Loose Tie

Snakebit Sunday nights
            Full of cobra fang pints,
Like off-rhymed lines
Or undercooked rice,
take awhile to pile up
but taste like nosebleeds or pennies
halfway through Monday

And it's not always a bad thing...

So bring the bees in your bonnet
        When you come to play dice

But, if the spirit is with you
Just loosen its tie
And hold your misgivings down tight.

The ride won't be rough,
But it might get surreal.
Sealed lips won't sink you, though.

Up the ante, charm the snakes
And sup on sterile rumors
       'til the talk starts to abate

Calm Rationale

She's got no need for nostalgia:
tossing bricks through bodega windows
           is only a diversion--
An assessment, anyway--the bright side:

It's easier to get in now--accessible
And old men's ghost stories go
          wailing out the window
         and drift right up to her doorstep
       on nighs she doesn't even want to leave
And, hey--it could be a catchy gimmick
        (if admittedly kitsch)
"The Hole-in-the-Window Hole in the Wall"
         Call it local color...
Too highbrow and hot in there, anyhow
       (before the brick)

And what's a window anyway,
 but a hole with some glass over it?

Anchors Away

Somewhere by the airport
Someone like an old friend
     Exhales into the night time
A foggy line to trace the outline
     of the crackling winter skyline
Which will likely meet with my line
     that I exhaled by the old high school
     while gazing out Northeast

And snowdrops work their way down
Through the pocked, decaying night sky
     But the roots below the roadlines
That were laid down by our forebears
     begin to shake a dusting on
Our slowly hazing heads

And the maps divorce their meanings
While the rats leap in the drink
And those roots release their moorings
     for to favor freezing night

So while the city soundly sleeps
     so too it does disintegrate
And shreiks a silent death knell
Back behind its dimming lights

So I think that I must tell you
--though my mouth fills up with foamy words
   all dying in my throat--
     if your heart is still all tissue
     and stubbornly still beats...

...Congratulations.

Kid's Mad, See?

Hey, kid! What's new!?
How long has it been since you got disillusioned
     And checked
     Your grin
At the door where you still paid to get in?

In another sub-par year,
Will you still be here?
Wondering what became of what you used to love

We all come back
     Each time, each night, with flush faced wishes
And you come back
     To sit alone and drink while bitchin'
Every night still goes down smooth here
But "it got awful..."
So why not just leave?

Hey, kid! What say?
How long ago'd you throw the towel in
     And check
     Your grin
At the door where you still payed to get in?

In another sub-par year
Will you still be here
Hating everything that we still really love?