True Story

Looking back now I can taste February like it was last week.

The acrid flavor of winter rises in my throat and miles and millennia have passed away. These hallways haunted with dreams and failures. What a small corner of the world for such epic nonsense and leaving. The place is ripe with leaving and crawling with the bedbugs of change.

This was never forever. But we settled against our better judgement and started taking up the notion of home.Wherever we hung out hearts. Strung out like laundry in the alleyways. Pinched and soggy, flapping heavily against a meager breeze. All around the cards are falling like leaves of September.

Now for the disbanding. Now for the disarming. Now starts the countdown. The annihilation of the camp. There will be nothing left but an empty fire pit and a lost group of ribbons tangled in a tree limb. Plastic bag in the wind. 

We will all go from here and when we've nailed our hearts to somebody elses wall we'll look at the shadow of a beer can and weep for what we couldn't keep and where we couldn't stay.

Perfume of cigarette smoke and lashes of ashes.

Sets of dirty hands around the last supper table- All the white linens gone grey. I will miss you. Many moons from now I will remember how our voices bounced off the bricks, how the music was always too loud and the dirty dishes sat on the kitchen floor with mice running over them. How there was always piss on the seat and never any toilet paper and the angry look written in Spanish on the cleaning lady's face.

I will remember the tags on your walls, and the fingerprints everywhere, and the dirt. The smell of weed smoke and stale liquor, spoiled milk and bleach. Old mildew. Bad raves, fairydust, drugs and pipes. Flip flops in the shower with no curtain. Flies in the hallways. Hot plates on fire. I will remember the hungry nights, and the bellies full of wanting, and the eyes full of dollar signs and all the endlessly empty pockets.

Pale light up on the morning-after sleepless night tableau. Hipster eyes adjusting to the sun, Nosferatu rubs the hangover from his temples and walks his pit bull up to the corner bodega so he can buy some smokes. This is the future and everyone wears Elvis Costello frames and rides their grandmothers bicycle with no brakes. Doughnuts are vegan. Pizza is free. PBR has replaced the water in the East River. Williamsburg has swallowed all of Brooklyn. And we're all moving out.

I get to weeping- thinking about everything left behind. You and me and the Mac truck. Rusting, rusting, rusting, and needing proof that we existed. Ancient History. That there was purpose and meaning. 

Or maybe not...

You know that monster on the roof? Well he's lying in a pile; King of the Meserole skyline, now dismantled and nothing but splinters and kindling. Last night we sat waiting for the slow burn in your absence and he gave me good advice. He said, "Somedays you exist, Kid, and then maybe one day, you don't anymore... But we were here."

Missa Pro Defunctis

I'll bury your ashes out back-

Between the wheel barrel and the old Mac truck.

Where we started.

Among the spray paint hieroglyphics and busted glass.

I'll bury your ashes out back.

Dust in my eyes and clay under my fingernails, 

I won't stop digging til the coffee can coffin

is a true six feet under. 

I'll bury your ashes out back

and lay you beside the unmarked graves of children, 

and a cat named Christmas,

and all of our good graces.

I'll bury your ashes out back,

under the pile of trash in the corner

where all the weeds grow thick

and wild.

I'll bury your ashes out back

as mourning prayers fall from my eyes,

I father, son and holy ghost you 

into the rocks and the roots and the brickyard run off.

Ashes to ashes and rust to dust...

Out back- Hipster graveyard.

Covered in covetous vines.

I'll bury you.

PLAGUED

Slap in the face and one more door to slam.

End of the rave, end of the day, start of new noise and rage.

Sound and fury, one kick to the solar-plexus, and

"Vengeance is mine saith the Lord".

I sit on my hands.

I sit on my hands. 

I SIT ON MY HANDS AND I BITE MY TONGUE.

A plague on all our houses and we are the enemy,

the battle-lines being drawn. 

Slight me not, and force no hand.

I want no quarrel with you.

But do you bite your thumb at me, sir?

Children bearing the sins of their fathers

with drooping shoulders and shitty posture.

Down on me..Down on me...

Down on Desolation Row.

We row-row our little boats

upstream, uphill, both ways

and struggle struggle struggle.

Go on and fight til all the piss and vinegar

have worn you thin and sick.

I will pretend to ignore the call of war.

I sit on my hands.

I sit on my hands and I bite my tongue...

And I pray for our grace.

A Sudden Spring Forward

Unexpected

and pleasantly surprising.

Carried into Monday morning

full of February sunshine

and the anticipation of spring blossoming;

Petals unfurling and

darling buds of May-

Rough winds do shake

what we mildly maintain

and what we never saw coming

Into one glorious sidewalk tornado.

What's been done and undone swirls together

against an urban graffiti sky while

the brick stacks out back bake in the burn

of setting suns and longings left unspoken.

TATTOOED GYPSY & THE BURNING BLUE EYED GOOD BYE BLUES

Scabbing tattoo gypsy heart;

Red around the edges-

Raw and aching to be scratched.

Try a little tenderness.

Don't baby it too much.

Stay and go and come away again soon, with me.

Down these halls

Painted over words we let slip

Then slide...

You just go for the ride and I stand behind you

watching you walk away.

It's the smell of piss and shit and blood on a Saturday morning after;

Someone stole your shower head and it's too cold to do laundry.

It's "Thank God the bar's across the street" and  "Are you gonna eat those fries?".

It's a heavy bass line that makes you wanna take your clothes off and dance and it's too cold to sleep alone.

52 card pick up under the back stairwell.

Inky finger print bruises on my hips.

Angry ruby wound;

tight around my wrist like twist ties 

and the ties that bind, and the rope we wind up with 

like a noose turned neck tie.

We run. We hide. And seek. 

We find. And blind eye turn on each other.

While we huddle together against the

concrete chill of warehouse heater blues

hit the snooze button one more time

Before out the door we stumble.

Mumble into our scarves and the scars

we carved into our arms.

Dollar coins and subway rides to work to work to work

We pray this will all just work.

And I'm done with I love you's from far away lips

On this unwashed Monday, but at least my clothes are clean

even if my mouth is dirty, and my mind is dirty and 

my fingernails are covered in war paint and I'm down in this trench of a gutter

with just a hot plate and some styrofoam cups to raise up

and rally myself against the day.

Scabbing angry tattooed gypsy soul;

Those sour words at the back of my throat 

Let loose and I let them. 

Bite and burn like acid on that loving heart.

To break those chains and break myself apart 

and find the marrow worth saving,

Braving this skin that I'm in.

Freezing, bleeding, needing and believing 

I can begin again-

tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow....