Coffee
She said, “I ain’t been without a man since I was a little girl of thirteen,
And now’s my chance to find out who I am without a man.”
I said, “Darling, I know who you are, and who you are’s looking better every day now,
And who you are’s the girl I’d like to make the coffee for each morning.”
She said, “Coffee’s mighty fine and good, and you can put a pot on while we’re talking,
But these days I wake up fine without your kind, I wake up fine without your kind these days.”
I said, “Darling, I’ll be waiting here until these days are through, and then I’ll wait some more,
’cause my heart cares not for reason, rhyme, length of time or breadth of highway.”
She said, “Don’t let me catch you waiting boy, ’cause I ain’t waiting for the likes of you now.
I pass through the likes of you like water through the grinds, and I come out the other side strong but bitter.”
I said, “Darling, if you’re water, let me be the riverbed you come to rest in,
Always rushing past, but never running dry, and, if you overflow my banks, I’ll still carry you to the ocean.”
She said, “You ain’t heard a word I said.”
I said, “Two cream, no sugar.”
Dancing With My Brother
I am dancing.
I am dancing with my brother; we are punching at the air.
My blood is hot knives.
My saliva tastes metallic, like the barrel of a gun.
We are wolf boys.
We are skinless and eternal as we fight against the wake.
I’m my brother’s snakeskin motherfucker,
And we are blood.
There’s no horizon.
There’s no dawn to burn off nightmares.
There’s no blinking sleep from our eyes.
My lip is split.
There are no city things to say in this bloodthirsty embrace.
I’m my brother’s snakeskin motherfucker,
And we are blood.
Marshall’s 5 Lost Yrs.
Some things disappear like a sunburn,
Or, like 5 years, they just disappear.
That man Marshall, he was our eyes and ears;
A disciple of our eyes and ears.
They took my body, but I couldn’t follow,
I’ll bet he prayed to God to know what I know:
I’m not a citizen.
You articulate what will deny you.
My mother died late. My mother loathed you.
After 5 years, Marshall pressed on,
Through a broken face he started screaming.
I’m not a citizen.
Oh, Professor, how I’ve known you.
Stand from the table, and storm from the room.
You are light years, and I’m a rocket.
I know your five years, I’ve lived inside them,
But I’m not a citizen
Sun-shine (The Sun Never Sets On the Manic, Substance-Ridden Empire)
Heartbreak for a lifetime.
Last night I dreamt we were reconciled
In a quiet church, just you and I,
Like the night we made those secret vows,
Setting up the heartbreak of a lifetime.
Piss drunk on springtime,
I love my broke dreams.
I wake up and you’re on my lips,
Each morning, on the skin of my eyelids.
It feels good today to love and lose you again.
I love getting fucked up on the sunshine.
Hey, listen, while the feathers fall like rain – turbines of jet planes hum and start to turn. When a man is in the sky, he don’t stop to wonder, “Why?” lest he run screaming down the aisle with any metal they let him keep. But, I’m not in the sky – I’m just sitting on my lawn while the cops keep riding by and frowning as the feathers fall. Hey, listen – strange things come from the sky, stranger than you or I could ever conceive.
Waiting
What fools are we, waiting 2000 years.
They all laugh and rightly so.
Still we’re waiting, impatiently waiting.
Hall of Records 