pale face

cheeks sunken

lips painted by your blood 

in whispered rasp, as tears drop pass

you ask me if your dying

 

I take your hand

Hating that I know what I know

A general impression that I've never questioned 

I whisper back, in forced composure

'They'll have to keep you here tonight'

 

all the times I've held cold hands 

said the words, talked them down

calling Chaplins in the middle of the night

pouring water sought but never swallowed

frosted in failure, lifeless in grey 

It never occurred to me, you'd end up this way

 

"Through the Echoes" plays, ironic a song as ever

at the same moment, as you drew your last 

as if the universe to my heart relate 

And I pass out on the same surgical floor

where I've stood many vagal men before

 

Dylan Thomas, whom I've quoted many times

Who seemed so right, now seemed wrong

As gentle you went beneath a cross 

On my favorite saints', St Luke's hall

Where I taught just weeks before

 

all the times I've held cold hands 

said the words, talked them down

calling Chaplins in the middle of the night

pouring water sought but never swallowed

frosted in failure, lifeless in grey 

It never occurred to me, you'd end up this way

 

bareback on my bed

his skin shines like river rock

encased like calcified stone

pluff mud and bergamot fill the air

 

says ive only ever been with one woman

I rub the rocks that have become him

that’s not a con for me I say

its ten o'clock he says

its late and his body is tired

he pleads for an earlier start, another day

 

uncertain as he's ever been 

it sounds like backing out 

so I offer him a way out

but he just lays there, paralyzed

 

so I relax my throat

and what I'm holding becomes three feet of rope

I can barely break the suction 

my mind wonders, will I die this way

 

clear his naval with my thumb

rocks held together, stuck on, by muddy pond scum

frantically tugging on his flesh

he's simply unbothered by my mortal distress

 

vacuum sealed fungus tip

hoping for a low pressure water hose

blowing radiation out my nose 

lackluster iridescent drip

like Juliet with poison on my lips

knowingly swallowing my last sip

 

bareback on my bed

his skin shines like river rock

encased like calcified stone

pluff mud and bergamot fill the air

the instruments of battle barely fit into our hands

the war of disease 

 

you tie the imperfect knot just to watch it come undone 

 

and the wounds of the broken, unseam

 

talk to me on rhythm

dance me into your rhyme

I can't say I've learned a little

while I'm sitting on your dime

 

contagion at every corner

 

we gamble a cleanly lot

 

you stick them with a dirty sword

 

chance is all they've got

 

I can count 

but I didn't count on the blood of their convictions 

the weight of the world 

the weight of the scale 

the way to bargain friction 

only to choose to give a man his heaven or to give him his hell

broken dreams on rural nights

broken dreams on rural nights

laying bareback  

fleece blanket filtered grass

dew laden body 

I'm composed of pure intentions 

clashing with the heated let down that precedes every dawn

only in song can I mention

waining gibbous before me

twig in my spine

city in my sights

you and me on rural night

 

sitting up, off to a real bed before she truly rises

but she's seen through me in the absence of light

green leaf volatiles fill the air 

and I wonder how my distress smells 

then pause to remember

one last moment to take this night in, 

before consequence crashes in

 

I speak half empty justifications in the absence of words 

pleading to the stars, and all that reflects their light

my eyes speak volumes in the red hazed liquor light

though I cannot blame me on them 

I breathe better when it's your air that I breathe

John Doe

hey John, you've got a lot to say for nothing on your mind

hey John, you got a way to make me feel like something out of absolutely nothing 

hey John, you got a lot to say and I'm quilting a tragedy from your fragmented words unkind

hey John, how long can I keep my silence up 

humming the lyrics that your mouth won't muster up

hey John, you say everything but absolutely nothing

You say it to me in

The way you let it breakthrough 

Into the glaze covering your eyes

You say it to me in

The way you try to cover it up 

but the redness can't be covered by the white of your eyes

So why do you even try 

 

hey John, you've got a lot to say for nothing on your mind

hey John, you got a way to make me feel like something out of absolutely nothing 

hey John, you got a lot to say and I'm quilting a tragedy from your fragmented words unkind

hey John, how long can I keep my silence up 

humming the lyrics that your mouth won't muster up

hey John, you say everything but absolutely nothing

 

You say it to me.