heat lightning

between the lines of your letter there is the dark of an overpass,

there is a crowd flinching and covering its ears against a baby's cries,

and an eternal catholic guilt. i read and feel the rapture has come

and i was not chosen. i am the bottle after the wine's been drunk,

the castle after the royalty's been beheaded, a tandem bicycle

with no riders at all. this letter has been written before;

i am not the only person who has felt the world end in the mail,

but it feels like it.

when the world really ends they'll be laughing at me and dying.

red touches yellow

instead of organs i have snakes

in a sheep shank, not

a stomach, a liver, a gall bladder,

although i once had intestines, now

a length of garden hose.

a harpsichord full of termites for a soul,

dry rusty music like the wind

wrestling the high grass.

they fight like it's a game;

i don't play to win, i play to kill.

disguised as a bottle in a game

at a carnival where they play fair.

someone always stands me up again.

i don't want to play anymore;

i'd rather stay down.

i was just an empty frame before i met you, if you can picture that.

tornado vs hurricane

i'll tear down the barn before i let my horses out;

i'll cross the median and stay there. even

sail the whole fleet into the docks.

break all four walls. throw my vcr

through the ticket window of a movie theater.

leave the shades open. i'll even leave.

if i'm going anywhere, it's too far.

umbrellas on the beach flowers in the desert.

flags planted by refugees in the no-man's-land between the water's edge

and the point at which civilization ends.

nobody can afford to live here; all are deported.

here i am buried and forgotten.

it's not a game when the tide's coming in.

my heart's the quarry it's full of stone.
and it's sinking to the bottom of the barrel
of a gun. my heart's a magnet and people
are not made of metal. your eyes are a prism
breaking up my heart but it's not light
it's heavy. and i'm strong,
i carry it everywhere i go.
but i'm not going to go there.

i had no power before but now my candles are going out.

the blinds are drawn; isolation is my art.

like a houseplant trying to flee

through an open window,

like a tree digging escape tunnels

and filling them.

a train derailing to get off track.

all the candles have gone out here. i'll be over soon.

there are skidmarks careening towards the median,

like deer paths through the woods at scout camp.

stories i cannot follow, was never allowed to.

driving home drunk through the rain and fog

and the water below every bridge calling me like a ghost.

there's a swamp in my head,

and i've fallen into it.

i've got an alligator mouth it's so hard to open up.

christ slept for three days

but i have to rise again every morning.

tonight's a night when every light is green,

the lamp posts all hold candles to our victory,

and the wind is whistling for you - for you!

tonight, our hammers ring like church bells

and the nails in our coffins are perfectly manicured.

(my casket is always open to you)

i can relate to the man in the moon, to a lost balloon rising to its end. but there's no child crying for me now. you might shed a tear, but only like a snake sheds its skin; and it'd be with less effort. i've departed your horizon now and with no amount of spinning can the earth carry me back to you. but if i looked good riding into that sunset just remember that night still falls for cowboys.

i'm a vine of ivy and i remember all the concrete i've splintered, all the crumbled hearts i've crept through. there's a gun in my throat and i have gavels for fists, i remember shooting you down beating you down. staring you down i had a set of keys made to unlock our eyes. tangled like vines of ivy, like roots i don't have anymore. all torn up the damage is already done. weeding me out of your heart i'll take a piece with me i'm keeping the peace. ivy in the morning bathing in dew and i don't remember it all but most.

they'll be mining the night skies for diamonds soon to satisfy the appetites of all the lovers. digging deep black holes. stroking the moon's thighs, lighting her candle. my mind orbiting the voids. it's frigid and barren in space but i've got that covered on earth. the spaces between my thoughts are deep black holes. still digging. rhinestones in my eyes not diamonds worthless but nice to look at. sad canoes sailing across the planet's wallpaper. look up when it's dark it's impossible to miss me.

like sand into glass and look how brittle i've become

out in the rain grime eroding my features into a statue's erased face. i never looked that good anyways. hold me in your sights like a hostage situation and if you have a shot take it. don't leave me alone out here its cold. hold me in your arms like we're putting on a production you playing icarus and me i'll be the sun. an enlightening stroke of genius, god's camera flash. we've all been captured. can't keep my thoughts straight can't keep my eyes straight on the road. i'm not alone out here i'm just in bad company. you understand how that goes. you're a police cruiser waiting for me to slip up and i won't help fill your quota. set it to cruise control. i'm always on cruise control and me and my tires burning up into puddles of sweat. but i shine too quiet and slow. hold me in your arms like sand and in the middle of the night i'll slip away while you sleep.

flies on the flypaper dense as cars in bad traffic, and it's hot like hell's a/c is broken. the world spinning on a microwave plate, or it feels like it. no vultures here. i'm cannibalizing myself. melting myself down like scrap metal. implying my basic parts have some use. collect myself off the street out of the gutters entering a recycling program 5 cents in eligible states 10 cents in michigan! i can i can i can't.

streetlights my constellations, a sailor's guiding star. there's no wind in these sails, buddy. you better row.

my throat an empty town where the words would echo if given voice. a rainy ghost town dissolving in water. a child: 'where do butterflies go when it rains?' but i know that one already. the undersides of leaves, the underside of my stomach; butterflies hide in the millimeters before the fuel light goes on. i set the car to cruise control, miss my exit, don't turn back. a misadventure in begging at a gas station - 'i don't normally do this...' i don't do anything normally. my ears my mouth a sewer for wasted concern. rather draining. yours or mine? the fuel light stays on. 'is there anyone you can call?' yes, ma'am, but no one i can reach. the sky is white, blank; a pair of birds brave soldiers crossing the field. it rained already, it is done now, but the clouds are not gone; regrouping. the second assault. bullets or tears? 'what could have precipitated this?' a joke! yes, it was all a joke.

the highway a coloring book,

red the only color i have,

and i, never so good at keeping between the lines.

i'm not tempted to swim in your private pool,

i don't like swimming in circles.

i'll lay out.

it's all deciduous here, because it's

temporary, or maybe temperate.

always the fall. don't leave;

if you do, i'll leave too,

in a different direction.

(towards the pines, towards the needles)

your horse was dead before it hit the starting gate.

i'm staying out late tonight, i've got nowhere

to go i'm somewhere between nowhere and home.

you stand to lose a lot, you should sit for this kind of news.

my legs are shot, take me out back

and shoot me. i'm not going anywhere.

saddle me up!

the bridge over the highway watching the headlights rush and pass

they leave me behind i'm always

left behind

waiting to fall asleep my legs are getting ahead of my head. lights out.