Of Hell and Who Tells It

It seems a much harder phone call for you

This horrible call as you make a point to refer to it as

Yet I know exactly why you say so

-

I answer though I know there will never be

Enough time

There never was

Never will be for anyone

Anywhere anytime ever

There is just not enough time

There isn’t

So five minutes is an eternity or a vanishing noise

-

It is hell for you and I know it

Nothing makes the sense it used to

And it needs to

I have known that myself to an extent

-

I need to write you a really long or short letter

That depends I guess

On if you get mail

But you only sent mail

To yourself

Now you are writing yourself back

Everyday

All the time

For any reason

So you need to share with whomever will listen

-

It is hell and everyone knows it

We, and I say we because

We can’t understand it

The way you do

The way

You can be cavalier like a dying knight

You can be vulnerable like a nominee

You can be hard like a outdated gangster

You can be less and less like the friend i once knew

-

You ask for my time

But I feel like I am giving you yours

On Collisions

its such a small world

sometimes things run over you

it just can take all that you can do

it is not that i mind

its really not, i just noticed that

i know every one they’re talking about

i would never say well

oh i know him from this because

he’s with my soon to be ex wife

it just doesn’t matter

to them or me or any one involved

it just brings small worlds real close

together

right there

but no one knows

or would say

i feel the small worlds

i feel the things it does to me

i want to make it mean something

but i’m doing better

much better than i was before.

a year ago it was your birthday

at two weeks before mine

i forget each time to say anything

until you explain your hangover

but you are my friend

the kind that gives and receives

the remains of all that one can do

together

right there

but no one knows

or would say

Sweater Vest

I wear this sweater vest
Because it makes me feel like
Paul McCartney
In those Apple billboards and
On the liner notes of the White Album

He looks so determined
Staring down over the world
Or reclining in the control room
To appear hard working
Excessively ambitious
Over achieving to a fault
The working man
Screw you John, he seems to say
Keep up old chap
If you can

So I wear it to keep me
Thinking that I too
Am hard working and prolific
In control and the envy of
My contemporaries
If only, but still

I think I look creative in it
I feel like I am about to
Produce some pop classic
Right there in front of
The mirror or at the train stop
Especially with my sleeves
Rolled up to the elbow

Nothing says hard work
More than that...
Perhaps with a tie

Cut

I cut myself

While I was chopping vegetables

Making a dish

To serve to some friends

The blood ran out

All over the cutting board

Deep red on the counter

And onto the floor

Later in the evening as we lost track of the wine

I thought about my injury

My left hand bleeding inside the bandage

I couldn’t help with the dishes

-

It was years ago

I stepped on a glass

At the top of the stairs

In the middle of the night

But I just went to bed

Because I was too high to drive

The same in the morning

So I got a ride

I had told this to a friend of mine

She complained that I was lazy

That I should just take the pain

Or I should try having a baby

-

It was late one summer

She was on my handle bars

I hit a patch of gravel

And she flew through the air

We made it back

I picked the gravel out of her knees

Then gave her head

As she bled on the sheets

We would later drift apart

I said I wanted a career

It was likely something else

In my head that I could not hear

-

It was early spring

And I was so lonely

I would have done anything

For someone to hold

I met her through friends

We finger danced the watusi

It started out great

But by fall she had left me

I have often looked back on this

As the time I lost my heart

The one who I thought I loved so much

Only liked the beginning part

Disassociation Blues

I’m generous with myself

Who else will be

If I stumble, I will correct

There is no one more involved

With myself than me

No one else will

If I should mumble, I understand

If I become humble

I am there to elevate

Alas, I will do nothing for myself

In the regard of betterment

That is unknown, or such that

There is no internal progress

Just some more of the same

Working unbroken unfixed

Un-needing of adjustment or refitting

Like I said

I’m generous with myself

Roads

I would never discard the time that we spend

It is the reward that justifies the end

Sometimes I long for the days of Varangian

To see how it all began

-

But it can be hard sometimes to square a delay

It seems that there’s more vacation than corvee

I wish that there was a more direct throughway

But then that’s the state of transport today

WAIT!

- -

The passage suffers from the excess of empire

The passage is victim to the theft of a trespasser

The passage is injured by the surplus of couriers

The passage cries from despair!

But you tell me and the travelers in your care

That you’d be happy to just be

Sacred, untraded, undivided

Are you telling me and the rest of your rade

That you are content to forget

Tresaguet, Telford, McAdams

Don’t tell me or anyone else

That you’d rather be untouched, undisturbed, and underfed

You tell me that you are the victim

You tell everyone your pain is more important

Than the destination

When it is your own capacity

That you can’t seem to attend to

- -

You’re not suggesting that you are not to blame

Or maybe that you could not have helped these floods that

Are now, by your own account

Out of your control

Are you suggesting that something else makes you divine

Or that you can’t support any traffic until everything is better

Though by your own account

Is something you need controlled

-

It’s all better now

Everything is fine

I can do it now it’s gonna be alright

I am a half full kind of road

It was bad now it’s bright

I knew one day it would change overnight

Don’t take stones for granted

Don’t forget to pave it twice

You might find them skipping above you

You can hide for today

You might go away

But the stars will continue to shine

Maybe it’s perfect and

All just more of the same

It’s like, I’m used to it and it doesn’t need changing

To which whom you speak

Or what you don’t ask

Excuses are as easy as stringing daisies

Waiting for it to slow down

So that you can catch it

It’s never going to be that way

SPECIAL BURDEN

I'M GREEDY, OH, I'M SO GREEDY
BUT I DON’T WANT YOU TO HELP ME
I AM ALRIGHT WITH MY BURDEN, IT’S MY BURDEN
(AND YOU CAN’T TAKE IT)

I BEEN THINKING, MAN, I BEEN THINKING
BUT I DON’T NEED NOTHING FROM ANYBODY
IM ALRIGHT WITH MY BURDEN
AND THE BLUES THEY CONVENIENTLY PROVIDE

I'M LISTING, HOW I AM LISTENING
BUT I DON’T NEED ANY FRIENDS FOR ANYTHING
FOR NOTHING
OR ANYTHING
LEAVE IT
I’M GOOD
I’LL BE FINE WITH MY
AUTOMATIC SELF IMPOSED SORRY ASS BURDEN BLUES

I'M GREEDY, I'M SO NEEDY
I KEEP LOOKING AT WHATS EMPTY
BUT I’LL FILL IT, YES I’LL FILL IT
WITH MY HOME MADE FRONT PAGE NEWS

I'M INTERESTED SO INTERESTED
I'M FEELING SO FRUSTRATED
BUT I’LL FIX IT AND SOFOCATE IT
WITH THIS BRAND NEW BURDEN