SOUND OF EVERY PROMISE She looked it in the eye I've got an empty I don't have anymore dreams I wrote a letter then I buried it Everythings exposed in the dark Empty closet empty shelf No waking moment has ever touched this I need a fear all my own Widening the cracks that run through the wall Nothing left to touch save the grains on the sill I can't fill the closet I can't fill the shelf Just want to taste your presence A hand made book, velvet shoes, a mickey mouse (breathe, breathe) The healing touch fades Nothing survives the cracked shell of time Opened my eyes to no name and white memory Her voice the voice of heroines in my sleep I couldn't tell where the stories left off and my dreams began As I closed my eyes the world I touched turned to sand She glimmers like the ice on the water floating away from me Depthless the hard white of that scar Woke to the black roar of trains passing through blurred towns (breathe, breathe why can't you why won't you breathe?) Through the camera before the roar right before the stick had hit she looked across the crowd and she told him that she loved him The blow shattered her skull I don't miss the past anymore And the music was gone
STRONGEST HUMAN BOND Six years later my twin was born Bearing all that is me Same royal stain on the upper torso Predisposed to bottom feeding his sole deviation was a predilection for making the flames dance carelessly as he said "I swore I put it out. I swear I saw it fade out." And I watched the flames rise higher than the elm and I waited and I watched the flames fade out He was the only one after that carne of reason every midwinter was the same Fading sinking fading sinking I always enjoyed that sinking fading sinking Twenty years later my twin is passed out on the couch He is passed my regard A solicitor man done told me that the strongest human bond is that of twins so that if one is accidentally maimed the other will be all the more compensated Struck a match put it out struck another and I waited I waited I waited
BYPASS The grandkids ask her questions that she can't or won't ever answer This is the inheritance that will never be passed down Over and over she tells her son they all know they all know they're all staring at me Had to come to Cleveland for her husband's bypass met a white kid in a mall who said how did you know I was one? You remind me of someone I once knew twenty years ago back in indian school Been fifteen years since i've seen your red eyes Just wanted to see the grandkids one last time I dream in fire a blaze that brings me here Don't know if I know you don't know if I care Bury the world for me I hold myself before it all Somewhere in southern south dakota just off I-90 a place I've only heard about or seen in snapshots a transplanted cabin stands speaks of her and Ducharme and when we finally go it'll be as foreign to me as it will be for you
BOTULISM, CHOLERA AND TARIK Somehow theres this old man all hair and nails making all this racket that I spy in a clear globe inside my mattress He bashes to and fro He bloodies his nose and he quits A sudden pounding on my bedroom door redirects my last eye A repairman reaches into the mattress screws in a new old man saying "They have a tendency to burn out after a while" I freak for a second and then I am fine
LIFELIKE Over the net before it got erased I read this mash note to life's undying lash We invent a more glorious accident we will bend time with speed of our weapons we will prevent the meaning of the word civilian No time for reflection no means of deterrence No need for holding camps We will simply make them disappear Come join the evacuation march from city to suburb in the name of security in the name of speed everything deregulated, disintegrated we end up defeated without there ever been a war Took the MLK off the lakeshore freeway The locals set up the customary trap for a carjack took a one way going the wrong way and when I got home I just sat there and waited for all of it to stop Continuously replaying pure speed pure war pure speed pure war We'll continuously colonize our own cities behind the wheel Its a sensation like I'm staring at the T.V. and anything I decided to ram I would simply pass through I've become pure speed
I FOUGHT DIRTY When I walked I walked as any other and when I chose to discourse it was as any other and when I fought I fought as dirty as any other Only the crone could discern what I had discovered and she laughs at my small town indiscretion crone claws for my ears cackles about the bloodletting boy take a hard look at yourself in my funhouse mirror Let's review the crime you say you sired Where's your accomplice? Where's your instrument? Where's the body? Crone midwife murmurs hears the knife cut it cut the cord I can still see her amid the shiny floors white starched uniforms and the stink of day old urine Article on the wall ignored cut the cord
ALL THIS HAS MADE ME Its a tower of water as tall as the world trade center shot at heaven at a rate of two hundred miles per hour white foam circle at surface zero boiling everything for two miles around Years before towed two boatloads full of friends and companions beyond recognition out to the open sea to be sunk He hands me two bottles of bourbon and said "Go to the officer's club and drink it off" Every day for what would end up to be the longest tow in navel history I stare back at that mangled disabled ship and realize how obsolete all this has made me We watched the film clips all the top brass were there Days later fell apart rested for six months wouldn't accept a psych disability Worked a couple of more until I retired Disclassified I will speak my peace towering wall of water racing at the ship bouncing two feet off the ocean the screaming and drifting toward surface zero six thousnad men left holding the bag
SHOCKLIGHT Such a willing slave was I catering to the most immaterial dislocations listen to this organ grinder lay waste to liver and kidney Set the selector for the visceral devises a soft word insistant pressure peach juice on lips the trace scent of gardenias the brilliance of the sun exploding over lake erie god I-80 was boring obscene nothing to see like her verbal shocklights abstractions no longer for me in the Greyhound mental lockdown in a position of sleeplessness diesel fumes snow blindness the remnants of her shocklights Wise guy that he was just made it all the worse traveling far and away from the flame out wreckage of his severing on an abandoned railroad trestle he starts a prolonged disfiguring He so depraved She so unscathed his regrets increase even as his self-respect comes back the give and take deteriorated into a confused and crawling need and he shouts down his nightly insomnia with his one thought there's nothing so disgusting as a willing slave
FEESH CRIK Parched, parched parched you may be uncomfortable don't be concerned about it some swelling may occur after it all wears off the extraction wound may bleed for a couple of hours O ye of ricochet type reduced to reptilian to help control bleeding follow this procedure go back into the quarry next to which the feesh crik is running dry let the arid heat cook your skull as fever delusions become solutions forcing identity complete with pseudonym to fill the extraction something to hide behind coward don't be fooled into actully taking a stand lets play the name game just call me the feesh crik kid sheeding five years in a weightless moment and another thing who let the killjoy in here who let laughing boy in here they say snake people are special they can take the bite transmutate poison into blood
AS LONG AS THE TURNPIKE Greetings from the third most toxic state in the grand 'ole U.S.A. Dear sir the above creditor has referred their claim against you to this office we are authorized to take action necessary to secure final determination of your debt failure to result will result in you being held accountable for the consequence of your neglect Go ahead if you're to be my accountant all those times I've mistaken your best intention go ahead promise what you can never deliver You and I repeatedly have conversation so toxic so false its waste should be shot in those deep injection wells located outside of Fremont go ahead stuff your sad little tale into the autoclave You and I repeatedly have conversation so toxic so false its waste should be destroyed in the world's largest burner soon to be built on the banks of the Ohio the last time you whistled in from out of state hauling medical waste and misdirected grudge as long as the turnpike this time I wash my hands of it all