If I die before I wake I pray the Lord my soul to take.

If I die before I sleep I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

If I die before you tonight I pray the Lord finds my soul a delight.

If I die before the morning light I pray the Lord makes this sound right.


Let's fuck. Let's scream. Let's carve our names in an old oak tree and light the flames and burn that fucker down. I've been all around. I've seen your Ma, saw your Pa, don't you worry now that I'm back in town. And everybody loves a boxer's story. Everybody loves a morning glory. I'm the sort who'll get hit for money. I'll go down in the third round, tell me before the fourth. I'll hit that mat with a thump and a splat. I'll spray my blood. I'll come round. I'll stay there on the ground. I'll black my eyes. I'll be the one you lionize. I am thunder. I am flash. I am a thief in the night, come back round to steal your spine. I'm a ghost. I'm a ghoul. I'm the man who lost this duel. I'm a spirit. I'm a haint. I'm the devil, the blight, the taint. I'm a secret. I'm a sin. I'm the one who let you in. I am quiet. I am calm. I'm the eye of the storm. I'm a leaf on the wind. I'm a pile, a pit of sin. Drop me. Heal me. Kill me. Feel me. Beat me like a heart. Beat. Beat. Beat. Let's you and me settle that old score. Don't you dare call my mother a whore. I'll fight you. I'll kill you. I'll tear you down. Crucify me. Purify me. Nail me up and cut me down. Make me wear a bloody crown, of thorns and roses and bleed me dry. I'll be the one with eyes alight, until I die. Fire in them. Fire in the dark. I'm a flame. I dance. I sing, you can't bend me. I'm the wind. I'm the devil. I'm a sin. I'm the one who let you in.

Troubles and worries and terrible faults
Endless strings of garbage things
Banana peels eggshells old time waltz
Give me back that diamond ring

I'll throw it all in hells burning vaults
Eternal spring of lava burning
Carbon for the cycle, bile and salts
Hoarse throat, cracked voice I sing

God come down like a thunderbolt
Give your voice that lightning
Light me up with all my faults
Burn me in flames blue, cobalt

I am not what other people see,
I'm an iceberg in a mountain stream,
Impossible and endless and shallow and weak,
A torrent of contradictions and endings beginnings
Swirls forever never ending until it does
Until it ends,
Until I end

A very serious poem written by a very serious man in a very serious business suit

Tumbleweeds bleed sad sounds as they pass
Blowing away to whisper in tall prairie grass

Going somewhere, for a lost lover perhaps,
Or maybe to sit, look up, and watch clouds pass

I hate to watch you walk away
But girl,
I worship
dat ass.

couplets for absence

That song might not be about me
But every song is still about you

Some nights I go over all the pain
A year after we've been through

You said I'm nobody and a fool
Well I'm somebody, still a fool,
that's true

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


I just want to explain,
This is for me and not you

I write it out, my pain
in black ink and in blue

You don't have to like the refrain
But for me it's still true

I think about you when it rains
And when the sky's blue

These words are for me
They are not for you


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

Emptiness, in seven different ways:
1. Bed
2. Apartment
3. Fridge
4. Love department
5. Bank account
6. Employment
7. Work Prospect Amount

When I was twenty three
And in love with someone
But she didn't love me

I said a prayer every night
That she'd wake up
And see the morning light

And I hoped that would
Make her fall in love
With me, for good

But she never did

When I was twenty nine
And in love with someone
Who told me she was mine

I said a prayer every night
That we'd wake up
And never ever fight

And I hoped that we'd
Stay forever in love
Together for good

But it ended

(poem on hiatus until the author falls in love again)

I love you all, my darlings, my little glimmers, you were all so beautiful and happy once, and sadness came and washed over you. Then that record spun, didn't it? Oh didn't that voice sing then? Didn't you hear something inside of you then? What's the opposite of hearing a bone break? What is the sound of something mending? Only you didn't know anything was broken. What's the sound? What's that sound? I know that sound. It's my mother's voice calling me to breakfast, it's my father singing me to sleep, it's the feeling of hair being brushed from my closed eyes, it's the breath of my lover on my face as she sleeps face to face with me, I know that sound, I know that voice, I've seen those eyes, I've walked this floor, I know this road, I know this wind, those flowers, the wash hanging on a line, the trees rocketing out of the ground, the green grass, oh my god I'm so in love with you. I'm so in love with you.

I
Love
You

All