Live On The Celebrated Life

Tonight I chew gum to spare my tongue

and swallow the hours that feel so wrong,

like a new year's kiss, wet and bereft.

There are eight empty cans on my desk:

one for every month I lost my sight,

one for every month we have left.

I feel like sleeping in my best suit

and glittering the stage with soot,

dragging myself through bus floor mud

and kicking the 22 year-old stud

for giving up the most gilded

years of his life to piercings,

coercings and the brunette

that slowly drinks his blood.

And I want to do a pirouette.

And I want to smoke a cigarette.

And I want eight private jets

to take eight private parts of me

to Stillwater, Medford, Tangier,

where the pages stretch for miles

and the ink all disappears.

Someplace where there is time

to grieve.

Someplace that we do not have

to leave.

Not even for the future,

which is nothing but a word

that corrals the herd

of the moon-eyed hopeful,

the burned out life-sick,

the evergreen romantic.

Whoever Holds Me Now In Heart

Whoever holds me now in heart, know that I am leaving
This damp, warm, snowing place. There might also be rain,
But if it comes, send it on its private way. No water enough
Could bloom my wilting affection, which I cradle in vain.
If I could choose, I would refuse even still to always be
True as the years spent building this web of stars.
But oh, my friends, when what is near you feels so far,
Lay me down your heart and go your own way.

Do not whisper promises in the heat of night,
Do not scratch up the floor as you make your lively exit:
Only go, and know that I might someday return.
Yet now I have mountains to steep, roads to sail,
Books to eat and unbelievable journeys to tell.
And I know that I am not alone: That we are
Exploding like a firework on black canvas.
So do not fear the edges where we have never been,
They were created for the young and alive to explore.
Let yourself run in the dark with scissors of flame.
Make children, masterpieces, nations of noise.

Whoever holds me now in heart, give me breath.
The growing season stretches and pulls: we are but
Plants in a country of farms. Oh, my friends,
I will not forget the stasis of your arms.
But now the light’s caved in, the water’s dried up,
I must, I must turn away from your hand.
This was a heartbreak I had never planned.
I have already torn myself, limb from body,
It’s a rip not even families could repair.
So lay me down your heart and go your own way.

But if someday you should need a hug that lasts too long,
If somehow you lose a mind in the great grove of Time,
I am at sky’s length: Send your owl my way.
And if you feel the inexplicable need to choke,
Choke away, my friends, my palm is at your back.
Send for me if your idea is too much for narrow words.
If the winds are sideways, if the sun is blaring,
If the cherry-red horns of the ambulances are wailing,
Then trust that I will be just through the doors.
If you seek a statue to accent the shade,
Or a pilot to pilot the turbulence of silver air,
Or if you should need to comb fingers through wild hair,
Then pray call—I am your man, I am still your boy.

You’ve seen me to the end, now comes the start.
If you should look for me, through brick-dusted streets,
With your buckets of sunlight, buckets of moon,
You’ll have broken my window again too soon.
Good brothers, darling sisters, you are my Original
Inspiration, my first fresh breath and wind.
I carry you with me until I carry myself down,
And though I cannot stay,
It has always been my dream to be everywhere at once:
So lay me down your heart, and go your own way.

Sonnet To My Only

You slit the throat of your very best man;

Threw him to the eels, for the gulls above.

Slow he’ll drift until he kisses the sand,

My Captain, you call this treason, my love?

Everything is wrong in the flesh-flecked bay.

On the ship that breathes water and careens,

Crimson fog, howling seals, hull made of clay!

My Captain, return to me safely, my queen.

The skies by now are too grey for changing,

Too sick with sleet to salvage our goodbyes.

Now I lie, yearning for my burning spring,

And still I sound swept, with my drowning eyes.

I’ve no lips, wish; no lighthouse at the end,

My Captain, how could you, sweet sinner, my friend.

You Look Like Morning

"Baby, I have been here before,

I’ve seen this room and I’ve walked this floor." -Leonard Cohen

I ate dinner with your family on Sunday night,
which you know, you were there,
choking on the smell of sweet potatoes,
while I sat there with the green plate,
my favorite color,
wanting dinner to never be over.
Sundays are meant for escaping,
and I went chasing the faintest diamond
to arrive in front of your house, like so
many summer evenings stuck together.

We hummed harmonies while I paced
maniacally back and forth, kept hitting
that chair but never moved it, kept looking
straight at you but never showed it.
Right, I’ve slept in this room,
that’s what it is that makes me feel
at home. Nodding politics with your mom,
debating semantics with your dad—
Is soup a food? So many questions unanswered.
Like so many songs gone unsung,
trapped instead in the back-pockets of mimes,
trembling in the foyer, afraid to say goodbye.
They are the sweetest, the anonymous.
I am the evening wind brushing your arm.
The summer kite flying over your lips.

Your Vikings sweats,
your thick-rimmed glasses,
your unpainted toenails
made you look like Morning,
in every way as unprepared
as it is marvelous.
What I would give to be able
to wake up to Morning.

You looked straight at me
while loudly chewing ice
without even thinking twice,
while I took my time,
eating every last bite
of my family dinner
Sunday night.

O Forward

If I really did look like God with the sun behind me,

like you said I did, has the Great Flood come yet?

Or is it playing her part, is it biding unruly time,

until the white knight steps forward, his compassion

renewed? When we stop caring is when we feel like

we should care the most. So fuck it, so flood it,

so let everyone breathe salt and party hard with

deep sea midnight, until they sink to the lowest

point that I lovingly call Her Castle.

Taste the rainbow.

And in the morning, the trees will replant themselves.

And in the morning, the blades of grass will make amends.

And there will be these most beautiful creatures in the world,

some call them girls and others call them friends.

Compression

If only we could shake the world
and neither of us would miss it,
then the translucent gold might
shine like eyes, blue bright.
But here we are, only able to hide
from it for a while, releasing our doves
to the cold, compressed night.

I’ve been trying for many invisible months
to not show you my hands too soon.
I’ve been waiting for many invisible months
for the thunder of the monsoon.
It’s falling on me now that all of my excuses
are sounding so out of tune.

I’ve been trying to hide the starlight from the moon.

Our hands are empty,
calloused, with odd tan lines,
proof that there was once sunlight before.
But even when evening comes to the door,
asking for our latest works of art,
our hands remain empty.
The fangs of the future are bared.
I doubt anyone is as prepared
as they expect themselves to be.

There are those who lose sleep:
To kill desire, to replay
all the secrets of their day,
to hear the water slam
against a wayside cliff.
And others simply wish to keep
whatever stake they might have
deep within the ground.
But looking at them now,
there is no telling who’s been around.
The smart sound stiff.
The tired seem wrong.
The only thing I’m sure of
is that fractal star
spinning in your eye,
but I never see it for very long.

So bring me all your troubles;
lay them down next to mine.
Then rest through the night
and let our secrets go untold:
only then will I ever be able
to turn all this mercury into
gold.

Sun Carp

I can't believe you didn't read my diary.

The pages are still a little heavy

from all the time it spent drifting down

the river, just begging to be fished

out, like a wriggling sun-carp.

And to be truthful I don't know what

a sun-carp is, except that I imagine it

as a particularly shiny fish,

one who would maybe tell you

exactly what you want to hear.

Sit Closer To Me

Wrapped in a sweater,

with a suitcase full of letters,

with no place to fall to,

I felt quite assured

and slightly disturbed

that I had somehow lost you.

Snails of rain

trailed down the window-pane;

there seemed nothing more to do,

Then you sat next to me.

And oh my gosh looked pretty.

And the day began anew.

What You Thought Was Yours Is Ours And What's Ours Is Over And Now Belongs To Us

I. What is Yours is no longer Yours and has been given to Ours, the world and each individual creator of Their world, and since Your ideas are communal, and Your depressions are memorials, these Yours have indeed become Our communes and depressions, Our monuments that We have taken from You, creator of Your world, and You have no power that still belongs to You; it's now Ours and Ours are shallow and Ours are terrible and it's not quite Our fault but rather Yours, You, Creator of shallow and horrible ideas, visions, scenes that We never wish We had taken from You.

II. What's Ours is over because You have slipped away and We have continued on without You, the Confused, and We will keep Ours and then turn it into Ours, Ours being We's, which is close to Yours but nothing even the same as Yours, or Ours, because We are stronger than You, and happier and more intelligent too, because We can keep what is Yours without ever losing what is Ours, and We will never, ever – not even if You take what is Ours and make it Yours again, because it will never, ever again be Yours again – ever, ever, give Yours back.

III. Ours now belongs to Us, dead as It or You may be, because look around You, We outnumber You too greatly; We are larger in number than swallows diving off a cliff and We stretch longer than the Great Andes. That is who We are, We are every earthquake and typhoon, and You are the pollinating bumblebee, without any Pollen left for You to make into Yours, because the Honey belongs to Us and the Flowers belong to Us and the Queen, too, belongs to Us and You should never come back here unless You have changed Your ways of thinking and dreaming and writing because We are never going to change and it's up to You to join the ranks of Us that will march onto the shores of Your confidence.

The Greatest Education

The most important thing

I learned today was the

name of the boy I see every

day sitting on the bench.

Rustling of leaves just outside

the window drowns out the

whispering Professor; the

hum of the bus station whirs

me into staring at the patterns

on your scarf. The white sun

signals rain. They're closing

up the umbrellas on the patio.

It's unanimous: It makes us

apprehensive to be so close to

failure at all times, but we enjoy

it more than failing.

We never learn anything.

A Strange Kind of Weakness

The girls on my flooded dream streets
twirl their hair and flaunt their feet,
asking me to touch them in inappropriate places,
when I only want to touch their faces.

You Before

I
There isn’t much in my numb resolve
That I fail to think of; who I fail to see
Through the yellow still walls of
Wall Street, Floor Four.
And through the door without a wreath,
Past hardwood floors that stretch to the
Granite tiles,
Granite ceiling and soul!
The kitchen spotless from the time
We once spindled here before.
And into some familiar room….

Where through fuzzy unblinking eyes
You watched me squirm, revealing
My dreams of you scorned.
Now I sit, without your traffic signal
Eyes to assess my (most) difficult choices.
The walls are more yellow than they were before.
And the air seems thicker, almost heavier by choice,
While all my choices weigh thicker than smoke.
How dark to not see you
From the darkest window, tonight,
Nor in the patterns of where we sat before.


II
Strange that I now address you.
Even when you’ve nothing left to feed
An emaciated, lactose soul.
Where else is one left to go,
stranded on this side of Jackson Street,
When he is devoid of God and Spirit…
But have I no book?
You would Think,
But I’ve given up on the Know.
Since I used to Think
(That I Know).
That was then; This is tonight,
Where in silence you shine
Brighter than the world who has
Softened dimmer than
The yellow aging light.

Strange that I now sing of you.
I would do too much to bring you
From hells into the whisper shells:
If truly you are kept hidden
in the page of the yellow wall,
(Which pains me, as much, to think)
Then stay away from the fringes,
They make willows out of leaves,
And become my beautiful sister;
And be rid of trespassing brothers
with your flowing voice
like mercury bells.


III
Strange that I still revere you,
While the city lights yearn
To reach inside the granite hold;
There are just too many worms
In the dirt of my soul.
And if this month runs drier
Than the nights have worn thin,
Then perhaps I won’t get to dream again.
Or, if the flickering sky fits the mould,
Perhaps I'll dream from before.
I hope, cleanest and most edged hope,
That I never feel to return back
To who I once revered before.
I am writing on the yellow walls again,
Yet this time not ashamed!
To paint this dream on the door.
And still, I hide behind my body of old.
So much more clever
And alone
Than before.

Yet when God finally wakes me,
I’ll stir from where we play all the more—
In the glorious folds of you before.

My Father Came To Me In The Fire

I stepped out tonight onto yesterday’s ground
With crepuscule eyes, two globes in the rough.
There was neither wind, nor ocean enough
To weaken the flicker of my navy flame.
I could not believe that once here did resound
The roars of the pride and my friends abound.

I stood long forgotten, like a small child’s game,
Until the moon peeked up, her hollow eyes lit.
Then watched as I spit into a makeshift pit:
A single drop, a combustion, a spark of blood.
The moon dove again, and who else could I blame
But myself, this son—what’s his name.

The flames danced coolly, as I knew they would.
Then through the bitter haze, my Father appeared,
His cigarette casting shade on his spectral beard.
He said not a word, but smelled strongly of the bay.
It drifted beyond Now, into the distant wood—
While my Father, just as Then, left me where I stood.

I had not remembered it was Father’s Day.
In the dance of the blaze I had not glanced
At the stars, no, this son was far too entranced
With the shadows curving on evening’s floor.
I doubt this son would’ve had much to say.
Not without a séance of Hallelujah May.

My Father must have wandered back to the shore,
Having done all he could to let his son
Know that he will never be the only one.
Watching the moon reappear, I can hear the sound
Of a lonely bell collar from the dog next door,
Whose owner died of a heart attack long ago.

The Jailor

I
Tonight I have met the Jailor,
Who flips his hair like his bronze keys,
Jingling to signal the early morning
Which spits into the oil blue seas;
On his finger he wears a loose ring.
His cell is made of condom-thin sticks
Bought cheap at the local gas station.
The sidewalk is an elegant vacation
For the Jailor who I sought out
To get my human fix.

Bronze keys rattle and talk
In the violet shadow of a former man,
Who escaped from The Rock,
And with no conscience ran.
But now squashed under
The boot of someone former,
The Jailor coughs up aqua blood,
Which runs down cool and sly
Through the vein of the June sky.
Only now do I notice his tongue
Rolled in berry-thorns and mud.
Only now could I Know
That he was once an egg, in utero…

Did I notice the storybooks on the wall?
Did I notice the giggling far out in the hall?
I am tempted to say a prayer
(Using the Jailor’s Book, of course)
That would keep propped up the tired
Children of yesterday’s embrace,
And would scissor the tongues
Of the cold-blooded and desired.
But my strong hand is weak,
And my weak covers my pale face.
I shall let love take its course.

II
From what cloud was born my only friend?
The Heavens separate the ill from the well,
And as unfit as this homely hostel
Is deemed for the fit, I have made room
On the bamboo floor (though I am still).
On the dime-watch of the murky moon,
You from the farthest cloud did descend.
The Heavens separate the loved from the lost.
I think we are not yet
For the angels to accost.

And if it weren’t for these oil spills
Of unfit passion deemed too large to contain,
Then maybe we could choose.
If it weren’t for the vile midnight waves,
Pushing up against my chalky door,
Reviving my linen cadavers bruised,
I would recite aloud
All the expired names.
I would be allowed
To pour sand onto the games.
I would soon disavow
All the storybooks I noticed before.

The Jailor, then, would watch us go
Sashaying down docks at dusk,
A mere suicide’s jump from The Rock!
(In case he wishes to know.)
Yes, and wouldn’t he revel
At the sight of us locked on the hill;
Would his nerves then be as solid
As the compass lodged between his bars?
His brow would thin dry as his azure lips.
And wouldn’t he revel!
At passing his own moral bill,
Which he wrote with the blood from my scars:
Kiss, Don’t Tell.

III
There’s a linen-wrapped lady missing
From this storybook tale worth ignoring.
Some nights, I still taste the mourning.
I ask now, as her most beloved knave,
If she could close her eyes to forgiveness:
It’s not that I am afraid of the bolts
That spark from her human crave,
But I seem to have choked on her ring.
Most of all, I am tired beyond sorry,
And sick beyond all of “Weather Permitting”.
It was she that had the gall
To make the untimely call
That turned my affection ocher.
So that is why she is missing:
The Departed lies in an oil tanker.
Not a kiss at all.

IV
Here we are then,
I thank you for the call.
Let us sashay down the midnight dock,
While the Jailor stands alone on The Rock,
Watching us make friends with the tides
And pity the reflective fish who once flew
But now only sputter, and float.
We would hold hands in the moonlight,
And after licking the sugar off our shells,
Steal onto a languid, ebony boat.
And then the rain would begin to fall.
I’d give you my painted coat—
Tell of the monster I met tonight.
Tell of the horror of it all.

That would be the only dream worthwhile.
Even if it would serve to twist my cause,
I accept my flaws – under the June Moon,
We’ve talked.
But the border is fixed, I know I am locked.
They say when a rabbit is caught in the jaws
It bleeds until it sleeps—
Well, I can’t believe.
I have never seen the dead so close to the stars.
In truth, I am sickly shocked.
I have never seen the dead locked behind bars.
I wish I had strength to stand alone a while.
Then I would give the dream reprieve
And make this nightmare worth the while.

V
The Jailor now lies with his brooding look.
His eyes, fixed on an un-budging gate,
Beg for his freedom on a stage,
Sorry for inducing such a violet rage.
Maybe the next one will listen.
For now it’s too late—
Someone took
The keys that unlock the cage
Where someone former
Steadily
Wraps him
In linen.

What Next Year Looks Like From A Rooftop

Our joy lives in now, and sorrow in memory,
While we sing the silly song of soon-adults.
Our pilgrim’s tears of Chai tea
Unknowingly sank us into the sea,
Drowning away the fog of our faults.

We sat on rooftops, gaping at urban glow:
The scope of our journey proved frightening.
The question of the morn was Yes or No,
You all burst Yes! but I still don’t know—
My mind’s scattered by camera-flash lightning.

With porch blankets you covered me clean
Under the mauve morning sky so clear.
And though our barbed wire path seems obscene,
Our brows are sweating sweet kerosene,
And our eyes burn bright for next year.

So now, sweet friends, clasp my worn hand;
Together we’ll glide the tomorrow we sing of,
For there’s rich soil in this moonstruck land;
Let apathy and stillness be damned,
And may the world look up above.

The Guide to Getting Away From Where We Are Now

For Brad Liening, without whom this would not exist.

1
First, realize that this is not where you want to be. It's too hot out, the world has you by the throat, your endless possibilities are suddenly sprouting endings – as you like. No, this is not where you want to be at all.

2
Then, take the bus. It's always been so reliable and I hear it's air-conditioned in the summer. It'll take you where you wish to go.

3
Now that you're on the bus, realize how hopeless this all is. The Man behind Metro Transit is in cahoots with The Man behind Education: there's no place you can run! Punch a scaly fat woman for smelling too loudly, and, thanking the driver for falling asleep behind the wheel, step off the bus.

4
"There's no place like home!"
"There's no place like home!"
"There's no place like home!"

5
Once you realize you don’t have any signal, face the Eastern cityscape and run back to where you came from; run hopelessly through the rain that your clouded mind has conjured, passing every landmark and memory you envision, and attempt to jump over even the smallest of puddles.

6
Remember taking pictures here under the sun-tipped cathedral?

7
Ask wary strangers for change. They will have none to give you.

8
Dig out your phone, vibrating.
“You sent that text three times.
I thought we agreed we weren’t going to do this anymore.”

9
Stick your free hand into the mouth of the fountain, and while your body might be stuck in the Forever-Now, your weightless hand is floating somewhere far off, down a wishful stream, drinking in the careless sunlight of the West.

I Will Not Temper Your Tender Hand Yet

I will not temper your tender hand yet,
Though it fills me with singsong wonder:
Not until the dwindling sun has set.

What was once innocent I’ll never forget,
Since we’ve slipped past our first blunder–
I will not temper your tender hand yet.

I once thought it good to pay my heart’s debt,
But now covet your long-ignored number:
Not until the dwindling sun has set.

Occasionally I paint a dream where we had never met.
And though silence is cut short by white thunder,
I will not temper your tender hand yet.

I dream yet still of your face glowing wet,
But restlessly stir without dark slumber.
Not until the dwindling sun has set.

If these fingers still whisper with soft regret,
Then I’ll wait ‘till my senses are long under.
I will not temper your tender hand yet.
Not until the dwindling sun has set.

I watched them build Target Field,

which began as a tundra of urban dirt,
far coarser than the tawny sand of
Lake Superior, I'm certain—
encircled by asthmatic, yellowed buildings
blotched by bird shit and cigarette ash,
now reflecting hymns about peanuts—
I met every construction worker
when their lime-green jackets began
to pierce the groggy grey morning—
I was oblivious until the marble of it
stood directly atop me; now I sit
inside its popular, patriotic prison—

waiting for a bus to whisk me away
to where we build flowers in the wet sand.

May Day

For The Alley Track, my incredible friends.

I would like to start off by remembering a spirit who is no longer with us, a mournful spirit who once flickered with lovely lilac flames and emerald diamonds for eye sockets, but is now forcefully under the ground.
So now I'm widowed!— I've had enough of that.
The Winter Wake has blossomed into a garden of fanciful flowers, friends flowing yellow! So what have I done, I dare ask cosmically,

to merit this May Day?

The room, expanding exuberantly, beckons me to a much richer dream, that goes beyond butterfly lips and eyelash blankets, though I wish every night that they would come to pass—
but dreams of non-seasonal satisfaction, and there are harmonicas swaying, and diamond hills of rolling ecstasy, all addiction and disgust barred, and men sweat clouds, and women plant flowers in their hair, and time stops for every hug, and the sun forever peeks through the trees in that perfect dusk manner, and while I'm at it: No more choices! Time stops for deciding things;

every choice is a motionless sunset.

So with these love-dreams in my delicate hands,

I stand on a land-locked ship,

while pollen streaks of gold sing from the sun, illuminating my face, looking upon a dozen cheerleaders turned soccer players, golden sweat adding dew to beaten grass — when does energy's love end? Until the sun collapses! and the yellow leaves pour their joy into my lovely, gorgeous friends, who still race around the pollinated sky, arms outstretched, with little concern for darker skies in the world, which I adore and behold:
laughter adds showers of sweet spring-water to otherwise dry, dead deserts, and raises the lowest valleys of the world— see it! See the Grand Canyon tumble into the sky, crashing into stars and rubbing against planets:
This is what we do. We give height to lowly things; to the trenches of wars and cracks in the silent ocean floor, and the most magnificent feat of all:

Myself.

No single child holds up the stars; there are too many honest smiles, too much hair curled so naturally to be the work of one; so in my future I kiss every forehead and recall the memories of being young, acting young, playing belligerently in the face of wrinkled oppressors:

Education. Damnation. Isolation.
And with soft, grass-stained feetsies dance through the dandelion fields of May:

Evocation.

In the blinding sunlight, a turquoise spirit rebirths, asking that ageless question:
“Will you be my friend?”
I am speechless smiling. Happy horror; trembling with roses swirling on my cheeks. I know not what to say. I want to look up to the envious clouds and shout

NO WAY, MAY!

—But like an esteemed knight, I kneel in the daisies of Minneapolis-Southernly, most gingerly, whilst the shiny badge of friendship is brilliantly awarded after the ceremony of unplanned walks and talks
and long stalks of goldenrods line the path of your visit:

oh what is it!

Beautiful Sage of Spring, gaily dancing in the midst of wonder children,
not holding up the stars but breathing life into them.

Oh where has the youth all but disappeared to?
Playing night games! Chasing shadows within the shadows, finding each other among leaves and chilly air that signals the close of the Day of May— rapidly fading to the familiar November Gloom— frosty end-year so lethargic and untrue— where can I go but the catacombs of my un-human blanket?
The room echoes false. The golden rays are gone.
All the spirits— under.
Elms, petal-spheres, honey-grass, wilted,
exhaling while everybody looks through photo slideshows of when they were ugly and applies temporary tattoos to their snowy December skin.
And her olive skin. And her olive eyes.
Hand me that golden leaf:
I will sparkle it onto her face… the speckles illuminate electric spring… her lips so dreamlike… pollen
falling
from the small
hands
of
Heaven.

Anaphylactic shock.

My body is fading to stone.
My mind is writhing for air.

But my heart, it takes precedence;
controlled only by the Virgin of May,
whose vivid vigil appears before me just now,
smiling all of Spring upon me,
lifting me up from my knees,
“Will you be my friend?”
Who else would ask but she,
the turquoise princess of May Day morning.

Baby American Boy

How do you live in a world
that stands for nothing
and where nothing ever stands?
Where a thousand mouths open to sing
and taste salt water instead?
Fresh earth is being ripped up,
soon to be replaced by concrete
to make everything seem so new
while the sky is losing blue.
And out of the gravel
and cigarette ash,
a Baby American Boy was born.

How do you grow in a world
where the ceiling’s the sky’s the limit?
In nine houses, washed aside,
a picture lies on the ground,
crumpled since I can remember.
Father comes from nowhere;
not even he knows himself.
His mother could be Athena,
or his father, in a damp cell.
Mother comes from somewhere,
but she never seemed like the type
to look backwards over her shoulder
or think about it more than twice.
And when dinner is served,
if ever it is served,
who will be the first to finish,
and then slam a door?
The living room is magazine clean,
and on the black leather couch,
eating a bowl full of Life,
sits the Baby American Boy.

How do you see in a world
where the smoke travels thick in the skyway?
The faceless, jailguard bus smoke,
frenzied between Twin Cities,
carries over to the coast:
To the City of City Lights;
To the City of Peril Bridges;
To the City of the Unshakable Needle.
To the house on the hollow mountain,
down the winding Dark Hollow Road.
To the house with a skull in the window,
fuzzy, drooping lamps, inside all aglow.
Daddy take me home,
the Baby American Boy once cried.

How do you love in a world
where everything’s written in chalk?
If love really is a temple, then
our faces flow from the foundations.
And if writing really is love’s prayer,
this bible is still being written;
this revolution is still an embryo,
until all Our words are One.
You know the story,
the one with the pastors and the monks,
who all make you pray with their handcuffs.
One day, your hands might be free
from this Baby American Boy.

How can we go on pretending
to know the answers to questions
that were nothing but dust to begin with?
Just year after year blown off of the shelf—
Our world, a bird in a too-small shell.
Where we get lost in our bedrooms,
when we’re really just losing ourselves.
Where we all collapse for our keep,
and stumble on, too proud for our sleep.
Too dumb to sing a coda,
too numb to take a stand,
but no one, no one can crawl as fast
as the Baby American Boy can.