
it will feel dirty, overdone
the repetition in the memory
nauseating in our minds
in our minds
in our minds
in our minds
in our minds
in our minds

----

Mondays Aren't Superstitious
moth's wings fall in flakes
from ex-angels
the color of smoke covered teeth
children dance in their confetti
children dance and push and shove
the grownups hold hands
getting back together for the weekend

lines of color glare through
wear out my eyes
I relax my grip
and the sensation of falling
doesn't do much at all
except stay here
with me

just like you
just like I wish you would do
but it's monday

----

Paws/Claws
You stare at a lightbulb
in remembrance of us
little light-catching cells pop
like bubblewrap
and you can feel your lips start to hurt
you can feel the little handprints
all over your ribs

you say the things you don't think you should
to the lightbulb instead of me
the retina grabs the cornea
they kiss and jump over the edge
holding hands
into that electromagnetic waterfall
I wish I was there, so I could hear you
so I could swim up like a salmon
and jump into your paws/claws
---

s
c
r
o
l
l
i
n
g
down the page too much
in that present perfect annoying tense
I AM AN ASH TRAY
that you steal the butts from
to smoke what you can get
o s n
n a o i g
e r u d any1
se e n my mind?
cond here while I take a lick from
the bottom of this jello container
and organize my thoughts
(almost)

even this effort is not effort
it is lazy
anyone would agree that
victory should go to the better man
I can't get by on my
past deserving
chosen-hood
the best will rise and second place
isn't (and will have to be) enough

-----

Our National Anthem
The sound of the clapping scissors
makes you drip with unholy anticipation
fingers stretch out over uneven flesh
stroking with nails
sharp as nails

We sing our national anthem
into eachother's mouths
the scissors keep the rhythm
and twist around backwards
like a bionic crawfish

it's random

neither of us are listening
you change key
I just bang on your keys and grope them
(woman as piano)
will soon end

they will not stand for this
abuse of our position
the stage is covered in scratches
and slowly bleeding to death

----
steel and plastic machines
suck my tears while
they are still behind my sinuses
and feed them back into my veins
It tastes good
when I chew my tongue
I swallow the poems that are still inside
I do not believe in pain
my repentance is exploration
so I make a cut to look inside
with a dentist's mirror
----

everything I say is a lie
I am stupid
I am EVIL
I WANT YOU TO BLOW UP
I am cliche'
I am not worth your time
I can't make you do anything
but I can make you hate me.

----

This time I will wring it out
like a rag made of fruit roll up
drenched, though, in all things good
real fruit juice, but neither the "real"
you hear about on every commercial
nor the real that is not quite perfect
but comes on a tree

they are only distant cousins anyways
real trees can never die

and when I wring it out
I will fill my mouth with a cold boiling
that infiltrates every pore
physical or not
and seeds it with the beginnings of
the best annual crop of song
you ever drank half of
and wore the other half on your smile

----

oil paints burn green
if there is copper in them
I take the reproductions with the originals
and it looks like licking a penny

I could never be a vegetarian
I can't stop chewing the inside of my cheek
I bite my nails, I swallow my snot,
and I eat the skin on the ends of my fingers

I used to torture animals
with fire and water and acid
and by throwing them into things
things which I would later burn

If I tell you I'm not serious
I'll be either silly or a liar
or both for even beginning the story
and there must be more to any story
than simply being silly

----

You are so pretty
Like a hall of mirrors filled with orchid petals
Cause I wear them in my eyes
I sin in the name of love
I stake a claim for what I need
Everyone is staring

Everyone is starving

I stake a claim
Working from my memory
I claim the things that have sentimental value
I take the gold
And I rub it right into you
I make a cake
Of girl and gold and glue

No mistake
I will only rhyme for you

---

This morning when I sat down
The sun was in my eyes
and I said
knock it off

The yellow flowers have eight petals
Thin as cellophane
though you can't tell until you touch one
and each one focuses that sun
To the centers of their souls

No one will every pollinate me
I'm so short and pale
and I've thorns to give the bees
Stinger-envy

No little girl will ever pick me
From the roots
Or want me to meet her mother
The weeds are so prolific where they play
and what have I to offer?

The yellow flowers have eight petals
and each one focuses the sun
To the centers of their souls
Thin as cellophane
Though you can't tell until you touch one

----

Yes
the sun crashes through
and I'll admit
I only want what I want
I want everything I want
I'm nothing but a force of nature

I'm like the sun
crashing through tiny canyons
through soft, sharp ice
to store myself away
in bricks of green

so that in the spring
the grasshopper has a life to live
songs to sing
sun to soak up
sun to see breaking over the trees
and falling
like clumps of lemon flavored manna

------

he Great Loverofall

they called me on the phone
the great loverofall
to come speak at their board meeting
I charged them no fee

they weren't listening to me

sure, they were looking
politely
only a bite or two of chicken salad
between pauses
without looking down

too many questions at the end
they just weren't listening
how could it be any more obvious?
its not me
its whoever made them this rigid

so I escaped into the catacombs
found my way to the bottom
and walked into the smallest
darkest cell

the people that were watching me
and half the ones that had before
had gotten word I was traveling
and they were all following me
to see where I would go

asking too many questions
could it be more obvious?

so I reached behind my back
grabbed the place where my skin was pinched
along my spine like a pie crust
ripped it up and rolled it out
stood it up on its side and let it dry
until I had a perfect wall

On the third day,
I heard the last set of footsteps
walking away


----


Watch Jeff Balance a Spoon On His Forehead ( Or Rationalize Himself Into Thin Air)
This experience has not ended yet
Poems cannot fully explain what I am feeling
Is just what I am feeling
Just what I feel you feel
A minor assumption, I think
Titles are more useful than names

-----

pay no heed unless you want to and I want you to so do
there is a metallic desk lamp, grey and white
on a white desk with an orange seethrough floppy
blue mousepad, yellow book of excerpts from
various philosophers, the words
"mutually exclusive?" written near an
intimidating paragraph that is quite easily grasped
but well executed for the sake of rigor

on my other hand, there is a magazine
called Study Breaks, with college looking girls
in a pool holding money in an advertisement
that says "Money is a good thing
it's even better when it's free"

Dylan Byron was singing a song in German
but he won't tell us what it is because he's
trying to work and he just says
"what are you doing?" "no" "I do sing in the shower"
"why were you in my room?"
"you should go nap or shower or both."
"you're not very lucid"

----

'm paying my dues
and remembering what it's like to smile
without really smiling
but it's almost just as good
cause I know
and I remember
and I promise

it's all up to what it's up to
and that's not me
so I'll make the choice like it is
so my right hand won't know
what my destiny is doing

I should go to bed now so I can sleep and wake up
to the new day I am buying

---

told myself I was numb and I kept ordering hot brick massages
to coax the feeling into myself, and I covered myself in kisses
to make the wetness remind me of how to feel so it would feel real
and I closed my eyes and I closed all my nerve endings
and I told myself to be nice, and to try, and to give you a fair shake

of course I didn't and I didn't feel
and thanks for making me feel tonight
enough to not want to go to bed
enough to not want to play any games
enough to write a poem without fancy, or even well thought out metaphors

thanks for taking the knife to me
thanks for making me want to fight you
thanks for making me believe every insult you told me
thanks for making me really want to say I'm sorry
thanks for makign me know you'll never come back
I don't want you to
I just want to get a good tape of you laughing
so I can play it over and over again
and imagine you on his lap

---

I fell in love today
I got married today
it only took two hours
we talked about everything
and there's nothing to say tomorrow
hurry up 27 come so I can be living my life

I got sick so I took a shower
to wash my allergies off my skin
I stripped off everything, clothes, loose hairs
dead everything
dead all of it
it's too late at night to call again

In my dreams, I cut my hair
it's uneven so I keep cutting
my baldspots get deeper
I give myself the same looks in the mirror
In my dreams I break my teeth
I pull them out and try to put them back in
they slide around in my gums
in the blood
It's getting later and I can't call again

where is my mind? I can't think. I can't play chess
that's what you said cause we're both going crazy
and we both know it but we've got tonight
or we did
and we both knew what we were doing
and we did it perfectly
and you played that conversation like the piano
too fast, but perfect on almost every note
and I played it like the guitar
sloppy chords and chopped up rhythm
repeating, starting again, but
the romanticism, the courage that counts
gave me worship-leader swagger

though you may never call again

-----

this is a response to all the recent issues
taht keep seeming to crop up around here
this is to make people calm down and take stock
this is to untangle all the word plaay and accustaions
this is tofinally deal with all the bent brows and red faces
this is to get you out of bed and make you write
this is to make you look at movies differently
this is to make you look for love
this is to figure out the meaning of "holy"
and where it comes from

---

Daddy's Plans (RC)
everyone keeps faith in the end don't they?
we say that life is a circus wheel
and the good times will come in time
and we're all too conscious while sunning
our youths away into cancer cells
that the good times won't last a long time

but I could stay here in the dark for a year
if I wanted to
because people do it every day
and they take long vacations to places
that they never come back from
and it's a wonder they keep the office running

you have to pay your electric bills
and just because the lights go off
and just because you get them turned back on
does not mean that you can flip them on and off
like a 3yearold for the rest of the night and day
because daddy's still got plans

----

okay so the time has come
to take a chance again
because we're all circled up in our
loops of self consciousness
as a group, we remember, and we speak
eloquently
most honestly
and play our yarn as intstrument

I don't know if I can weave like you can
I mope and indulge
sop and stick with drool
smell up my chair with day after day
but we'll wait until I get it right
because we're together

I lose the end through the eye
and wait for you to call me up and
interrupt
so I can start again with a new idea
and this picture patterns out squares
of attempted realism
injected personality
and bent up hoping for a coherent message
waiting for a recognition
hunched over with one eye closed
waiting for a response

only we know what it means
but if I start deleting
who will ever notice
and who will ever get the message?
I will melt and then evaporate
diffuse and expand
bands of light growing farther apart
showing themselves both wave and particle
showing me both transparent and opaque
showing me both matter and energy
both momentum and stillness

like the pendulum

it's time for me to take a chance again
because we're all circled up and
pedestrian
but how long is there left before we lay down?
before we can fall down confidently?
before we will have to speak
eloquently
honestly
and play back all the incidents?

----

what was your name?
I sit in triage and you look into my eyes
"repeat after me" or "tell me what happened"
I'm not sure, but you're entreating me
to help you help me help myself

If I could just see where I went wrong
if I could remember more than last night
if I could tell from where the bullets came
or from whom I got my light

I would be happy
and you could help me
and we

instead I'll lie in these warmed white
machine-washed sheets and
finger the cap of this bottle of saline
and remember that I am brain dead
when you bring the family to ask again

or I'll turn back on the music
grease down my body and bump up the AC
I'll dance alone drinking the coke up
the calories will burn and the healing will surge
and we'll talk again in a different way
like we first met, each next to a friend

when I bring you to see the family
they'll ask again
"what was your name?"

----

Propriety (RC)
I want to take threads of ash up
from the puddle of burnt words
and make a grotesque and ornate and beautiful and dying
song
but I can't
I can't climax like I can't think like I can't
do anything but be a circle
a beautiful, though wretched, circle
only beautiful because I reach the proper end

----

life is like the sunsets
that are beautiful and you should enjoy
but you can't because you are
sitting next to the girl
you are trying desperately to love

and you are the girl

and that's life
watching the beautiful sunset
sitting next to yourself
seeing your body and clothes and face
looking at yourself and wondering if that funny look
is a real representation of your feelings for yourself
and you kiss yourself not really meaning it
hoping that sexual arousal will bury the awkwardness

and orange and purple swirl around you
and there is a strange smoke in the sky
making this sunset, of all sunsets, unique
from all the ones your ancestors could have seen

and that's life
and hopefully you'll either
fall in love for real
or at least remember the sunset

----

I love
fantasizing with myself
about how I will never love
it gives me a great sense of uniqueness
and pride and capability
and I feel a great knowledge
and intimacy come over myself
when I realize that I have reached
COMPLETE KNOWLEDGE
about how nothing is ever sure
and I will never be able to give my heart away
completey
and know that my love is real

it gives a real meaning to my life
makes everything I do
a work of art
makes me feel like I'm crazy
makes the night seem more like something from
a good movie about a movie about a movie
where everythign is true to life
and becomes clear in the end

----

I guess I've finally solved
the problem and effectively destroyed
my justification for constantly whining
about life being boring, meaningless, and simple

I can't see the stars at night
I thought it was just the street lights drowning them
but God helped them, covering the sky in clouds
making what was once a dome
seem flat
leaving me to create all the dimension I longed for
without divine inspiration
working only from memory

I still think it could work out alright

I've grown up at least 5 years tonight
ironically,
by crying like a whiney baby

which leads me to the conclusion
that most others have probably also reached
that we are all just aging babies
who will die before they effectively master
the ability to perceive depth
and who will die on a battlefield completely unfit
for gaining the honor and respect of God

----

my love
is deliberate as pushing fingers into
a bowl of blue paint
and squeezing them around your wrist
while telling you two sided things
in one sided words

I am real
as real as the rivers we're painting
as real as the tears
you've only seen on TV
I am as real as the songs I sing

my love is as real as we can dream it
our love is as real
as I can paint it

I hope next time I feel like
burning all my old artwork
someone will show up and stop me
we don't know how valuable they will be to us
when we're old and lonely
and we're looking desperately for
something to show our children
and stories to tell that mean something to them


-----


es
the spring looks pretty
glinty sunstreaks on the water
just before I drink it from the bottle
my lungs burn pleasurably

but I am not interested

yes
rebirth is a pretty time
love can always come again
I think you are very cute, and I can remember
now what it is always like to see the beginning
of falling in love

but this is an old song

so I listen to all my old records
and remember all the old beginnings
look out the corner of my eyes at flowers
sugar-free pink
half-heartedly blooming
unconvincing

but time goes on
and you're still smiling
so I sit back with my bed against the wall
and watch while you pitch me life-again
with eyebrows raised

secretly,
I hope you win.

----


this time I actually am writing about me
you're lucky if you get to read this
it means I like you
yeah, you.

okay, so ignore that, because
the pressure of knowing the plans
ruins whatever it is there is to ruin

I'm listening to Moby play
music that I should have heard last decade
I can see why everyone liked it
but now that I am here in the future
and everyone's hearts still feel so bad
it's a little naive to sing along

Why does my heart feel so bad?

but this feels so good
I have to stop
if I'm going to be honest

remember that total honesty is the only thing
that can redeem you from your life of crime
If I'm modest about my wickedness
maybe I can be exonerated

-----

the only way to make
the wanting to tear
and slice and crush
seem like more than just a
narrative device

would be to print this out
and tear it up
and eat it

but then no one would see
and no one would read
so I guess I'll settle for
"I don't really get it, but
it's probably real, and
he's real good at all this"

or "I understand how he feels
but how can I relate to it?
that's just not where I am right now."

mmmm
the printer paper up above me
is starting to smell like
charred smokey barbecue
flavored (meow)
and I want to eat it
and lick it
and lick my fingers afterwards

I want to tear into it, and into this keyboard
and shatter the keys in my teeth
and feel the cuts on my gums
and I want to
suck on bare wires and feel
all the energy shoot through me
and my own drain out

-----

I don't want to get dressed
I don't want to wash the scratches on my knee and temple
I don't want to wear the aloe patches
I don't want to go to the doctor about my swollen throat
I don't want to think about you
I don't want to think about not thinking about you
In fact, instead of waiting for my scorched skin to heal
I want to rip it off and start new
I want to use a pair of scissors to steal some from a baby
and stretch it until it fits me
even if I have to cut off some body parts of my own
I feel like going to battle
I don't want to hear how that's not healthy
I want to tell you all about our world's history
all about our president, and how he must know
how the world doesn't stop for people who are full of hate
how a weapon feels cool in your hands until you fire
then keeps you warm at night


-----


I bleed myself
it is not a post goth fashion statement
it is to evacuate the biological
demons
in a world of quick fix revolving door
post it note prescriptions
I am herbal
an organic self healer

I make an incision
from my elbow to my fingertip
I meditate on
the cosmic mood ring
colors god shows me
that represent the universe's weather
I hear the subtle signals
changes in spiritual pressure
and I analyze while the
hot scene revolving door fashion players
take their designer drugs
smile their american family smiles
dance their postmodern scandinavian disco dances

keep dancing
out of step
keep singing
off harmony
I'll be here
cutting a zen garden into my body

don't wait up


. . . . . . . . and

I think I'm at a macro equillibrium
all my menstruation
has come to exactly nut
I want to stick my finger
up inside your
cut
and wriggle it around under the skin


-----


while
THE FIREBALLS FALL FROM THE SKY
we hide in your bathroom
take part in
mutual ************
the heat comes in through the walls
and we just rub harder

I grabbed ur bottom lip in my fingernails
while army jets swarmed in the sky
to shoot them down
and break them into bits
that fall softer
we just closed our eyes and tasted the sweat
from eachother's necks

an electric razor got bumped off the counter
into the tub filled with water for drinking
when we felt the sparks on our eyelids
we just grit our teeth
thinking this is the end
this is the eruption I've been waiting for


----

TOTAL HONESTY

I will become totally inside out
I will give myself over
to the fate I have been fleeing

no

this is not right
this is not an explosion
I am simply leaking fuel
I am only twitching nervously
where is my entrance/exit music?
I am so f***ing cliche'
all my poetry sounds the same
and you can't f***ing write poems
about poems
that's rule number one
jesus christ
this is such post modern bull***t
everyone curses and says Jesus Christ in their poems
everyone takes pictures of their feet
everyone talks about what everyone does
everyone puts their frustration into bad poetry
hoping that TOTAL F***ING HONESTY
alone
will be enough to save them
from being the total a**es that they really are

[Jeff]

everything is running fine
right on schedule nerves firing pistons pushing
an appearance of spontaneity
there is no reason for us to be here

---


The lights are bright white here.
But none of you can see them.
The room is clean and perfumed efficiently
though sparsely decorated with milestones of flight.
Magazines next to wire trains and plastic blocks.
Your parents are behind the two way glass.

You downs children,
we'll play for a while since I am here.
I don't know how I got here.
You know once I was a wise philosopher king.
An enlightened despot.

It's strangely merciful but also a tragedy
that God should treat you thus:
never to see in the brightest of lights what
universe has been given us
for dominion.

We'll play together for a while and I'll teach you
about love and work and how
the greatest sculpture is formed from living flesh.
How to bend a woman around your body
with her own deft will and your desire.

I will teach you about firmness and gentleness
though you don't seem to be listening. It seems
we are to be stuck here together for a while.
It's strangely merciful but also a travesty
that my time should be wasted thus:

Among you who have not been chosen,
among you who do not know.
Will I mix blood with you native sycophants?
Will I learn to taste your language on my tongue?
Will I tatoo the shape of my skull?
Mold my brain?

Or is this what I have been chosen for?
It's true this place is the only I remember.
I'm to be the friend of retards.
an advocate of meaninglessness.
Meaninglessness meaninglessness meaninglessness.

meemingmessmess
mewmermessess
muhmuhmurmrah
muhmuhmuhmuh
muhmuh


-----


Who are you fooling? you've called me out here in the middle of this schoolyard crowd to show you who's tough enough, and I'll ignore the true nature of the challenge and step right up like I'm called and show you who's the chosen one. You want to be the one and I know you're just another beatboxing cell phone jocky with real feelings and a scrolling sheet of half wadded stream of consciousness teletype from God that you had a second thought about when the DJ told you he could get it on the radio. DJ, or your aqcuaintance, joselyn that plays mix tapes on your belly button from friday morning to sunday at midnight. You want to be the one, and you want to show that you've got real feelings by being holy and spraying yourself up on the stained glass/tube of neon overhead. It's all the same, and that's why I've no qualms about meeting you on the dancefloor. It is I, as you'll soon see, who practices his ballet of bombast on the keyboard itself, rolling out streams of arrows with W A S D on the left hand and up right from the sitting position using only the other. I can do this because I'm meant to. What now? I suppose I start writing. Starting with the beginning of the story, of course, is the first job that I signed up for by being promised a real career. But who can remember anything before now but that all paths lead to this same end? It's a buddhist idea, but its application is distinctly a Microsoft creation, like Word, which is the makeup of all our sentences. The end is what I'm begging my fingers to describe, if they would just pick a slower set of beats from my Boston Acoustics to type to so I can think. Ah yes, I'm a member of the real world now, exemplifying every rebuplican virtue that I read about on the faces of the first paintings with depth and light that ever left the mind. More thanks is due the patrons than the artists, and that's a lesson to remember now that I've escaped the dungeon with perfectly square sides and a no instant messaging at work policy (much less misunderstood oil nudes from the met, or met-art, whichever you prefer) and come to the end, which is the destiny that allows me to spend anybody's money and build everyman's building and piece together poems that outshine anyone. Just like painting with a pallet of all white and yellow on a canvas that's been used to wipe the nose of a jet flying through a storm in the brain of a man that doesn't yet exist, but who can if the boy will just believe, or make others do it first so he can make himself when its easier and he can always take it back and blame it on the crack that he bought with the profits from the story that is still waiting to be paid back by real experience. I prefer the brighter picture, so call me if you need a blotter or a tissue for the ending of this movie, and I'll be right here to paint over the memories a bright and shiny sunshine that is ancient and is modern and gives no specific information but that the world has not yet ended. And isn't that what you've come to expect? Like any good producer, I've been hinting at the ending that won't come, at least not tonight. What if I ever wanted to make a sequel? And I assure you I will. As long as the competition can sell out a theatre. I'll step up into the middle of this schoolyard crowd. I'll ignore the obvious questions of honesty and morality. I'll put on my danceglove and meet you here at midnight.

----

[Jeff]

just stop
pulling your ears and lips in the mirror
recording your voice in affected histrionics
hyperventilating and then staring coldly like
shards of ice held delicately as they jut bloodily
out of your blackened heart that drips with yellow fat
just stop
stop right now
mangling the words as they come out your mouth
putting everything into all capitals and then moaning
out words of love and hate and both mixed together
like a milkshake of raw meat and chocolate and soured cream
just stop
just stop it right now
stop breathing
like that
stop looking at them like you want to kiss them all
stop fighting like you want to rip off eyelids
to make them see what you really are all the time
stop crying like you never meant it and most of all
stop thinking like there's something to be found out
or some excuse for you that makes you better after all
than you ever thought you were or than you acted
stop
stop living
please.

-----


I'd imagine you feel consipired against
misunderstood
probably feel like everyone's out to get you

of course it isn't true

maybe you didn't notice how deep
the ditch we through you into
dug into our minds

but I believe the signs were clear

it had to have been obvious to you
even if you claim ignorance
I suppose you'll say it was partly her fault

haven't you read the law?
the definitions say what they say
and they definitely are what they are

---

At the risk of sounding
like a blonde haired blue eyed
fairy of a boy that's too old on the outside
and too overgrown on the inside of his skull
for the baby that lives in his stomach
and feeds the rest of his body through a
backwards umbellical cord

I have to write something beautiful about
the girl that changes things by being the same
and I have to mean it perfectly so excuse me

I love you. And I'm sorry that I didn't understand.
That everything fits perfectly together inside myself
and this arrangement is not one to be mocked
and that it's just like what everyone else has but better
I love you, and I need you to keep this feeling real

at the risk of sounding worshipful,
even though I know you think you're just human
and even though you probably only are
and even though I know you've also faltered
you are an example to me and I love you
and I don't know how to make all the others see that
this is not an experiment and not a thought game

I love you, and I need you to make me understand
what all these lights flashing around
the outside of my womb are because
this world makes me want to kick and only
your sweetest melodies of unknowingness without
the slightest undertones of ignorance can harmonize with
what I thought were not even real notes, but noise
coming from the creaking in my bones

I need you to make me realize that i am a musical instrument
by playing my song perfectly back to me and saying
"that's beautiful and it's okay that you got the tempo wrong
because here's what you do
and here's how it goes
and I'll sing along"

--------

there are so many mes

don't they each have the right to live?
how can the pacifist me justify
killing the warmonger me and taking
this great continent of me for himself?

-------

killing things
I don't think they exist
If I can't believe in my God
I won't believe in your demons

antimatter takes up space
then what is it
no matter
that's the wrong question

I think there's just nothing to discuss
don't get your panties in a wad
life is for the living

looks like a duck
quacks like "crazy thoughts"
smells like life
tastes like killing things

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