Crooked Miles & Coyote Smiles

12:10 a.m. Floor's alive
with our shuffling feet...
Our voices laugh through songs,
we catalog each other's faces
as if we'd only just met...
          I swing through the amber light
          with a stifled
               grin
to cover times like this.

1:10 a.m. Golden Rose.
Watch the sidewalk rise...
to meet my falling feet
as the night swells up around me.
I'm one of 10,000 lights...
          that drag their way towards dawn
          with a coyote
               smile
I cover miles of
               haunted streets.

I've taken time untangling years. I find
that the kindest fill up dents
which the uncouthest leave behind:
               the shapes of
          hard and sharpened edges?
               They're still present.
                But covered for now.

It's 2 a.m. Long stumble home
and my burnt voice sings...
its way through gravel songs
that we've kept in our back pockets.
So long they've kept us all warm...
          Nights like this are golden notes
          in a pyrite
               tune.
Keep me like I keep you.

Time Trial

If you're keeping watch,
then I'll trade you shifts now.
I've been awake for hours. Almost light out.
Sleep is the distant, departed pal who
                                   never comes around.
'Cuz I've got a skull
that's filled up with dead ends,
false starts and last tries and lost friends.
I'll be awake so I guess it's useless
                                    standing guard for me.

Who's standing guard for me?

Ran out of cards to play.
Folded at the table
          this apartment stays small.
The ceiling's falling in
                                              again;
all that I can say is that
           it's alright
   though these nights
       will close tight
'round my neck, it's what I'm expecting these days.


When you change your mind,
you know where to find me:
locked up inside or on dim streets,
out after drinks and sifting through memories
                                   I just can't let go.
The sounds of the night
are drowned out by your voice--
--circles my head like halos of streetlights
outside the liquor store on the corner
                                    where they know my name.

Just don't forget my name.

Game's up, my hand is laid.
Folded at the table
          this neighborhood stays small.
Sidewalks' destinations
                                              are the
same. All I can say is that:
           it's alright
    though these nights
        will close tight
'round my neck, it's all I know anyway.

Dead Languages

My tired heart revives
when Fall arrives
and Summer dies.
Yeah, it comes back to life
at least part-way, sometimes.
               So paint me
               red and gold
       and washed-out green
                  in sunset.

The year seeks sleep
                              I'm piling leaves.
A breeze on evening,
                              Autumn flesh.
October's weary, ragged breaths
time out these restless, rustling footsteps.

               I can smell the solemn things
               the dying year would say to me
               if it could force its sibilant wind
                                into shape--
--if it could speak in consonance
to my own alliterative silence
and I could keep beats
               as stresses released:
"Where were we          when water froze
for the first time          in the fast waning warm?"

I seek out the sanguine;
                              I've been too combustible.
                              But I'm finally comfortable
with speaking dead language
with tongue all languid.
                               Let languish
cloying heat and raise bumps
               on the skin of my arm
                       like you did
                   when I was four,
playing alone in the rain in the Langleys' yard.

Held up under heavy arms,
buoyed by cool Autumn breath,
I found a way to quiet alarms in my
                              chest
           when I was 27...

Nothing's ever real red gold
except for in the Fall.
So guild me slow and let me go
               if all you've got
               are Summer arms.

Acme Pits

It's 2 o'clock in the morning now.
I'm on a late night drive to the Acme pit mines.
With muddy thoughts in a midnight mind,
a mound of gravel in my guts,
I'm churning up
                  The last 4 years
and knocking back a cocktail
                   of wins and losses.
Wyoming night in the early Autumn.
Do you wanna come for a drive?

Take me back to that Winter night
when we walked outside
and filled cold air with our voices.
We set the icy, empty streets to rights,
and just talked all night
until our frozen throats thawed out.

3:10 a.m. It's still warm outside.
The gravel speaks, with each step, under my feet.
Tally up the feet and miles I've gone,
the feet and miles we have lived.
A memory walk
                  is vignette stops:
Those nights we spent drinking wine
                  on your rooftop.
Wyoming night in the heat of Summer.
Do you wanna come for a drive?

Thinking back on that April night
when we stayed inside
and hid from rain in the Springtime.
We let our favorite records spin all night
while it soaked outside
until the red wine sky dried out.

An empty ghost town. 3:45.
Imprints of gravel on my legs are a star map
I'll follow back to the times we had
through mounting years and empty space.
A distant place
                 I'm dredging up.
The one laid down; woven thick
                 in our fibers.
The map is laid out but I know my way.
So do you wanna come for a drive?

Help! I'm 30!

Pretty soon I'm gonna wake up
in a fucking Summer heat wave,
sweating bullets down the barrel
of the shit I still can't handle.
                       (Like relation-
                       -ships or regret
                      managment or
                   barely making rent!)
I don't feel any different--
still a stupid, clumsy kid
swing-and-missing, striking out
and fucking breathing out my mouth
as I turn
           and I slouch
and shuffle back to the dugout.

I'M ON A RAFT ON LAKE DeSMET
IT'S GOT A FISH HOOK TEAR IN IT
I'M SINKING FAST
SO WHERE'S MY DAD!?
I ONLY SORTA-KINDA SWIM!
Only now the raft's a loan
for lessons learned that just won't float
and the lake's this god damn town,
my stupid habits and the time
I always waste on whiny frowns,
and hanging hats
               on embarrassing shit!

I'm 29 and I'm thinking
     that Catch-Up's just a game I'm not winning.
Under a pile of mail with a cheap grin,
cringe away and close the blinds
and I'm calling in sick--
yeah I'll call in again
if it'll spare me from the glaring truth.

I'm 29 for a week more.
     For fifty-two I swore not to keep score
with the scars from skinned up knees or my credit.
Lock the door and draw the blinds
and I'll call it a win--
yeah I'll call it a win
if it'll spare me from the glaring truth
                          of a decade
                   containing my biggest loss.
(NOTE: I have these bad habits of getting older and of listening to Bomb The Music Industry!)