I keep crushing heartbeats

With errant steps

Bone splinters

And blood in shoe

Lust for nature

Making pregnant organic dirt

Make whores become harvest

And waste turns taboo

Because no one lives anymore

Just plastic and careful

Epoxy-humanity

A blend of intention and blood

Becomes stone

Our faces smeared on the mountain

Our elders raging against shame

A village waiting to become ghosts

A world summoning the dead

she

tried her

best to stop

falling fast for

people who will not

last and people who could

not care less except for when

she was undressed and people like

him with big words, sophistication

and an i r r e s i s t i b l e temptation.

At the table writing to War Pigs Saturday, summer hanging on

tooth and nail

shot of Blanton’s to drain the

remains: jockey riding cork and riff and the

fucking weight of these vocals

the distinctiveness

the acid blood encased in metal

giants ahead of their time

sitting here thinking about

the music that raised me

from classic country

to punk

to thrash

to Coltrane

to Jane’s

to Slayer, Simone, Buckley

Don Williams

and along the entire thread that spirals

umbilical

from

the head to the keys

as it was before any type of screen

and like it is now, across the

static of technology

remaining still is the grip of

centuries

the ink well of Dos

and the parchment of

Schopenhauer

the speed of a laptop

or touch screen

all of it is a

vessel of speed stopping time

with words to music

all the greats who’ve gone before

to pave inroads

for such broken thoughts

of youth

that ran into cities of age

and somehow

boulevards of luck

after alleys of shit and sweat

and gamble

rolled over and exposed

the fields lush green

the smell of published books

the scars less visible across

the knuckles

the bullshit edge of

labor fields at dawn

or the fucking faces in the factories

and warehouses

traded off to anecdotes,

to stories over

beers in Europe

or Texas

or from the table

while Black Sabbath

reminds me how bad

and good today exactly is

the metal pours out

from the speakers

across the table

down my arms

onto the

broken roads

and boulevards

into the cities

moving

toward

you.

an ominous haze

muted music, the thumping of the beat

in rhythm with my

racing heart

and ribbons of red and black dresses swim

in my vision

but somehow through the fog of alcoholic mistakes,

She stands out.

a fire of confidence and beauty, I stumble over

and touch without thinking

and to my surprise

a gentle hand grasps mine

pulls me further away

but I know I am somehow getting closer to-

to what? I don't know, can't tell, my head-

I decide to stop thinking.

and her hand is still with mine

and I can barely tell that that hand is my own.

but She is all that I want, all that I need, so I

proceed.

to take off my clothes, to take off my mask

to give away what I've already lost

and I'm lost

in her eyes

in her thighs

in her

sweet smell of beauty and passion and

it's the morning

and

I'm alone.