American Invitation
Time. 7:00 pm, June 5th, Some years work
better than most, maybe in the past maybe
a bicentennial deal or maybe V-J day it
never mattered much to us.
Location. The metalloid corridors of some
soup-fed tramp’s version of the American Dream.
It’s as if stopping a train could be done with
a firecracker and a rugged determination.
What to bring. Yourself and your standard, slick
haired man with a chest you might like to
see. plus booze. something Russian because
countering culture is an American pride.
Who to leave at home. You’re fair-skinned,
temple shut, song humming, nun of a sister.
What is family to a warlord? What is war to a
rifle? leave all that shit at home we don’t discuss that.
What we’ll do. 8:00 pm, assuming each guest has
arrived we will dance. careless and predictably.
Our heads, our opiates, a gentile’s basic operation of
music. 9:00 pm assuming we’re hungry we will likely starve.
All of this plus a guest list.
Lady Liberty, party of 18, a family of crows.
FFC fighters who mistook this occasion.
A pointless string of ladies all with
military ties on spanish diets and brands of gold.
A man who’s name was John.
A chef, self-professed, outside-employed.
And all of this in spite of silver
all dipped in vinegar and baby powder
smelling of victory gardens and light mint
with a wad of gum bouncing around their mouths
afraid of home war and another dry winter.
American Stargazer
You’re another bleeding heart,
some people can spot those kinds of things
like a constellation, it’s hidden on your face but
once you see it your eyes can’t remember
what your ignorance forgot.
America makes a face feel
softer than the average Georgia peach.
Mars, Venus, Mercury,
the daily grapples that spring
may drop while juggling
forcing the first couple bodies
to fall from our telescope’s vantage.
But your focus is on the ball
despite the bleeding heart
which I refuse to take my eyes from.
America made you a centerpiece
but outer space
made you detached form the
silence of your nation.
Analogue
The sound of you was spinning on a shitty little
player with a blown speaker and the tendency
to help you imagine you were in the back of the concert hall,
hearing aid turned desperately high and thriving through
beautiful pain - the lonely kind - the full kind.
You were the proverbial girl from the north country
something was rolling and flowing all
down your breast. I was an outlaw.
Everything i did was done with
minimal skill and endless acclaim.
For your birthday I played you a song
for halloween I may have bought you
a trumpet
I’ve been saving up for a drum you see
the life of an outlaw is not necessarily
as original as it was promised to me
I don’t look like robert ford or feel like jesse james but
every time i put on a song of his I grow
confident
that if i keep writing like I’m running from the law then
the law will bend around me, baby,
if you just allow me one more chance to
change the world
then maybe I will then you’ll be blushing
like a doll
until then I’ll be filling buckets with rain and
looking at the dessert as if it was the flesh of my heart
and spinning tops, playing jacks, flipping cards
and driving motorcycles.
streamline machinery
fit for an outlaw
played on and analogue deck
sung by a person with minimal range and
a proclivity for singing what is so.
Beach House - New Year
off the new album Myth it is
beautiful.
Spineless
I was chasing you as your spine began to crumble under the wight of your shoulders and your head and your many many ribs
You fell to the dust, spineless, paralyzed and gelatinous all at the same time. You were just a bundle of nerves and loosened bones.
We laid together on the ground with our arms wrapped around each other, well, my arms were around her. She simply laid without pose or subtle shift.
We fell asleep and dreamed of being witness to presidential assassinations, upon a gunshot in my head, I woke up and patted the empty ground around where I lay alone.
I found nothing besides vertebrae, germinating above the ground.
