It comes
On hard
Hell fast shackle
Big guy I dreamt
That tall
Thanks for assuming
I don’t know
The onlyest time
I’m so alone
What keeps it from stopping?
Tank in me on
A ticking path
I abhor
From the lovely summer island
Two degrees phone
On 14th street
Monika and Nico heard
It close in my cage
On its own
On and on
My metronome
The real is concrete
The fast-road between
Images on a cork-board
Is incompletely unspeakable
I am boring I am
Boring I am boring
and concrete concrete hard
1 chord 2 chords
Away ahead
Ha ha
Ha ha
Take a look at
Things again
Not so solid
2nd time
3rd chord washes over
And it’s over and it’s good
I said goodbye to my youth
Today
He sat there on a bench
At the train station
And didn’t even look up
When I presented a hand for shakes
Ignoring me
or just not seeing
I got on the train
And thought:
corduroy trousers, ISA’s
and dental insurance
before the fields started crashing the windows
In the river he floated away
He sang very badly, some snow in the air
and swirls of water cut through reality
no matter how good he turned around
and the things he whispered in math-class
pass the ball up-field
the trees in dead winter looked on and saw
the struggle and the end and the body bumps against
stones like lukewarm lead
and giggles and living
those pieces of homework and tests
and walks home in soggy socks
for this winter water bed of rest
I would have wanted to meet us again
to see us chuckle over again over
things we had forgotten
Long ago, strangers now
Well I’m doing it, now
A year late and far away again
Those snowflakes had no idea
And you gave them no clue
Did you?
A dog ran towards me
and put his paws on my thigh
I got angry
Then I laughed
cause he was just a dog
and he made my trousers dirty
when he came to me
when he ran towards me
and put his paws on me
What a great thing for a dog
to do
Look Animals of the forest
Winter is over
Rotten flowers unveiled
On the casket of last year
Patchy snow, still cold wind
Dry broken branches
By the roadside
Plastic bags in mud
Wet asphalt with sand on it
Marie, the queen of waking early
Look at acorns on the ground
Making it again
When he died he was buried
with a eulogy read from the altar in the church
When she died they buried her
from the chapel at the
back
They got married in that chapel
and the same priest
who sealed them together
presided over his burial
at her request
We carried him out
into the pouring rain
and left her in there
opening our umbrellas
as we stepped out deciding who was riding with who
She bought and wrapped our presents
and she wrote the cards
She made him supper
sipping a little Dry Martini
she’d stirred with just the right amount of Vermouth, ice and Gin
The second installment.
Jeff Buckley: Corpus Christi Carol
Modest Mouse: Gravity Rides Everything
Big Star: September Gurls
Dinosaur Jr: Start Choppin
Billy Bragg & Wilco: She Came Along To Me
Wilco: Hell Is Chrome
Rufus Wainwright: Oh What A World
Sufjan Stevens: All Good Naysayers, Speak Up! Or Forever Hold Your Peace
Sufjan Stevens: For the Windows in Paradise, For the Fatherless in Ypsilanti
Arcade Fire: Neighborhood # 2 (Laika)
Bob Dylan: You’re A Big Girl Now
Billy Bragg & Wilco: Secret of the Sea
Tori Amos: Your Cloud
The Killers: Jenny Was A Friend of Mine
The Walkmen: The Rat
Dinosaur Jr: Not The Same
Ryan Adams: Winding Wheel
Bonnie “Prince” Billy: Master and Everyone
My Morning Jacket: Death Is The Easy Way
This is an image of a city
seen at dusk from my window
I hope I can hold this thought
a little longer than usual
Why was I born with
so many colourful possibilities
to create stories based
on snippets of words and emotions?
Her head lies on a blanket
in the back of my car
We are driving down a very
dark and snow-clad road, she sleeps
An American image gleaned
from years of observance
You see already the image of the city
has receded and I am forever scurrying on
Impulse by thought, tear and laughter
I am the only one who is me
but I want it
differently
Keep out the bugs
that migrate in springminds
I don’t want them in your life
Crack up the blue tiles
little by way of one by one
Tiptoe this way in time
the chase of tangents in mind
Vancouver the Cold over
London the Old
don’t tell me, show me your home
and I’ll clear to enter my conscience
for a while
little dear love to be undone
like yeast exploding slowly
in loaves of bread
at the back of your mind
I don’t know what to write about
there is so little time and drinking Coke
she has a boyfriend in Poland
Never Never Land
Maybe I should try mixing Port and Coke
No What Has Happened to Love?
Take this as a chorus
In small glasses from Ikea
Today comes unbreakable,
a Jeff Tweedy riff already scathing itself
electric leads coil around solo
lumps of dust
telegraphic messengers of neglect
I don’t have nothing to write about
And time is short
Like me
All rationality to the wind
It’s good to be a poem
In mid-air
To be read and read and read
Or left and left
Forgotten Forgotten Forgotten
You wake up
It’s morning
thinking a sigh as
the heart sinks the sun
you know what
it does
as you don’t
share the brightness of your room
look at you under cover
with some heat of the night still
a fuzzy head the pillow keeps
This is what happens:
pull back the duvet
raise up your upper body
move the feet out
and put them on the floor
apply pressure and lean forward
stand up straight
walk to the bathroom
where you can shower
Later sit down
at your desk
and write about it
better than I can