Smoker 28

I do not know how we keep coming up with the same lighters,
but if you are laughing
I am laughing too.  And I'm glad we have the same taste
in colors and thumb grips,
but more importantly:
why you gotta like my colors, nigga?
Playing.  But seriously, it has been a joy.
The talking to you.
We should trade knives some time.

Now Now, Honey Bee

I have been looking at your plastic basket
to gauge where you are on another Monday.
I can't.  But here is what I will do.
I will pitch two pennies across the counter
like jacks in a palm and the ball in the air.
And you can glance over your shoulder,
but I will pretend anyway,
and manufacture memory,
and we will have a moment, Honey Bee.
A second or two
where I know you and you know me
as well and good intentions will have
for once
prevailed and spared change and unbroken
big bills will wait and for two point three seconds
someone will hear about that moron
with too many pennies
and not enough reason not to.

Candy Plus. No Reward, Alright.

Sugar sugared sloppy seconds,
long eyelashes and razor blades,
cotton balls and lazy dazes,
we had something
to make kids pace and
some ways to kick doors in on faces.

I was wondering if you might take them
panties off and give my nose a hosing
with the thickness of fabric laced up graces
or maybe laceless shoe stomp
my itty bitty passions one two timer
going hard or not at all with something
cover eyes and smile and turn it up?

I'm not in it.  I thought different.
When I coke dialed I thought maybe
you could get me and you were
half a sister, maybe brother, and you'd cover
the split and difference in this instance
I think softly while you talk me down
from edges and in the hedges

squatting, pissing, I am missing
all the things you keep on saying
half significant.  It is catching,
something hatching in the spaces
where I cannot manage to still sit still.
It comes on back and inside

I am okay because I am with you.
You are not with me, mind tricking and tricking
and I am sneezing a little bit because my nose
is connected to my dick and I
have to stop being so forward
if I want to make a dime.

Smoker 27

Watching the music evolve and knowing
I can't do what I used to.
Cannot do what I am used to.

It all plays in familiar notes
and I am getting
closer all of the time.

Phantom Insects

It's not that I want you to die.
It is that there is no place
I can go and it all keeps coming
out from the inside and I've been
trying to smile for you
and trying
to get back to where I belong.
The place where my skin
doesn't crawl on its own.

Vapor Trails

When is your birthday?
When is your birthday.

I've been meaning to buy you something
you couldn't get on your own.

It's been good waking up
without night lights.  It's taken practice.

Because you're breaking my heart.
I do not know you.

But you do not know me either,
and that counts for something, doesn't it?

Avocados are in short supply,
the news tells me.

I heard many bees were dying and
we have hurricanes on the horizon.

Who would you kiss
given the zombie apocalypse?

And hard times.  I look at the sky and I
look at you and I imagine you are

looking back at me
from where you are

and it all makes better sense
from up there.

Dander

Keeping up with the Jones's and the Sally's and the
Michael's and the Ron's and
shaking it off and
shaking it out on the back roads.

Kippers.  Kippers, kippers
kippers, and capers
I hope I made a good impression
on the people I will
never see again or maybe
at the wedding.

Shampoo is cheap, but
time stays expensive.
Love me, love me, love me,
God damn it.  Touch my skin
the way I chase after you
this once.  Please?

Or don't.  I'll understand either
way.  And we'll be back.  Banging.
There needs to be a name
for these kinds of creations.
I'll name it.  I'll name it and rip
something out of experience
and slant rhymes
and
all
together
now.

Us

After Cold Cave's "The Great Pan Is Dead"

They say we've got a lot of work to do
and I know
it's true.
Would you be mad at me
if I told you
I didn't care?
If I told you I was
still hunting
for something new and familiar and gold and
rust at once?

I said I would pick up guitar.
I still plan to.
I know people will say
what they will.
There's no shame in that.  Honey child,
there's no shame in that.

Verse

The part of you that
cannot sleep with the lights off
catches on the corners high
where the windows meet
the ceiling and shadows
lurch drunk on television glow.

When they die, they've nowhere to go
but down into the closets inside your skin
like Peckers into little houses
they will bore through
when they're hungry enough
to hear the voices inside your walls,
plain as day.

Ring em Up

I'm pocket protector,
Lifetimes of lecture
Hard times and left turns

It's a full time job
To be without a care
Not meeting your eyes
Until I'm there.