The Joy of Coke

A bag is thrown over your head as a kid
To keep germs and ideas from tunneling in
Yet you're stubbing your double-joint foot on your shin
Does no one care to know?
That you take the elevator to your invisible jet
And it's not nearly fast enough but it's as fast as they get
And let's get out the camera when you take your first shit
And relive it in a year.

When you're feeling like your love is just a surrogate child
When your diseases win the walkathon and smirk in their stride
When artificial lighting burns a hole through the night
Does no one know to care?
About your sense of belonging to an underground cult
Toasting your health with your head in the smoke
And if the children of the world can find joy from a coke
Can we mass-produce that here?
Another million shrink-wrapped happy meal treats
Another million matches on the fuse in the East
Another million bankers with nothing to eat
But their stomachs full of dimes

Spicy

Showing off your tonsils at the mouth of hell.
Tree and tinsel eat out your landfill.

In all angles, we love light but fuck pigment.
And there's a difference because your seventh-grade girlfriend told you so while she was sighing with experience.
And there's no difference because you no longer believe in variety as a prerequisite to existence.
Life is spicy enough and artificially flavored to taste like it's telling you secrets behind its fronts.

Not Your Moon

Found in our depths
Our spaceships collapse
(No motor oil in outer space)
Can't breathe can't spit
Tell ourselves to cool it
You're too hot inside
Set sheets ablaze
Our flags heat us for days
Too much so soon
And it's not your moon

Heart of Progress

Our sherpa guide he wanders
Into the heart of progress
Machines for clones or soft serve
Milked cows long gone and butchered
Ler go, your mines are shaky
Dust rise and run for safety
You are the best we've got yet
Your eyes match the living room set
Talk a lot and I apologize
Over dinners of pasta bowties
Get some while you've still got it
Feet grow and shoes just won't fit
You like when things are alright
My eyes dry out in the sunlight

Greeted

I'm going to tie your laces like a flutterfly in the heart of July
And when we're done I'll have something to scrape off the soles of my shoes
From horizontal walking through the gates of some fine cities.

And we'll be greeted as liberators.

Throb

Drinking water just cold enough to create that fine throat sensation
Feeling a breeze on my naked feet

And a heat rises off the floor
And an invisible crowd throbs to silent music
And I throb with them

Morning

My breath aches of sleep and bottled water.

I just erased a sentence I shouldn't have.

Sunscreen

And the smell of sunscreen permeates
Your innards
Where you keep your favorite things
Your heartburns and diamonds

And for one second I was aching with whatever

At Night

Come breathe with me for a while
Or not
Or yes
Options for the inept
(You wish you'd slept)
(At night)

Tell Yourself

Let's go so far to ingest the good things from this world
The pigments which color our cheeks
And we'll race each other to the ends
That will never be there
And so we'll speak in foreign tongues newly inherited from natives
Who tell us they like our jeans
We'll talk about everything like it's something to talk about
Tell yourself everything no one ever told you as a kid


Why would our own cigarettes betray us even as they ash
Run into walls and get dizzy with yourself
Fuck off fuck on

Imploding

My body's so tight I feel like imploding into myself and then back again and then someone should come along with a vacuum and suck me up and dump me in a landfill and forget about me while I slowly sink into the soil and poison the water supply, which pregnant women will drink and then breed and raise children who will grow up and implode in a similar manner and maybe they'll hate me for it and maybe I'll hate myself for being so goddamn implodable.

Christening

5 hour drive.
5 hour drive.
5 hour drive.
5 hour drive.
5 hour drive.
Late. We are late.
A beard is eating my uncle's face.
(He suffocates.)
A line of white babies.
One by one.
Assembly line of Christ.
A paper dove.
It whispers: "Once the Holy Spirit comes in you, you will be filled with power."
Another uncle, not by blood. He takes photographs, captures images of tradition (repetition repetition.)
Go in peace. Get out of my church.
Barbecue.

Walking

I walk out of my house in sync to whatever music has found its way out of my headphones.
The smell of barbecue and exhaust as I walk the street.
A line of cars in front of the church.
I didn't know that many people still believed in God.
The deliciously seedy back-alleys of Newton.
A wave to the guy who looks like my uncle when he lets me walk in front of his truck.
Tying my shoe in the Jewish Center parking lot.
An old man. His bicycle. His toothless grin.
Inhale lilac pollen and let it settle inside my lungs.
Feel the sun soak into my skin and cook me from the inside out.
Hear the repetition of my own footsteps against asphalt.
Am reassured that things are still beautiful.

Not While The Sun

If it’s not love
It’s life
I crave
And so
Behave
Accordingly
If it’s not life
It’s mine
I’ll waste
But not
Today
Not while
The sun
Is
Shining

Cut That Rug

I really like the Mint Chicks.
And dancing.

The Mint Chicks -- This is Your Last Chance to be Famous My Love

Frontier Talk

I’m but a traveling magician
And you’re conceited with your pain
I can fill earlobes with my frontier talk
Doctors say you’ll never talk again

So you’ll be a great mute
Speechless mouth tongue-tied with city smog
Your graffiti’d arms tell the tale of someone’s fix

So you’ll be a seer
A Cyclops among the zero-eyed
A damn good source for rumors but
It’s too easy for you to fall asleep at night

Oppressive sunny shores haunt your walls from their postcards
A foster home landscape develops in front of your eyes
A damn good excuse for getting shitfaced
My hands on the wheel yet unable to drive

When your voice plays tricks in your throat
When any handsome douchebag can buy your vote
When my mouth moves too slow
To apologize for the things I’ve thrown

Fever (Tremble)

I tremble with a fever that you can't catch
It burns my insides. It keeps me awake at night
But to you it's just a thing of amusement.
You've had it too many times and I'm trying not to lose it.

If the fire goes out I jump into the flames again
If I'm wrong I don't want to know about until too late.
Catch a broken clock with my one good hand.
It's this grit and persistence that I guess you can't stand.

Is it my own fault I'll never be enough?
It's been too long since I last wisened up.

I tremble with a fever that you can't catch
I point out spectacles that you say you don't see
I watch your fickle mirror, improperly refracting light.
It takes everything I got not to die each night.

You help me find excuses to keep hanging on
You're the carrot I know that I will never catch
And I'm the ass still chasing you
And love is the plow that I'm tied to.

You're both the revolution and the aristocracy.
I love you to death but I know you're too good for me.

You're both the judge and the executioner, you see.
You're noble and fair, but you're still going to kill me.

You led me along so many times before.
I'm a handbag dog, cute but disposable
Where would you be if I ever got loose?
Sometimes this leash feels more like a noose.

She laughs too hard and I can feel her lungs
Just a layer of skin away from my palms
Line up your faults and love them like I always do
Take one look at the type of people that I lie to

So It Goes

Kurt Vonnegut: 1922-2007

Puppy < Tiger

I'm not exactly new to the wonderful world of blogging. I had one of these puppies before. But for one reason or other, the puppy got too old to play fetch like we used to, and the veterinary bills started piling up. and it became a chore to take it for walks and pick up its shit. So I took the puppy out back and I shot it.

And then I bought a new puppy, and I named it Maxwell Fights the Tiger
because, when it comes down to it, that's what I do best.