On Bob

Each song is something he’s had and abandoned
He’s left nothing unsung
Each word he speaks scrapes of how his conscience was 
in the days that he was young
To practice on ourselves
he’s left to us the notes he strung
like an echo distant in the night
to bring us home again to when
the world was black and white

From a bathtub

Soap scum is
two in the morning
a strange bathroom
or an acid trip
or an acid trip
it is
the light switch
on the other side of the room
it is
an inch deeper
than one
it gets
left over
after laughter
after one’s own joke
it gets under
your skin
your hair too
you have to wash it off with soap.

Whiskey

A higher proof
of a higher power
if power is proof
if proof is truth
and truth is power
of a higher proof
It’s in my whiskey sour

Bourbon

So why not have a drink
I asked my empty studio bedroom apartment
and I walked to the sink
for a glass I’d left there still half-filled
and I watched myself come in the mirror
the room growing smaller behind me
Jim Morrison did it, I told myself
Hunter Thompson too, I was play acting
and why not (indeed)
my mother did it, came the response
I could hear through the door
my roommates talking in cool tones
and I wanted to go out
but feared being bored to death was too high a cost
for the leftover shrimp in the fridge
And grinding my teeth I stood up.
I had a dream last night most troubling
the building was crumbling
and the sun was setting on a stranger intruding
and me searching for a grocery bag
it was red like the sky and I knew because
earlier I’d swum through a tidal flood
it was the last day on earth
and the buildings were turning to sand dunes
and the sky was on fire
but I didn’t want to go out
and I just didn’t trust the intruder
and I thought that if his words were true
then I’d still rather die at home
and I wanted him to leave so I could die alone
more comfortable here
to die in the clouds of smoke inhalation
than die on the ground of slow immolation
but they screamed at me to go
so I searched for my coat
but I couldn’t remember which one I’d worn
when last I saw you
so I had to abandon it too
yet it lingered in my mind this morning
staying with me till the afternoon
four hours and a half since I woke
to the smell of gun smoke
I was shot out of bed and the sound
of my head on the floor
and the sounding of my neighbors pounding
through their bed next door
I started counting to make sure
they weren’t stopping soon
and then when I determined they weren’t
I worked my way out of the room
and I tried to resist as the vision I’d twisted in dreams
now in day-dreams consumed me
but thinking of you really blew me
and being so blasted I’d barely have lasted the day
but for the three glasses I took to escape
now I’m barely awake and still dreaming
I’m thinking I’m finding my way to the edge
but maybe I’ll find it again in the morning
my escape fell just short of the end

Branded

Your name’s like a brand in my ear when I hear it
it’s hissin’ and sizzlin’ and squirmin’ and burnin’
and you’ve left a mark on my skin that ain’t clearin’
and I’m standing by with my head bent back
and the smoke in my eye makes the sky turn black
and it’s rollin’ and burstin’ and blowin’ and burnin’
and my mouth’s open and even though it’s pouring I’m thirsty.
And every time I hear it like you’re screaming it at me
like I’m fallin’ and kneelin’ and reelin’ and callin’
your name’s diggin’ holes in my brains
every letter’s down deeper B-R-I-T-T-A
how can I die now if still two there remain
but I’ve no say in passing easy into darkness
that’s the lesson you’ve taught me
no ocean could stop me from drowning this pain

Unintitled

What gets left behind
in the space between
the tip of my pen
and my mind
in the space that holds
this blue ink to paper
just lines.
blue lines that stretch
scratch tip words that unwind
a blue smile
that catches your eye
a reminder
a taste of a six hour sunrise
Sambucha cries softly
I’m blind
I remember.
a cheat besides
he twists and pleads
and lies (through his teeth)
as death’s creeping up from behind

Crackup

The episode begins: I attempt to clean my bedroom’s industrial hardwood floor with an airplane blanket, having stalled in my housekeeping responsibility now long enough, and I’ve begun to worry about it making a bad impression also, and I began thinking of my lovesick compulsive neurotic roommate who cleans his dishes by hand every night. Midst this thought I happened to think that perhaps his love’s somewhere down in our sink; happened to think I too may have caught this contagion, that I really didn’t know what form it could take – but I shuddered to think that his Boeotian demeanor could be attributed so simply to that. In fact I was certain it could not. There is some native in him, I‘m sure of it. But what horrors could I suffer besides? To be pious? Broken? A horror gripped me and I fell onto my back, and, just before I made contact – while still I was waiting for the sound of skull starting to crack, I closed my eyes. I thought “bone and obsidian tile.” One moment more “or an 8 ball.” But it didn’t come. The cue ball missed and I simply continued to fall. And I found myself looking down on treetops and a blue sky. On an ocean. With no ceiling, but the world’s dome transformed to stained glass and gold leaf. And night fell quickly. And the trees died. And animals went extinct. And it fixed me in place. And I opened my eyes. And I reached out my hand to turn on the television.

Wild Grass

I draw breath like straw from autumns fist
the cold holds down my head to my chest
I’m homeless and searching for somewhere to rest
and I’m met with unkindness in kind
as a kind face looks cold from behind
the people who pass pay no mind
like a smile that fades they are temporary
and the shelter I find will not keep me
and the memories I find will not keep me
of a home dry and hollowed forgotten
foregone and it’s hearth opened wide
and the dust of long years blowing through it
a house for wild grasses to hide.

My Baby(’s bad to me)

I love my baby but she’s bad to me
she keeps me waiting so bad I can’t sleep
she’s bad to me
she sneaks she lies
she speaks just with her shoulder blades
and they turn me away

I love my baby and it’s hard on me
it’s got me a crazy total sicko freak
it’s bad for me
she creeps and I
can feel her in my finger prints
my mind is going limp (because)

I love my baby but she’s bad to me
she calls me lazy it’s just the heat
my hands my knees
her feet my eyes
can see right through her kitchen door
and right into her mind
I love my baby but she’s unkind
I think it’s killing me.

A Lesson in form pt. 2

The Hawkeyes win
And clouds roll in
O’er the great state
of Wisconsin.