Bestys

and you want to come back in here
like some kind of god damned tourist,
like some kind of season ticket holder
with a soda can and a discount
and four kids
and enough bags
to put away a chop sawed pig?
You want to come back in here
with metal detectors blowing off sounds
like broadsides and enough junk
in your veins to make contact highs at
twenty paces?  You want my arms
around you like I haven't dreamed
dreams of putting your face in
a table mounted vise?
And you want to come back in here
like some kind of god damned
hand stamped tourist?

Without

To be honest,
I've been lying
about the whole thing
to myself.
It doesn't make the sunrises
any less heart raking.
It hasn't made the nights
any less challenging.
Why are you working me over?
No one got hurt.
No one you knew.

Brooklyn Aire

There's something that comes out of the bricks
in Brooklyn when the sun peeks over the Atlantic
and hits the stone.  Something borne in the air
when the motors gun and the guns and sirens quiet
and everyone stares down the same barrel of
go and get it if you want it.  There's something
that comes off the fire escapes as they start to bake
and the meters and their readers and
the bulbs above the subway gates.  Made.  Earned.
There's something in the collar as you start to sweat
another god damned Brooklyn day through.
Something that follows, wherever else you go,
something you can almost taste wherever else sunrise finds you.

Aspect Ratio

The things that make you useful
are the same things that make you
difficult.
I still love us.  We make a great