Nostalgic wishes

We used to wish on falling stars,

dew on our bare feet in the grass,

the smell of warm leaves in our nose,

our parents’ voices calling us home

like songs heard through upstairs windows.

We used to wish on falling stars,

and count the seconds for thunder

after every lightning bolt flash,

hide and seek games cut short by rain.

Our memory falls now, more than 

we used to. “Wish on falling stars,”

we say to children, pointing up

to the endless mirror of dreams,

hoping to see that spark in them

faded from us, our innocence gone:

we used to wish on falling stars. 

Heart strings

Music is for hearts wrapped in wire

robbed from pianos like old graves,

the fingerprints of romantics,

wound ‘round the dust of falling stars.

The rhythm of the world tells us

music is for hearts wrapped in wire,

telegraph lines stretched soul to soul,

feeling the songs that beg no words.

A movement of light on water,

a concerto for night and day,

music is for hearts wrapped in wire,

and symphonies of insect mouths.

Little boy blue trades in his horn

for the electric guitar sound,

throws his angst on the fire to burn,

music is for hearts wrapped in wire. 

You learn something new every day

but today, I didn’t learn anything new,

so fuck you. I didn’t learn to write my name,

I didn’t learn to chew my food. 

I didn’t learn to dance and I still don’t know

the capital of New Mexico. No, I can’t solve

for x, and why would I want to? 

I haven’t learned to mind my manners,

I didn’t learn to use my turn signal

when changing lanes, and I’ll be damned 

if a yellow light slows me down. 

I haven’t learned my drinking limit,

I haven’t learned a valuable life lesson,

I most certainly have not learned 

to accept Jesus as my personal lord

and saviour. I haven’t learned a thing

and if you think you can prove me wrong,

you can go to Hell. Hell, that’s the capital

of New Mexico. Guess I knew it after all. 

Working

I play roulette with a canon,

a single-shot barrel that swallows

my head and sounds like a cave.

My staple gun has a rusty hinge,

squeaks like a dying bird

with every report or breath

fastened to the gravity of repetition.

I light the extended fuse 

and walk to the mouth of doom, 

awaiting the truth of seconds 

that taste like rain.

New pens are sexual partners,

their virgin seals violated 

by my teeth and signature,

by numbers fucking numbers.

Every day a storm and a failure, 

black socks staining my feet 

while seagulls get lost in parking lots

and my fingers memorize paper cuts,

waiting for the fuse to dry.

Self-portrait with Nothing

He hangs a zero around his neck
like it's the moon or the place 
in the sky where the moon used to go.
The first time he masturbated 
his stomach filled with bubbles 
and God watched until the water
turned cold. There were apple trees
out behind the trailer guarded
by hornets and the fragrant scent
of teenage sweat. 
At night a ghost drug its feet 
up and down the hall, or maybe
he dreamed that, like the time
he thought God put his finger
in the center of his brain,
and flipped the switch for caring. 

Indivisible

Zero is indivisible. 

You can’t share nothing 

with someone else.  

Emptiness is a self-contained 

affliction, or an all-encompassing

void. How can nothing weigh

so much, when it exists inside you?

His eyes are zeroes.

His mouth is a zero. 

His heart is a zero. 

His asshole is a zero. 

Put your lips to his eyes.

Put your tongue in his mouth.

Put your ear to his heart. 

Put your nothing in his nothing. 

Johnny Wolf

His eyes were dark as bullet holes,

bullet holes in the side of a stolen car,

the paint flecked around the edges 

of bare metal, like silver hints of madness. 

He combed his hair straight 

back, slicked with grease and sweat 

and whisky, so it shined like vinyl 

to match his polished leather coat. 

His breath smelled of wet ashes 

and cinnamon, a cocktail of sex 

and booze that seemed as natural 

as blood in the teeth of a lion. 

The Wolves followed his lead, 

savoring the cries of the vulnerable

sheep, the young who fell prey 

to Johnny's charms or his switchblade

knife, driving too fast, howling 

at the night, until one curve 

unseen, put them all away for life.