hello there, i am your future self

hello there,
i am your future self
spinning purple suns backwards
for a rhapsody retold
i will not simply warn you, but
show you a patch
of grass where the blades bend
sideways toward the dawn
you may remember a night when
a button first slid
through holes in appropriate
places withdrew
and now you are raking
to veneer solids old
and glisten the image
of love's buried cheer

alaska shovels its heaviness
soon in your mind
with clouds tipping scales
so densly refined
a decade will split you
from bottom to top
a swinger won't mend
a trigger won't stop
or train the innocuous
to excite someone's sound
and thump to be traced
between eyes above frown
once pallid and malevolent
raindrops muster out
in prozacian oceans
tides don't amount
when the love of another
ignites starry air
through electrocution
i'll meet myself there

a tender machine

a creation of fireworks rains into a river
i stretch, smooth, over your shoulder
igniting the hairs on the back of your neck
into raging fires of hot cheeks, skin, breath
on your face's landscape, missed heartbeat
some land in the pools, holes, pupils
of your eyes, crying lines of autumn love
into the cups i make with my hair, hands
that flick the bead away, into buckets
of forgotten boys, men, those with sore bodies
they gave up when it hurt, stung, ached
while mine is broken, fused in three directions
carvings in it like a tree, bathroom stall
but i won't stop stretching, smooth
over your shoulder.

prettier than you

if life is a security blanket,
i pull it to my neck and devils touch my feet.
it's threads are in my teeth
as i squirm the night away,
thinking of a foreign sun
that could pierce the tiny holes
in the blanket that i tore.

i served you coffee after that
before you moved away with me
because you don't like men with
50 dollar haircuts
and i don't like women with
cucumbers in their eyes.

it didn't help

i just finished screaming,
and flailing my head,
and driving without my glasses
on the wrong side of the street
in the damn cold weather
in a t-shirt.

i couldn't see much,
and i gave a lady forty bucks.
it didn't help.

now i don't know where to sleep
or who to love in my dream.

dreaming of a car crash

my back door is open
there is sand on my soles
morning
leaves stick to my window
water drips in everywhere
never
trying to remember times
as I pull onto I-40 west
seldom
the hand creeps left
pushing mind into air
often
fires pour high
after car flips seven times
today

foul play in the minds of many

if only people would agree
that a tree and a fire are one in the same
we could warm our heads with dogwood breath
before a tongue slithers out
to discourage all the good that we worked to bring about
I will sharpen dull blades and heat them in the maple flame
you're sitting on a sofa
wishing you could witness a flashing supernova
but the television glow is all to see for all you know
winter superman facade
kills my mind's distinction between misery and god
I need to turn sixteen again and wonder where my joy has been

nothing happens in manhattan

go to sleep, nameless lady
go to sleep, shameless lady
cover up your nose
and your eyes
and your toes
no one knows your name for a reason

have a dream, skinny beggar
have a dream, penny beggar
hell would be nice
you wouldn't have
to think twice
'bout the troubling change of the season


no one knows our name for a reason

shut up i am dreaming of places where lovers have wings

by spencer krug:

you’re on the distant shore,
you’re on the distant shore,
oceans never listen to us anyway,
oceans never listen to us anyway,
and if I fall into the drink
I will say your name before I sink.

he says your name out loud
at miniature rooms where no one’s found,
it’s a desperate sound.
you’re on the distant shore,
he stomps his feet down,
you hear his knuckles on your door.
he wants to send you drawings,
drawings of men with faithful hands,
they will make such good boyfriends.
he wants to tell you stories,
stories of boys who stomped their feet saying,
“Shut-shut up I am dreaming of places where lovers have wings.”

I’ll meet you where the river forks.
when everyone else is dead,
you’ll be safe on the water.
we’ll be much younger than we remember.
you’re on the distant shore,
I stomp my feet down.
do you hear knuckles on your door?
do you understand what I’m pining for?
oceans never listen to us anyway,
oceans never listen to us anyway,
and if I fall into the drink
I will say your name before I sink,
oceans never listen to us anyway.

I’m afraid of the water.
I’m afraid of the sky.
I’m tired of waiting.
oceans never listen to us anyway,
oceans never listen to us anyway,
and if I fall into the drink
I will say your name before I sink,
oceans never listen to us anyway,
so…

don’t make a sound.

the meantime

i'm in between mysteries.
one is slowly bare,
slowly bare but quickly shared.
in an instant i was blind.

the other is a distant shape,
melting black and red,
black and red as liquid fled.
the unseen is sublime.

what do i do until then?
can i make an escape,
an escape from everyone i hate?
i'm cursing the meantime.

put your hands in your pockets and join the ranks

let's rate the importance of all things
and give number values to our sanity.
we can dream of ideas that would change who we are,
but dreams are not today's reality.

let's make promises to each other
that will never refrigerate
and tell ourselves we're better off
than all those bastards we've learned to hate.

we can go from day to day to day
ignoring light and sound and breath
and only notice the curious way
that beauty fleets in the moment of death.

but what do we know after all,
of what we should, of right and wrong,
of all this talk of true and false-
we're writing lyrics to a wordless song.