leaves · in · a · cave, · scattered

i have moved
into ink and darkness
more parchment
waiting for your eyes
dried out on the table
pinned with stale hopes
to a plank of cedar
keeping the room fresh
from your corpse in the corner
you haven't heard the last of me
if you know where to look
but silence and distance
separate the stars

why do you try to
bury your past
flee yourself
don't you know
you have to give in
it will always
track you down
there's no way to hide
from yourself
and as your life
dovetails into itself
you'll see the patterns
that lead you here
emerge from the strands
you thought you'd severed
tried to burn
out your eyes
but those are lies
and you're still the things
you were before
ghosts in your dreams
black poison fingerings
dragging you back
however fast you run
keep moving
wear yourself down
or give in
and drown

have you kissed him yet
or do you just fool around
in the supply closet
tell me you haven't gone
back to his place for drinks
so soon so quickly
after meeting the rogue
and me stuck at home
with no one of my own
to pass the time
on a saturday night
thought we were telling stories
thought we were talking truth
but these ringing ears
won't let me think clearly
won't let me comprehend
what it is you're doing
now you're holding his hand
prancing out in public
when i'm not around
you're going down
awkward alleyways and fire escapes
tempting the iron bars
to call liar on you
little sparks at the
hem of your jeans
songs you haven't written
sung along with the radio
tuned to a missing station
and i'm listening to the screams
that echo through the halls
the moans and the trembling
that should be filling me
taking place in my head
is it real or nonsense
won't you open your mouth for me
speak truth to mystery
or should we just bury
the whole ride now
dig a massive hole
big enough for a roller coaster
so there will be no more
you and me

where did we
get off the path
of righteousness
into this tangled
briar patch
of real life
the streets
aren't any softer
than hard cold facts
but this sound
is worth more
than all the stones in this city
could be expression
or simple expansion
of minds and souls
put your hand
in my hand
we'll walk in the twilight
remembering our youth
what we got wrong
now we're too old to fix it
choices made for
all the wrong reasons
led us astray
personal enrichment
celebrate escape from
our homes and tribes
fighting only serves
to hold us down worse
than poverty did before
yet we stand in the center
of the storm tonight
demanding more more more
please don't let this
tear us apart
we could be classic too
turn on the stereo
what do you hear
the sound of eyes closing

my hands in your hair
your clothes on the floor
we could lie this free
for years and years
but girl this isn't just me
it's everyone you meet
turning to nature
for exceptional release
you're a human animal
and i'm just man in a suit
whatever we give each other
you'll scratch and claw for more
over and over with everyone you meet
you won't stay put
curled at the foot of the bed
run wild in the forest
a beast for the taking
capture and taming
only to break free again
the same routine with everyone you meet
ice water in my veins
as i watch you leave again
i should stay stone
but your warmth melts me
whenever you come back
you purr and i'm yours
just like everyone else you meet

i don't know how to stop feeding it
or how to turn it off
the sounds of it growing
keep me awake at night
a wolf in shadow
a sheep in bloody clothing
the darkness you think is inside
it's out taking over the light
hear that growl
the sound from the end of the hall
if you try to follow it
you'll find yourself crazy by the end
i'm not waiting
for the dogs to wear themselves out
it's time to get moving
there's more life than you could ever spend
and yet it knows
when i'm watching and when i'm on the run
one pale eye follows me
lips licked by red tongue
if i stumble
if i refuse to flee
i'll be cut down where i stand
unless i leave i'm done

coming to the end
of a dry dirt road
i have the chance to sift
through old memories
a box for an flame
a box full of paper
little mementos
damaging whispers
when it ignites
it takes the car with it
i'm out in the tall grass
watching my life burn
forgetting who they were
the people who made me
i'll become someone new
when the smoke clears
a deep breath of ashes
maintain an identity
charred remnants of history
learn and let go

stand at the start
of the reeds and the marsh
knee-deep in freshwater
wading away
i've caught birds for breakfast
fish for a quick dinner
avoid predators for the night
whatever is out there
cold before dawning
i forget that word has meaning
the omens and the owls
burst forth over me
i'll catch a sunray
use it for heat
the light that guides me
shines from within
no wheels no way back
only trudging forward
can i find the lost tribe
the last human civilization
deep in the heart
of a living swamp
animal sounds
are my only friends

arrive at my last
day on this earth
i've give up everything
to be alive again
caught between shadow
and an ache for the sun
i'll climb the highest tree
before i am gone
watch myself melt away
into the wetlands
hands clinging to bark
teeth chewing through dead plants
i'm free i'm alive
i'm breathing fresh air
high above the canopy
of a suffocating world
this is the end
the final escape
i've reached the top
now i can sleep

whenever you get settled somewhere
it's time to move along
i knew this
from the very start

when you were in my hand
i could see the rainbow
and i knew at the end
was no little pot of gold

only moving and distance
distraction at the station
you couldn't follow
or stand still

if we built a house
or boarded a train
when you weren't going somewhere
you were still ready to leave

now i hold my head
in my trembling palms
there's water in rivers
like tears in love songs

we couldn't swim
only float through the flood
past ruined houses
drowned horses and cows

i've settled on dry land
never to drift away
but you have to run
to oregon or l.a.

i wish you well
find a pillar of strength
to build your little searchlight
that illuminates your next destination

you need space you need distance
you need four wheels on a gravel road
the sound of wind in the trees
the crunch of stones under foot
sleeping beside a trickling stream
sleeping under winking stars
quit electronics
quiet city noises
birds and bugs and rustling
the battle for peace in nature
don't make a sound
don't leave a mark
you need space you need distance
you need dirt in your hands
the sound of owls hunting
sleeping in distant lands

feeling your fingers
flutter down my spine
i remember all the lines
used to seduce me
and the beauty you found
in my bare back
standing shirtless in a dark room
before the grey sky of morning
could break the spell
what is your crooked smile doing
there's no such thing
as a motiveless crime
we can't untie the strings
silvery spider thread
binding the touch of fingers
to permanent morning

you were right
and it's cold in here
with all the magic gone
can't feel my fingers
or flutter my toes
our bold telepathy
finally came up short
shoulda turn to the light
but we had other concerns
like breathing air
and feeding our children
frost on my breath
shows which way i've been
my cave is not the prison
i sometimes dream it could be
and i'll find the way out
when i can feel my feet

you build a house to store your happiness
larger than anywhere you've ever lived
and fill it up with trinkets
children and a world of wood
and every day
you want to drive away
get in the car
never come back
you get a job to manufacture joy
something to do when you're not asleep
and keep you from thinking
about who you'll never become
and every day
you want to fly away
get on a plane
never come back
you have the life the house the job
married with children and all that jazz
it's parties and diapers and laughter
a backyard for two dogs
and every day
you want to go away
short rope or gas oven
never come back

where i look
see the same stories repeated
the love that deserted us
the heart that broke
fragments and shards
across miles and miles of sad landscape
i am afraid to fly
if that sounds like a statement
a manifesto of some sort
it's not
the vessel that would lift me to the sky
could shatter like glass
like my heart on the floor
spray shards over several states
they'd never find all the pieces
all i could have been
dashed to earth in a moment
a sparkly explosion
reflecting the lazy sun
who never notices anyone
just sits back and reads dreams
like you read tea leaves
telling the future
from mushy blobs
because making up a truth
is better than having to learn it

after the collision
your crooked smile
the moment we met
i could have forgotten
but a song and a flash
the light in your eye
a fire burning within me
caught your moth attention
now running in cool rain
limping to the finish line
it's a good question
what are you doing
whispering under pines
drinking gin out of tin cups
how do we hold our own
when unsympathetic time
grinds us down
in the moment
of twisting metal
you knew it was over
but it took me years
to realize i'd never
love again

every little twinkle
that hints at salvation
is unhappiness disguised
wrapped in desperation
pretending to be hope
for light and green grass
legs to stand on
to help me run
carry me along
in the fragments of broken glass
raining down on my distorted memory
a life i couldn't leave
because i'm 70% water
and that's what gave us life

and i said
"i want to hear the rain."
you smiled at that
and i thought about what it meant
the two of us
watching rain from a shelter
carved into a wall
a place i haven't been
except in my heart
in almost eight years
the smell of summer
comes through the years
through tears that never
seem to wash away
the impossible sad
it's a dance with the night
a cover song for the moon
we could have made wishes
but they never come true
and besides
age should have changed
the meaning of such desires
grown up with the end of the world
flagged down a passing car
and escaped that misery
listen to me
i just go on thinking i'm
impossibly sad

when you talk like that i think i want to kiss you but then you mention the rain and i know i'm swimming again like last night when we fell down the steps together laughing and drinking in the whiskey someone spilled in the gutter try as we might we're never over the daybreak riots come hold my hand in the noise and shouting these rubber bullets are marbles as nothing plastic and glass and all the looting and breaking i don't have to think i haven't ever shouted but you just keep talking like i know what you're saying i can hear the wind pushing water around i can hear the train as it drowns i'd wet my lips if i thought they'd meet someone new chapped in the forest and moistened with fresh morning dew pray for my sickness i haven't forgotten about yours the skin that crawls the tears that won't stop drilling artesian wells in the back yard on my property i own this land this tower this metropolis i have all the bread and breath and oxygen i tell people when to smile when to smell the dirty air i've cleaned and i've scrubbed but it's never any better don't try to look so innocent darling you've knitted your brow long enough for one night these matters don't improve in twenty-four hours your coughing your sneezing your long tired hair i told you it would get better if you just left it alone but you have to fix what you can't break so it has some meaning for you now clear your throat and watch traffic halt we'll catch the storms and wear them as crowns powered by lightning towering over all i've come electric empowered engorged when you talk like that i think i want to love you but then you smile and i know you'll never be true

couldn't keep purifying the tears of the world had to drink wastewater in transdnestria all your russian heritage boiled down into rachel's last light the common thread is the hair in your soup the spoiled cabbage on the roadside left after a disaster accidents happen in the dead of night or bright daylight can't complain about the taste but god your heart is bitter in the sweet nothings whispered i heard enough truth to be ready for this cracked casket buried half-heartedly forgotten in the desert left out to dry i can't cry i'm stone and skeleton dead cacti in the heat forged steel from rotten meat cold complicated seasons don't lend themselves to being written headed sore ridden into the bay the water i gave away the healthy sense of obligation that transferred through wires to the artic pole i can't help but think you've become gold liquid ivory seeps from your pores and i'm washed in bone bleach and crawling forms could be paralyzed and i could travel through space the moment you're gone is the moment i bleed i taste rust and relaxation seeds can't feel enough to breathe and when you've grown up and moved out you've stabilized your aerons you've levelled out and found the the next mountain to climb i'll be left behind it's the same strategy the world over women and men can't complain enough about who they're not and what i can't make them only go so far to conquer the world but you'll step through this doorway into an alternate moldova where mad scientists rule the world and guinea pigs eat pigeons the transatlantic railroad makes plastic fish in its spare time i could keep whistling but you've heard all my melodies and i can't cry the oceans over again run out of tears run out of rain i'm a cloud i'm a vision a fantastic human being the black tar that stains your shoes the dead fly in your mouth in the morning and if you can leave me then i can eat you and when you feed on the flesh of another i'll be waiting to clean my teeth with your spine and when tangential memory relapses i've spent all my dimes this phone call is a transgression against the ural mountains and history but i've left myself an escape hatch at the back of a human skull large enough to drive a truck through small enough to fit in my pocket watch me go turned inside you the language i've written is incompatible with speech now use your head and flood the world with blood giving your life for everyone i'll keep my love to myself until i'm dead and scattered on the wind molecular biology won't make water clean again

she wasn't ready for a life in the night
wire in her blood
and days spent in fire
couldn't hold to the bar
the white hot metal
churning in her veins
blood in her eyes
the light never goes out
when she's choking on street corners
flashing in red velvet corridors
on the silk road
to king ghidora
panic stricken populace
a million voices all at once
stall for time
at the end of her rope
switchblade in the shower stall
her voice scrawled
in violence on the wall
colors drained from her life
she's not ready for the night
that never ends

put your hands
in the basket
i'll carry them up
the ladder
deposit them in the birdsnest
she will know what to do
how to heal an open wound

cut your heart into thin strips
feed them to the poets
who gather outside your door
waiting for scraps
to cut their lips open
write dreams i their own blood
anywhere will do
how to heal an open wound

sit the night with me
here on the edge of town
waiting for the sun
to creep over the hedges
and burn the world
set fire to me and you
how to heal an open wound

could she have been
wrong to propose
a time out session
in the dead of winter
with heaven closing its doors
for the longest nightmare
ever open to you
how to heal an open wound

it clawed at my hat
as we pushed through
to the end of the tree
the broken branch
cold water in a glass
through the window we battle
if rain and wind
could teach us lessons
this one would be don't go there
a half-lived existence
leaden with disappointment
the collapsed lung treatment
belonged to the dog
tied to the table leg
on some sunny street in barcelona
not us
not us
where we stop on the street corner
waiting for the cars
to pass us over
waiting for the wind
to blow us down
shiver our timbers
send us spinning off the lake
into clouds and hail
chase us with a maelstrom
a clattering roaring tornado
whirlpools and cyclones
every middle american nightmare
dragged by iron chains
into the yawning abyss
this is a vision shared
with peasant children
begging on the streets of barcelona
but not us
not us
we're quiet under the sheets
falling in love with sleep
falling asleep with love
leaving the door open as it goes
for the crowds in the hall
to silently crawl
through our lives with abandon
when we awake
it's as though nothing happened
strangers to ourselves
we'll go to work not knowing
why we began this
practice of silence
how we forgot
to close our mouths
it's an incurable disease
afflicting the east coast
the twisted towers
and olympic memories of barcelona
not us
not us