Even though the martyrs shoo him
for he doesn’t like to martyr right
he is tremendous. He does not flex
or take his punishment so easily.
He does not bend, he does not waiver.
His death comes at the cost of
most of those that would kill him,
but he get’s the job done, all things
considered. He is tremendous, and
there’s not much anyone can do.

slowly
ohsoslowly
do the pages turn themselves around
I shudder
do I shudder
at the sounds, the wretched sounds, and as
I mutter
under breaths of mine
my thoughts all racing wildly
I wonder
yes I wonder
how you’ll ever make it out of town

Your religion doesn’t
keep you warm at night.

Not unless you worship
the God Forsaken dollar
that pays the man that
pipes the gas that heats
your modest dwelling.

Damned if you do though,
I suppose.

A thousand miles out there lies
a cavern so I’ve heard, and in
it’s depths is held the truest
of the powers of the world, with
all the snapping grips upon it,
all the reaching souls deranged,
there’s not a finger, paw or feather
that can touch the thing unsinged

I’ll be following my father, for it,
tracking all his steps, and if
the trail goes cold I’ll just have
to find the way myself, with
the eloquence of danger
and my snarling steel unfurled
I’ll be gripping soon, the very
truest power of the world

You and I will live,
just long enough to atone
for the crimes we have committed

We will be forced to
rise with the full strengths
which are requisite to be human

And when we fall, I
will probably go with Dylan
on my lips.

I never was big on Dylan
but I just have a feeling.
And things change,
you know?

Sometimes
there’s a reason
that the road
less traveled
was

I was just thinking
today
how we used to be
people
to eachother.

I don’t know where the
offense
was rendered, but
somehow
that’s all it took, and

I’d love to fix things
but
there’s no use
calling
a phone that’s off the
hook
all the time

I remember
days
when we’d be
more
than just people
to
each other, but
now
I find other
numbers
to dial

There are fifteen different systems
that I hate I hate I hate and
I could count them if you ask me
but I think I’d rather not so
let me stew in my annoyances
and hate and hate and hate
until the feeling’s passed, and
I’m back to ignoring all these
systems that I
hate hate hate hate

I warned you,
I swear to God
(if there is a God)
I did.
Didn’t you hear me?

I was screaming,
through the double-pane
protecting me and mine
from all the ice-cold wind
and beggars
and midnight peddlers
and cops
(the cops mostly)

You never should have gone
that way.
I see you’re going
the other way
and that’s just not where
you were trying to be.

But those cops,
they’re just out to protect
us.
They just want to
stop us, for our own well-being
and their own peace
(piece?) of mind
to make sure that my pockets
are empty,
free of the burden of illegal
substances, weapons, and
(coincidentally), money,
if I’m found not to be lacking
in any of the other things.

This living we tend to do,
it’s an expensive habit. God
(if there is a God) forbid
that all those cops, who
are only looking out for our
well-being, find it in their hearts
to, just maybe, help
keep costs down,
instead of us.

But they won’t.
They got you,
in the cruiser.
They caught you,
running the block.
They’ve got you on
nothing, and they know it,
but they got you.
And I warned you.
Didn’t you hear me?

I wax poetic usually
I’ll wax my boots instead today
and while I’m scrubbing leather
with the toothbrush that I’ll
prob’ly use on teeth again, I’ll
understand the value
of water-proofing boots
before my feet get wet

Well, we’ve only just a bit
of snow this season, unlike
other places, and even though
it’s frozen, at least the sun still shines.
But if you find yourself in Iceland –
four hours of twilight’s all you get –
just call and ask for sunshine
you can probably borrow some of mine.

all things considered, I
do most of my waxing night-times
anyway

Why’d it have to snow?
Of course I’ve never heard that voice before
but then, I’m almost certain
what it means

Alcoholics in the breezeway
and the fuzz just wan’dring here and there
Of course I’ll hold your sister
and try to keep her from screaming

There’s never any blame, they say
though don’t let him get put away
it’s tragic,
but of course they’ll sleep it off

with sheer iced roads
and she, a wreck, there’s absolutely
every chance that things could get much worse.
A shame it’s not a dream

Going back some places
you remember why you never
planned on coming to some places
anymore, but now you’re there,
and all the people you remember
being people once upon a time
aren’t really those people any more
and haven’t been that way in ages.
Though time has always had a funny
way of making ages seem like
just a T.V. Special on a late night
in another town, when all the lights
had been turned down, and even
all your friends that had been
partying and throwing down are
piled in another room, and
sleeping.

There’s a street way on the East side
with a blue house on the corner
where all the people ‘in the know’
direct their closest friends to go
for things the normal place in town
does not often carry

The man that sits all day just in
the den, with a small TV on
takes visitors at gunpoint
(though they don’t know they’re
at gunpoint) while he hears
just what they need, and
with the furthest thing from speed
I’m sure he calls the guy that
takes care of most everying

No one much complains about
the rather large nominal fee, as
when service is rendered, there’s
no customer left unhappy:
the dirtiest of work is done
the laundry taken out, it seems
and no one needs to know a thing,
so shut the door tight
on your way out.

It’s not the cold makes you shiver,
shaking up your very soul
but the whole world always seems
to be sleeping when you need
a bit of warming up. and though
you haven’t tried it yet, you know
the blanket on the couch
is just not gonna cut it.

There’s sterility
it makes the world so falsified
and no one gets to see
the hard parts or the dead parts
and everyone’s a afraid
to run out in the mud a bit
as everyone is made
to think it’s best to head inside and sit

but when I hear the scream
of a guitar on a real live show
and have to move the tuner
on my shitty little radio
And untuned voices singing out
the realness of their very soul
I’m thankful that sterility
has not claimed all my rock and roll

Someone told me today that there was
a good chance if I drove too much
more, my battery would explode. So
we hopped back in the van and
drove the couple miles to the
place that we decided we would
spend our cash on a good meal
instead of a
battery

and then there was this other van
which wasn’t quite as imminently
dangerous as ours, but harbored the
threat of losing all stopping power
at any time. “They haven’t gone out
yet, though,” she said about the
brakes, “so they shouldn’t go out
today.”

And while that’s a terrible sort of
logic, it’s just our way of seeing things,
and anyway,
anybody’s brakes could go out
any time, so what’s
the use in worrying?

Bald tires spinning
but only in a metaphorical sense
(My Fourbyfour don’t take no shit
from snow, ya see),
with life sort of
ranging out ahead, and everything
at least a mile out,
and no good way to leave
the driveway

But the boots I used to wear
were thrown away the other day
(another metaphor – Red Wings last
forever),
and these new boots just make me
feel like I can
walk across the planet, just to
get to where I want to go,
and worry about the stops
I need to make when
that order for new tires
comes through.

Now where’d I put my coat.

Do you remember the day
that you and I
met God?

He was drunk, as I recall,
and the sun was barely
setting,
just behind the stand of
buildings
where the galleries
all hang their works of
art, and such.

He walked with a hobble,
and a cane
to fight the hobble
as he hobbled up
and squinted;
with a five in hand,
he shouted:

“I got a five dollar bill, and
I’m going in to that building
right there.
You’d better be playing
when I come back out.”

I asked him, just for
the sake of
politeness,
what he particularly
wanted to hear.

Do you remember the day
you and I
met God?

Because the
next thing he said
was,
is,
has been,
life:

“I dunno,
Play some jazz.
Fuck ’em.”

There’s a crumpled up poem
at the bottom of my briefcase –
or maybe there’s a crumpled
piece of paper at the bottom
of my briefcase with a poem
on it. Either way, within the
decidedly-less-than-delicate
folds of that piece of paper,
words that I, at one point,
thought would go well together
are stored, just beyond
the level of consciousness
reserved for more pressing things,
like reading and eating and
singing and playing and driving
and breathing and everything
except pulling that poem out
and letting it out so that others
can read it and see, with their
own two eyes and their own two
heart-and-souls, weather all those
words really go together after all.
(I hope it’s not too crumpled).

two weeks on an ice
cold floor make even
one night on a guest
bed seem like a full
year in heaven, that
is if heaven could
even feel this god
damned good.