Animal song # 115

I am no longer angry.
My limbs are now docile,
and when I return from jumping over the barricades
I go to the man who broke me.
Each time he pats his hand
against my snout,
and I bat my lashes
as he compliments my obedient grace.

A men.

I never thought loneliness could kill but here I am staring into my television night after night between these four walls with my body full of disease and I have no ears to scream into. I went back to the hookers I had slept with and they told me they were clean but I couldn't find Suzy. "Suzy," I thought "your killing me!" I asked Tiff (the black girl with the weird ass) if she knew what diseases Suzy had she laughed (can you believe that?) and said "Oh honey you poor thing she's a mixed bag she's got it all from the little warts that don't matter to the worst ones"

"The worst ones ?"

"Yeah, she gets real sick sometimes"

I went home and I killed time.

Staring into the tv I knew I wouldn't find Suzy nobody had seen her in weeks.

She was most likely dead somewhere, maybe they were holding a funeral for her somewhere in Kansas or where ever the hell she's from, where they call her Susan or Susanna and people went to school with her.

The television has turned to static.

My mind goes numb with an echoing pain,similar to when you hit your funny bone. I held my chest like a child about to cry, my eyes riding the wall searching for a friend to call out to, one who will recognize my pain. I think about my mother and my mothers funeral and how my dad fought his buddy Danny cause a couple weeks before she died he found out they had been fucking for years. My Daddy and Danny cried then they got mad at the sight of each other and they began to pummel blows there and then. The dead woman didn't stir just silent and cold like she was amongst the living. Woman are bitches, my daddy had to grow old with that shame, I don't know how long I got but Im gonna be living in shame as long as my balls burn.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Jackie

The sky was held up so high above him
his face pressed into the grass
the bottle nearly empty
Jackie had jumped the high line
with just the bottle
that he stole
he was so tired
from all the running
he could feel the bones shake in his skin
slept all the way from mississippi
to new york city
the same sky held above him
closed his mouth
and held his breathing
in the grass
he laid low,
his stomach completely empty
they saw his chest rise on a breath
he had no way of knowing
the same sky still held above him
his face pressed
into the grass

Poor People

All of us are poor,
some of us just have nicer clothes.

Gospel # 4

With my hands reaching
and my voice raised
with nothing to hold onto
I will pull the curtain down
I will resurrect the ghost
I will hold her toward the light
till we eclipse the sun

With no sense of purpose
we stomp
just to raise the dust
my white, thin fingers frailing
shape to fold a fist

I will resurrect the ghost
I will pull the curtain down
I will hold her toward the light
till we eclipse the sun

The ghost had been put away
now no longer in the dark
my body will be her host
I will guide her
through this dance
till she finds her way

I will pull her
toward my chest
I will fold her legs
with mine

and lay my head
on her breast

A reaching hand

I will not scrub my chapped skin with ivory.
You never know the new colors you will lay in that will
dry and dye and live in your skin.
When I walk through this desert and gleam
down these endless streets looking wondering where I will rest,
I lose control.
If my nails can be scraped down to jewels
just to return to claws why not accept
that my hands are tools made for digging and cutting and protecting myself in this jungle?
If my once handsome boyish face is pushing hair
from the inside threw theses tiny holes why not accept I am a wolf?
Mother are you weeping?
Your little boy is now a cub with knots in his skin.
I will lay down in the road and scrape at your heels.
Mother I now know hunger
and I can no longer tell your ankles from the others running in the herd.

Outro

With their hands reaching toward me
I don't know how this will end
I like you cause your lucky
and I need luck now

My face pressed up against the window
but Im not ready to scratch the glass
How is it one become one of them?
With their gleaming hooves
and shiny horns?

Well we sacrificed a lot
was it the wrong thing to do?
We lit our belonging
just to watch them burn
dancing around the fire
we each had our turn


I who spends his time running
not trying to understand
for now my legs are tired
and my bones are damned

I've been on your trail like a lion
about to swallow his lamb
I like you cause your lucky
and I need luck now

press your self up against the glass deer
make my choice clear