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Sad Pastime
Didn't have to hear too much from you
To know it was true
There's no science to hide behind
And students of sleep
fall off like rocket stages
And my sad pastime is cataloging
in abandoned swimming pools
the pieces that I find
Last Tuesday I did grope
for the textbook watcher
and I saw her turn
The pages that she did not burn
Ashes swan dive, separate divide
Funeral
Girls
Jenny trimmed her arm hair with a pair of safety scissors
didn't leave too much for me, just some little ribbons
like all's forgiven
now I can't get back her little smiles, and it stings,
her open mouth kisses and a million other little things
I want them back where they belong
I show my face and night and day seem wrong
and the last thing that you wanted
I hope you got from me
Jenny looks just like a parakeet
when her spiked blonde head bops down the street
And Julie she's the same
but she's oh so different
I can't believe that
They share the same smile
and the same sneak out the door
and fall square into the next day of the week
When my days don't fall where they belong
just Monday, Wednesday, Thursday then they're gone
and the last thing that you wanted
I hope you got from me
But don't sweat it, if you can't stay
I know that girls go away
and stick me with things they never meant to keep
Career
Suicide
How many pills did you take
while you were climbing up the ladder of attention?
first they sent you to the hospital
then they sent you to detention
You know that it's not the end of the world
it's just the end of your career
as one of those beautiful girls
Please
Send Me Knives
Cut and bleeding in the yard
I found my niche
I played the ace of spades
I am the king of shanks
please send me knives
and cut back on the hours that I spend
stitching flowers in my skin
pink petals that I'll never see again
Yet another sign of weakness,
really I must be discrete
for there are those that would wound me
deeper with words than by spilling my blood at my feet
in the phosphor floodlight
where I once held your fragile life in my hands
you waited for no one then
Cut and bleeding in the yard
they'll find my prints smeared across the blade
but I am the king of pranks, not suicides
please send more knives
Palms Gods
Gave
Girl, you were gone
when we retreat we both act the same
rain showers, wall flowers
and I could stay I could sift through your sap filled veins
until summer comes
oh, you used to be more fun
Fingernail map, topographic
down his dead spineless back
he cowered, deflowered
and it's true these are the stains
that don't wash out no matter
how much you scrub or rave
and curse the palms gods gave
Way Wrong
Love
You were on the other side of the highway divide
with your aluminum spy suitcase
and your waiting for the school bus face
and then my fascination fades
and for a moment I think that I hate you
but I always come back later
to this trail of strawberry blood and this way wrong love
When you peel the skin back is it pink as your t-shirt,
a wrapping paper ball you volleyed around?
You know I say such stupid things just to hear the sound
And I wonder if it even hurts
with such a beautiful thing looking down
at you broken mattress on the concrete ground
And then her sweet lies make such sense to me
she was the victim not the perpetrator
and I ain't got no flaming red coals
I'm not going to rake her across
this trail of strawberry blood and this way wrong love
and then my fascination fades
Soap Operas
For Boys
She's playing favorites
I start the started engine
and it scorns me
like neighbor children at my door
Don't they know she won't come back
and I can't forget
those sad photographs of her face
in the album that, like these questions,
is part of my everyday
and my fingers stick cause I glued back
every late night artifact she did break
now I just lie awake
Oh I asked her stick with me
but she exits with such ease
oh now why am I so alone in this world?
I suspect that nothing changes
once you're past our certain age
a factory crease set in sharp relief
you can't keep it down
Oh now every retrospect notion and each last regret
they won't quit, no, they won't split
oh no they just stick with me, they don't go quietly
maybe I'd rather be all alone in this world
And girl do tell the truth
or lie through you teeth that you want the same
and I'll ask you stick with me
and you and I'll retreat to our happy home
and maybe we won't be so alone in this world
Spines
(x & y)
Between the spines
I caught your eye
maybe your crying
maybe you're smiling
maybe you're acting sly
But when I pick up my basket
and chase you around
Through science, history and recorded sound
will you stop
will you hesitate
curl you fists up in your sleeves
until it's far too late
or will you sink down between x and y
stare up at the ceiling and pretend it's sky
and not some plaster sheet
and we'll never meet
Predilections
& Pills
Picking flowers in a field
I guess it's alright if the four of us die here
and this flatland becomes
a place where love was undone
and the faithful hang their heads humdrum
and every spring stare down the sun
and push away those predilections and pills
Do they know that I still lust and love you?
Unspent hours we field questions of all kinds
between grateful breathless sighs
and in your fingers a shouting match it burns
Always everything undone
but never humdrum
and every spring stare down the sun
and push away those predilections and pills
Do you know that I still lust and love you?
and in your fingers a shouting match it burns
What
Will Become of Us Tomorrow
Oh you point your hair dryer
at me like a gun
and say I'm turning white
and I go gray overnight
Oh you left the hangers
from your pant suit
on the sheets of our unmade bed
and I can take a hint
and I can pull these hooks
out of my head
while the little things that I want
add right up and I come home
sick to my stomach
or sucked up into my own lungs
breath that I just borrow
What will become of us tomorrow?
Smoking
Gun Club
I sat up all night
with the smoking gun
and shot the shot
that got things done around here
then my arms did recoil
ball and socket switched gear
magic bullet took a detour I guess
with pathetic aim I have been blessed
you say that you are so above
what I have done
you never would have
But may I count you
among my fast friends
when my detractors do descend
when the news breaks
that I have done it again?
Will you sit up all night?
I sat up all night
When
We Were Friends
No one gives you their picture
when they go away anymore
oh back in school days for sure
back when we were all friends
and we knew oh yeah we knew
that nothing would end
and you could borrow a dime
or maybe 25 cents 'cause we knew
oh yeah we knew that we were all friends
and I'm pretty sure now we are unhappy
I'm pretty sure that I am
And that garden hose
was a snake in the grass
you know we drank from it
and it gave us lead poisoning
and by all rights we should be dead
and I should be happy
No one tells you they'll miss you
when they go away anymore
on notebook paper
that's what the college rule's for
Oh they make it to break it
and they make it to bend
and they make it just like they made
all of your friends
up on the phone at night playing pretend
and then you're just a box of envelopes
that never get sent
and I'm pretty sure now
that we are unhappy
I'm pretty sure that I am nothing
but a snake in the grass
and by all rights I should be dead
and I should be happy
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