Te Mando Un Beso

She connects the lines, traces them in pencil.
Still they're intertwined
jamming all the signals.

Plans out her course in spite,
packs her favorite books and tools.
Winds through the mountains until her feet are worn completely through.

Bloodied limbs walk too.

She was told a lie, mimicked by the songbirds.
Now she's trapped inside
trying to find the right words

The spark was not incendiary,
it was just benign like all the scrawl
Etched into the rocks she passes echoing the black crow's caw.

Is it worth it all?

Shackhoe Girl (running backwards)

(She smiled, talked, streamed about murderous cousins)

How hard it is to hide your secret sadness behind a soft-forced smile, wanting the space to think, wanting her to want you like last night, and now she's fretting about a book, frowning at your ugly toenails, biting her nails, nervous, murmuring, and wondering what you're writing.

She hates your grammar, even knowing you put up with late-night absurdities: demands for booze or cigarettes.

Returning, with her bag, the warning sign, and you know that this writing could probably destroy you.

The Iceman

I sigh, way back
it's a rattle in the rubble
As night grips black
(it's a trip into trouble)
Shake me up cause my mind's slime
vascular motion solidified
tongue tied, blind.
I cannot blink through the bright haze
could you please just reanimate?
I'd like the sun to feel my face.

"They can have my guns, bullets first" – The Modern Doomsayer

He appears unassuming, a howling wolf surrounded in an American flag adorns his factory tie-dyed shirt, black and blue and black and blue. He wants something we don't carry anymore – long term survival gear, used mainly for camping. I tell him how the big corporations make it difficult to sell things like that anymore, and he reacts with a frown, eyes wrinkling into the template formed by all frowns previous. From the folds, I can tell this man does a lot of frowning.

He seems concerned, frowning not at the world, but for the world, saddened by the state of things, genuinely hurt by the actions of man, empathizing with those unfortunate. He no longer believes in much beyond his Bible, he keeps his guns loaded, prepared to hand them over "bullets first". The military had jaded him, speaking of the fifty year olds who would act like children, without foresight.

He is a man who takes the blows for the faults of mankind, the marks left his soul stained like his shirt, black and blue and black and bruised. The concentration camps are ready, he claims, with ovens to cook those who fight back. They'll be run by NAZIS who wear big business armbands, starred white on blue, reflecting what had become American, blind patriotism and Wal*Mart. The Wal will finally hit the mirror and turned law.

It's okay though, his bunker's ready. Six months of food and water, ammunition, and three books. He's awaiting judgement.

Conversations with a Chinese Girl

It's hard to sneak away when no one sees you run.
I was walking back to rehab, I was getting me a gun
Little clicks in metal holes make the metal ring explode
It's so simple.
Just let the fire run wild, let's burn the fucker down

And when you're looking back it's the little things that always mattered most
And it's a crying shame when the little ones end up as ghosts

Chinese girls in wedding gowns all filling up the hall.
That dress might make you legal, but it'll never make you tall.
Sneaky creeps and through-tooth lies, glasses hide their greedy eyes
Love's not money.
Lick your lips and close your eyes, and kiss his halitosis smile

Nod and watch and work and die, let it lie, those problems aren't for me
cause someone else will get it right by the next century.