empty sunlight in the bluegrey years
or the politics of
unimportant deaths
of empty lives filled with
ignorance and hatred
why be concerned about the
patron saint of clenched fists?
why debate the exact location of the
desert between hope and despair?
accept that it exists and build your
house on the fault line
bury your children
out by the freeway
there are worse ways to waste your
life than looking for pleasure
that causes no one else any pain
we spend our dead-end hours
walking down these dead-end streets
in the shimmer of crows against
a wet dust sky
no god just the ghost
just the shadow
just the question asked but
left unanswered
overgrown lawns and the songs all
played backwards on the radio
the flowers in bloom
the priests on fire
nothing we can do for them in
this neverending nowhere
but dream
[the man of shadows thinks in clay]
king fist is eternal and
then king fist is dead
no shame in this, it
happens to everyone
fucker takes a bullet in the throat,
and then it’s like every
day is xmas
it’s like getting laid in a
ghostwhite room
on a brilliant afternoon
visibility limitless and
no horizon and
who is it you turn to once your
god has been burned to the ground?
how much broken glass are
you willing to crawl over
for a fix?
any lie will do if it
gets you
what you think you need
regret
you start by hating
who you are
and who you aren't
you listen to three
teenage girls in the middle of
the street
screaming at each other
you watch the baby
sleep through it
think about the sister of
someone you used to
consider a friend
about her husband hitting
black ice on the highway on
a february morning
the truck that
destroyed his car
the way you haven't
seen the sun
for three days now
your fingers cold on
the first day of june and
your car sitting dead
in the driveway
your lover
visiting her family
two hours away and
without the promise of
return
all of the days
you've wasted not
telling her what
matters
inverted grace
floating in the pale sunlight of early
april, we are not drowning, are not yet
max and dorothea but already something more
we are believers in
the idea of disbelief
are casting shadows across ragged lawns and
up the sides of empty houses and
we are measuring the distances between
the deaths of our enemies and the deaths of our friends
fuck 1967
all of those junkies who thought your
father was the 2nd coming
all those teenage girls made of
spun sugar
and we could never eat our fill
we grew older, of course,
but we never grew up
learned the hard way that every dog was
only our friend until the moment it wasn’t
spent far too many days bleeding
in the name of what we thought was love
no shame, no fear at all
but every day can’t be
the last one,
right?
we need a decision here
we need bravery and
reverence and
the fingerbones of priests to
suck the marrow from
good fucking magic in
the age of despair, and do
you remember the last
tyrant we hung?
do you remember his
screams as we dragged
his broken body
down the road?
if not,
it’s been too long
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