1050 Baxter Street

write down everything you see

Teenage whores- blacklight, bored

Bare blank carpet

Old case, tarnished brass, filmed glass, displaying ass and rubber flesh

Everything tied to a price tag

Contempt stuck on painted eyes

Barely old enough to get paid to suck cocks.

Dig until you bleed

Dig up the sullen southern weeds behind the

fence line and you will find it,

roots wrapped in red red clay. You will find it

and it will stain your hands.

There are arrowheads yet to find in the Piedmont earth.

Do you realize how many bones you walk over in a day?

Somesoul built his home here, once,

Another man bled, heart flattened by a crude lead ball.

or by the blessings of a brutish blonde belle

There are bodies yet to find in the Piedmont earth.

Quick, think of something of value and worth!

Think of what your daddy taught you, some

Something like

don’t you be bringing home some nigger girl,

or,

Son, you’d better not be queer.

There are gods yet to find in the Piedmont earth.

spider I Dare you

Drip a little closer, spider,

Silk a line down and

Spin me all in legs,

so symmetrical

 

Dare a moth to tangle up, down like this

 

Show me what you showed her

Sit me down, tell me

ugly little miss,

impeccable

 

Dare a moth to tangle up, down like this

 

The hold the holes, the web the thread,

The pillowed dead we lay our bones upon

The hold the holes, the web the thread,

Precursor to the corpse,

Build a coffin on the back porch

interlude

Spread like hungry roots across this cotton-

vines to tangle, touch,

crime to kiss crime to search to find to learn

criminals now, now

what was I to you but paraffin wax and sweat?

you know who you are

You trussed-up little shipwreck waifs piss around bars like these,

thinking yourselves mermaids.

I don’t get paid enough for this shit.

You can’t even sing, you Odyssean failure, you never had a hand in it, just held your hand out.

You children, you petty girls, you scared-of-all-black-strangers girls, you tits-out-but-don’t-look-psuedofeminist trash,

I hope I have a daughter one day so I can teach her to look down on people like you.

 

I don’t believe in monsters I don’t

lo, a confession:

 

at night, when it’s still and safe

the corners of my lips tighten and I salivate,

fantasizing of gripping his last breaths in my aging young fist

of the last brick handed blows he lands before my knee divots his broad swastika’d chest

of digging uncommon soft neck skin deep under long chewed fingernails

of his lurid shudder shake kick when he finally (comically) fails to accept this.

 

Dedicated to {redacted}. I will meet you again some sunny day

meaculpameaculpameamaximaculpa

amplifier worship #1

Caught up searching for a cigarette
Trying to act like I was unimpressed
The fluorescent census stretched
and folded up two by a thousand petty passengers,
and their liquor store debts.

Point a loaded pistol at the precipice
Think of something flash to follow after it
Think of something genuine, fine,
and fly through the telephone lines to the flick, flicker, snap,
and light the cigarette.

Take ten steps to the seven ten split
Where the nine ten bus stops to ferry the dead
Pre bass click then a post bass bass hit
——————————-The sub bass kicks
————————————-and then hangs up, bleeding
————————————-to a beat
————————————-to a plainchant
————————————-to a burst.

Rude stereo screams:
—————once, to summon the faithless
—————twice,
—————again, to slash at their eyes

—————once, this started painful
—————twice,
—————again, this opened my eyes

—————once, bleeding
—————twice,
—————again, bleeding die

close scene.
—–beat.
———-beat.
—————beat.

your eyes, I promise

Furrow if you wanna, lady,
I was looking at your eyes.
Tug the skirt down and ruin your good looks
With a hooked down burnt bra frown, go ahead,
I was looking at your eyes.

US 24W outside of Defiance, Ohio

I think maybe I’ve been driving too long.
I hope that wasn’t a body I just saw.
I hope maybe that he died before he started to burn.
I keep thinking that I smell it.
I hope they get the goddamned crows away till them get him in a bag.
I hope his family hates his guts or else it’s gonna be real goddamned sad.
I don’t feel right.

Journeyman

12-31-09, somewhere between Norwood and Athens, GA.

In G major.

Well the brickmason drinks like a fish every morning
And he’ll cuss like a sailor at them boys on his wall
He’ll work like a devil
But he sings like an angel
All them old Irish folk songs ringin’ out against the stone

Singin Oh-ho, mavourneen, oh-ho mavourneen,
Mavourneen my darling, in the morning I’ll be home
Oh-ho mavourneen, my darling mavourneen,
Mavourneen my darling, I’m coming home

All the carpenter’s got
Is a thumb and a half and six fingers
But he’s a sight with a hammer
Eyes plumb, level, and true
He’s got a habit from the sixties
Two girls back in Mississippi
And he’ll see ’em for the sunrise
If it’s the last thing he’ll ever do

Singin’ oh-ho mavourneen, my children my only
Best thing I ever made and the best gift I ever got
Oh-ho mavourneen, my darling mavourneen,
Mavourneen my darlings, I’m coming home

I’ve got no home to speak of
No love to drink of
And it ain’t for lack of trying, I’m just used to me alone
But I can’t help but think of
The good life I mighta screwed up
And the girl I mighta married if I coulda kept myself at home

Oh-ho, mavourneen, I’m sorry my darling,
I’m gone before the morning, in the morning you’ll be alone
Oh-ho mavourneen, my darling mavourneen,
I’m sorry my darling, but I’m not coming home