(the fork came out clean)

They say good things come
when you least expect it
well,
the table has been set for so long,
the cobwebs in the teapot handle
are full of dreams and fly carcasses.
The fork came out clean
I’ve got a voila ready for what’s under
the metal cloche lid
If it wasn’t dead before
the smoke will have done the rest
All we need is you
The buzzer is broken
but I took the chair from under the doorknob
Don’t worry about the shoes if you’re going to float
and leave your scythe in the umbrella stand
Supper is getting cold.
The roast is begging to be sliced
The blessed our Father has been cast
I was hoping you’d to pass the threshold
to the smell of rosemary,
Where are you?

(paint the day I died from memory)

DDT in the spray can
Snakes in the grass
Machete in the right hand
Bag of serpent heads for the trash
Running circles kick up
A thousand tornados of dead leaves, dust and rocks.
The small one got banged out of my boot
and taught itself how to walk
Right now we’re stuck between a bigger one
and a hard place with no escape
I’ll send you a postcard from hell
A wish you were here, camp is great
Bribed the postman with a flask of nightshade
Shook his hand through the gate
Watched as the horse limped towards
A growling blizzard at the mouth a frozen lake
I’ll never know if it finds you safely
Or how long it may take
just keep your eyes peeled at the rising steam
from storm drains and sewer grates
While most were putting the kids to bed
I was putting the beast back in the cage
Look ma, no hands, a missing fang and clawed face
Even with no mitts
I Threw a feint so committed
That threw my shadow out his shoes.
We haven’t seen each other since then.
My pocket crystal a piece of the moon,
Paint the day I died from memory
Only using shades of blue
Machete in the right hand
Searching the dumpster for my favourite tooth

(shortcut through the graveyard)

I wake up as soon as the rain stops
Amazed I’m not dead
More amazed, for once, I woke up in the same spot
Made off with a fisher-price ‘my first’ sense of self from the k-mart
Switched the tag and paid half, but I can’t return it for a gray one
I wrote you the most beautiful letter in the world,
Fifty pages-plus of all the things I’ve wanted to say, but
I jumped inside the mailbox, smeared the address, scratched your name off
I got scared, Ran home, took a shortcut through the graveyard
I’m still trapped in this maze, but I’ve made camp in a nice, little, quaint plot
When I went to open pry open the coffin lid, and, it just came off
Like it was waiting for me, the inside was pink and the sued was soft
To rage against the machine, or to rage not
If raging is a thought, you don’t deserve a machine to rage on
I’m addicted to tire spinning, I’m the personification of a drain clog,
I keep so inside myself I can watch every single, last vein froth
From the crushed soul for
the things I can’t take back, so I take apart
The residual grief and remorse, and other things that I use to make art
Because without that I’d be dancing from a rope, dangling in the dark
Living in a world I have no control, it maims my heart
That brain rot addiction
Watching the same dances to the same songs
I’ll turn off the switch when I’ve had enough
The second I hear the raindrops

(shapes like eels moving like dolphins through ash)

She was trying to get a read on me
head moving to look in my eyes
All I saw was shapes like eels
Moving like dolphins through ash
‘you don’t look like yourself today’
It’s probably cause I’m not
Like my soul left my body while sleeping
And something else stole it’s spot.
I don’t feel like myself
This is not my apartment.
Open every cupboard to find
What I was looking for
In the last one every time
every breath, every step, every thought
Is overwhelming
As every errant hair and new crease in my face makes me
More ugly
No mask will suffice today, I’m afraid
I don’t like this flesh suit I’m wearing
Or the worms making its limbs dance
It’s a phase, it’ll pass
Realities will reunite like twin flames
separated at birth
Eyes will regain their shape
And the heart will redirect the blood
To wash away the thorns in the veins

(even if an angel is the culprit)

I got taken to the brink
left there like a mug inside the sink
bring the water to the horse
don’t mean you can make it drink
Throw some wisdom at a fool
Don’t mean you can make an impression
or make him stop and look at his life and exhume any meaningful lessons
What’s a wink and a nod to a cat not paying attention?
The sound of a tree falling on a mime
I hear trees falling without anyone else around all the time
Even if an angel is the culprit
Clip the wings and rip them from the spine
That’s what we do to angels round here
What do you think we’d do to your kind?
The only love-lost is the loss of love that made us this way
And never being able to get it back
Put a picture on a milk carton, but too afraid to ask

(aucune care in the world)

Pile it high and sell it cheap
Whatever’s left you melt the heap
Then dig a hole bout a mile about,
and another couple deep
Recite a poem for everyone’s souls
Living, lost and dead
If you can believe that a soul can die
Then we should never share a bed
It’s Vendredi soir,
And it gets Vendredi noir,
Dragging a stick over a picket fence
Is like runnin’ your fingers over my heart
The tattooed gills of a shark
Back chest and arms traced in the dark
Your hand reels back like touching a flame
whispering: “no, those can’t all be scars…”
The texture’s hypnotic, ain’t it?
Come get stuck in my ruts
I’ll trade you for aucune care in the world
As long as you never ask to open the trunk
So once every myth has been debunked,
And the truth uncuffed from the lies,
We’ll meet in a telephone booth,
I think you know the one,
And we’ll see who come out alive.

(it could be fireflies)

The night snuck up on us.
While we were talking
it must’ve been hours
without knowing,
lost in conversation. And in
the eternity of our eyes
A bandit threw the sky in a sack
heaved it over his shoulder
Carried it-
Into the throat of a point blank dark
we never suspected a thing
The moonlight murmured through
Smears of charcoal and ash
like light through Crude spun burlap
it could be fireflies,
it could be a pendant dancing on firelight,
Crude shapes spinning
like Warped beams bouncing off the lake
you reach for my hand,
Curled around your heart like ribs

(cutting through bastard alley)

cutting through Bastard Alley
keeping an eye open for my people
can’t tell If they’ve mastered blending in-
or’ve been digested by The Evils
the crest on the front and names on the back
Are blurring.
Together.
I get a Slurred apology from a cat with a liquor stained jersey outside 7-11.
He makes sounds with illegible words
Sure man,
It’s cool,
Don’t worry,
Whatever,
i’m more concerned with whether
to dress for success or dress for inclement weather.
Stalling out at the intersection
looking like a portrait with the eyes cut out
The map’s sweating off my hand,
and these damn Phantoms keep giving me the run around
Now everyone around me’s talking like
they got a Gun in the mouth.
it’s hard to understand a word.
Since the muzzle had
flashed just above my ear
even the voices in my head
are Slurred

(it smells of living silhouettes)

 Tap on the glass
Of the tarantula of the year
Who’s last good boy came
A couple years before last year
Oh.

You think you’re too good for the shovel now?
They’re your bodies to bury
Doesn’t matter how they’re stacked
Or how beautiful the obituary
go ahead, pick it up
the dirt is cool against the face
today’s paradise turns into
a plot in a cemetery

I didn’t ask to fight this war
how did I wake up on the shore?

It smells of living silhouettes
And there’s more rifle shells than littlenecks

Can’t remember the last place I was
except that’s where I was

Lagging behind
All that potential
sagging the vine

Count the rings on the bloody stumps
oh my, how he’s aged
cut down at the prime
of a slave who lost his faith
once escaped