If I Could Fall (Skip the goodbyes)

If I could fall,

Let those rooftops grown large-

Because from here

They're so damn small.

Feel the air free

Blowing my soul

Into the stars

Ripped away in the

Howling scream.

Make my grave

A random place,

A patchwork field

Or the twisted

Knots of Toledo's

Ramshackle maze.

They say I'm headed home,

The war's over for me

And all of my hopes

My fears, my promethean dreams

Are over it seems.

My lover, my love,

She left for LA.

The only person who

Still feels like a friend,

Well, they just lowered

Him into his grave.

Soon, too soon, I will land

And have to face all the faces

Arrayed out smiling on

That cold July tarmac.

"Welcome home! Welcome back!"

They will all chant.

I will smoke cigarettes

And drink my well whiskey straight

Alone at the Bronx,

They will say I've lost weight.

From running or not eating,

Suicidal either way,

I'll just smile and nod,

Half glad and half hateful

For their small talk and praise.

For now, in the moment,

The sky is my home,

Forehead rattling against

Thick windows,

Curled up in the back rows.

I watch Ohio bleed away

Into the breadth of

The greater states

And think of Detroit

As a lost lover I'll soon see,

And I wonder if sentiment

Has left her perfume clinging

To every memory -

I have of a place I once

Thought I belonged,

To the memories of all the love

Now dead, now gone.

So I curse her name, Athena

Artemis, Juno and Aphrodite

All the things which have

Laid men low after making

Them feel mighty.

Soon my boots will once

Again be forced to the earth,

And life will begin again,

But never be as it was.

If I could fall,

From this place in the sky

I would make a nice mark,

I could skip the goodbyes.

Melancholy, Serenity (I would weep)

Melancholy,

Sadness the rift-

Hanging inside

My withered chest

In all the places

Veins tangled blue,

The roadways where

Blood and vital viscera

Connect to where

A heart should be.

I would weep,

For the emptiness

In me.

I would weep,

Until tears blind,

Couldn't see.

I would weep.

Serenity,

Lost and languished

In miscreant words

Spilling from serpent

Tongue in little poisoned

Drops into errant ears;

All the lies you're all

So desperate, so goddamn

Ravenous to hear.

Steel blades, liquor and pills

All glint in the moonlight

Soft and full of promise,

To depart this mournful world.

I would weep,

For what I've become.

I would weep,

For what I might be.

I would weep,

If tears were still

Bound in the blood

Of man little more

Than naked beast.

Heroes Graves (Not mine)

Alone in the desert

I'd sit and muse.

Is a soul a thing you find,

You build or grow,

Something you can loose.

Well, I got my answers

Lowering friends

Into heroes graves,

Watching my love

Just seem to shrug

At my killing pain -

Walk on away.

So now I'm always searching

For myself in the bottom of

Bottles and strange sheets

Of strangers beds.

The truth, it's what I'd said,

My cold body's lying

In the streets of Baghdad.

I'm just the ghost

Of a once noble man,

They shipped me home dead.

Papercut Tongue (Supposed dignity)

Take two off the train,

You silly man,

Such an easy smile

With thin teeth

And thinner words,

Papercut tongue

All the words they

Want to not want to hear.

Oh, but they say you're so vain

Oh, they still walk six blocks

To stop by the loft

For some drinks

To get tangled up in kinks

And shower you with sweaty rain.

Take two off the train,

Because you can,

Even if there's

Nothing to prove.

You're on your own;

Like Emily says,

You don't know

The difference between

Lonely and alone.

Oh, but they say you're so empty

Oh, they still drink your money

When you're slinging

Shots and smiles around.

Let them have their whispers,

Call you callous and when they

Leave weep for Her memory.

Take two off the train,

You filthy man,

Such noble aspirations

Tragically thin skinned

Left laying rumpled

Next to socks, shirts

And supposed dignity.

Raise The White Flags (Fools and fools)

Raise up the white flags.

Run them up the shattered masts,

We'll all hold hands

As the ship sinks

My fair weather friends

Scrambling for lifeboats;

Well, remember me well.

You won't, I know.

Fools and fools,

I was a fool for you

And you left me to die.

With all those knives

Buried in my burnt back,

Keep my friends too.

After all, I was wrong

When I did anything

That you've the right to do.

Raise up the white flags.

Let the hypocrite child

Take the wheel and sail,

Right over the edge of

Her fucked up drugged

Out and worthless world.

So discontent with what I gave:

Soul, the gifts, sanity,

Pounds and pounds of flesh.

Whisper words to my friends

Kill anything I have left.

Learning To Sleep Alone (In so many beds)

I'm learning to sleep alone,

In so many different beds,

It's not like I have a home,

So I'm always looking

For someone to let

Me rest my head.

I used to be a faithful man,

Or I like to think I did,

All those old friends tell me,

I'm just a charlatan.

I've got wolf eyes,

Wolf teeth,

A wolf tongue

Stalking beaches and bars

Around shallow seas.

Well what would she think,

If she could see me,

Tangled in all those bed sheets,

Eyes burrowing into pillow smiles

Night out over after two drinks.

What do they see, looking back

And smiling, fumbling for keys?

Forgive me, I seem to have

Misplaced my dignity.

It's probably sitting, dropped and

Discarded as cheap

In the sand beneath

Distant longbeach palm trees.

She took that when she left too.

But I'm beautifully broken

Even as my ego is shaken

Laying in Baghdad's smoking ruins.

I'm more alive and dead than

I've ever been,

She took all I had of worth,

Played with it, bored, threw it away;

But gave me freedom in the end.

New Skin (She's a gravebound tree)

Whose your new skin now?

A handsome man,

With handsome hands,

Or bloodshot eyes

From long nights

Spent charming you

Over cups of coffee;

Talking his way

Into your pants,

While you slide

Into his skin?

Will it fit?

Stretch to accompany two,

Or will you hollow

Him out, viscera and vital

Soul and style

Until there's only you?

Loving comes easy

To those who can't love,

Catch any bird and

A blindgirl told,

Will call it a dove.

Searching for souls

On golden coasts,

Or in bottoms of bottles,

Of poison or pills.

You've got a long

Way to grow

Like roots into the earth

Burrow like crawling fingers

Away from the light

In that capricious search

For solitude, definition,

A sense of being real;

You upturned tree,

Skyward rooted

All self deception and dishonesty,

Filthy floored canopy,

Unaware of the absurdity

Of wrenching open third eyes

Painted on in lipstick

So delightfully flippant

With all the suits you leave behind.

Will that handsome man

Be able to stand

The sight of you in years?

When he sees behind the bark,

To the wormy wood within?

Will he wonder what happened

When you've taken all you can?

And like the roots of grave bound trees

You've burrowed deep

In the carrion heap

Of his identity at peace?

What will you take

And leave in your wake,

Only dirt, my former

fair-weather friend?

Let Me Pour (Make me your monster)

Ravenous those lips

Your slim hips

Locked in motion;

The swerve my of whiskey sweat

Running the curve of her breasts.

Let me pour

In the august and noble night

Let me pour

Out through my ghost easy smile,

My abandoned home predatory eyes.

We're all cheap,

Tonight, tomorrow, months ago,

Everything.

So crawl in next to me,

I'll taste you tonight,

Give you a little of me

As long as those little red lips

Know how to whisper discrete.

I'm a broken man you know,

Or so she told me.

I'm always paying for sins,

Others and my own;

My heart all mangled,

My conscience tangled-

She made it clear it was all my fault;

I could've been killed, buried, breath stilled

And I'd still be the name she gives

The new scars she carves in herself.

Well make me your monster,

I won't bother to mention

Her rampant and selfish abuse.

I'll just slip

Into that old skin

With my new humble lips

Pressing into her kiss

Until morning comes,

When I'm alone again,

I'll crawl back in bed

Where all my ghosts live

And try not to choke,

On lungs heavy with smoke,

Hand on chest,

The monster I am,

Quietly trying to feel for a soul.

Forgotten Socks (Jewish girls are the best)

This lake lost to the rocks,

Her lover's tongue,

Branches bowing

Over forgotten socks;

She sings for me,

Songs I've heard sung

From computer speakers

For years and years.

She tells me,

When we part for small moments

Give lips leave to speak;

Jewish girls are the best.

All eyes are light,

As a summer day bleeds

Into soft summer night

And I'm hard pressed

To admit in the moment

That she just might be right.