Coin Toss

So to you I'll toss a coin.
A coin for you and me.
It's only a simple litte flip,
A call of heads or tails.
Believe me we'll like
The outcome!
Just call it, I'll tell you
What you'll et when it lands.

...(cling)...

HEADS!

Your prize...?

Me, and all my
Charming
Imperfections.

There's enough of those to keep me
Anchored
To the bottom here. I'm not going
Anywhere,

Trust me.

Ah! It seems your boots are
Just as heavy.

Don't fret,
We'll be alright,
Just tighten your bootstraps,

We'll be fine,
Down here,
Together...

In our blinding coin-toss love.

17

And as the new year is born, all wrapped in warmth
We're on my porch, ears red from the cold, amongst
A jubilant war of pots and pans afire,
We four laugh and chant, but I am mesmerized
by her black pea coat. When I was seventeen

She was something I could only dream of,
A swirl of rose in her nose and cheeks,
A perfect form I didn't wholly know, but
It was a smile and sway that drew me to a
Plan executed, when I was seventeen.

So as the year took another hour of
Our lives, this wondrous girl had to leave for home,
But I shan't let her rose swirl escape me
Without knowing the truth, my subtle truth.
In my arms, she too is seventeen,

But I can't go forward, no, not with him there,
My friend so fragile, someone like him would die
If he knew... Bah! There is no time for thinking!
I have to act now! I want her to know it.
I dash out, snowblind, to the passenger door,

And plant love on her cheek. We were seventeen.

Demon Cloud

I saw it
Up in the sky.
An aerial blanket
Of ominous purple
Looming violently
Above me. Perhaps
It's there to
Shield
The angels from
Some underworldly
Joys...
Perhaps He wants
Us to witness His
Wrath, but He is
Weak now, He
Is old, and
Wrath is but a
Cough and a
Feigned swipe
Of claws in the
Face of its
Former self.

Eternal Life

I have heard the cry of a ghost in song,
His languish splayed before me, his guitar and voice
Upon my eager ears, his somnolent touch
Raps on my soul, as if to be invited in
And nestle close with Sir Drake and the victory rose,
All awash in sweet, undying, mercurial
Peace, there within my heart
They wrestle to be my cantor
To lead me Into sublimity, into peace
Where I shall surely find some tranquility
Amongst Elysian notes and strums
From a godly Telecaster I know well
The champion Mr. Buckley cries out
His lost Grace from across the mortal void.

Perhaps Our Enemies Talk...

you're a line from nowhere
you're a caress without care
you're the horror of dreams
you're imagination in streams
you're the drown in the drink
you're the glance and the blink
you're e'erything to E'eryman
you're the flaw in the plan
you're a quill of heaven's lord
you're lying cold on a coolin' board
you're the cliche of red and violet coos
you're the gooseflesh in Waits' blues
you're, your, and yore used wrong
you're banality in e'ery love song
you're the one I can ne'er quit
you're the one that makes me poet

Muzzled Bliss

In those moments of muzzled bliss
You can almost hear the world coughing.
Oh it's there, believe me!
And what I'd do to hear it again!

She's got consumption!
She's got the plague!
She's gone in a bad way!
She's got Man in her veins!
She's a husk...
She's the part
That you throw away.

Oh! Her coughing is
Klaxon to our
Delight, our
Un(bridled)known
De(light)struction,
But she does not scream.
No, she does not scream,
For there is no pain we
Children can muster
For her to bleat so pathetically, and
In moments like this, that choke beulahry,
Sh- sh- sh- sh- she who is
"Eternal" laughs in our faces,
Quaking and resplendent,
As we tear her to shreds.

The House Next Door

The house was burnin' down next door

I heard her scream, I heard him roar,

But when I woke I knew that she'd been dreamin'.

So I took a match out the box,

And took a drag, and went down the block,

But by then I knew that she was gone.

So then I took some steps in reverse

Through the ash, the pain, and the curse,

And broke the glass in my bathroom window,

And I stole the china that was in your care,

Mama's touch, and the dog's bristlin' hair

So what's left but a dream or a song?

My Lord, so comely and featherweight

My hellish truth lies in the break

And burden of souls named and wrought in blood,

And where's van Gogh who coughs aloud,

To shield my face from haze and cloud,

And coughs again, and then again once more?

Now this ain't my hundr'd-fifteenth dream

This shit just kinda pours out it seems

So I'ma let it keep on a-flowin'

So let's take this thing as far as it'll go

Up to the moon, and back to the blow

Of ancient wind that sings softly through me,

And keep your gold, and keep your silver

It don't cost nothin' for me to kill her,

'Cause the ones your love'll never see it comin',

But the grave I'll dig, it won't be shallow,

'Cause in'll go me, my love, and her shadow,

But my shade must fill back the hole.

So here we lie in our earthly hood

Between mattresses of dirt and wood

Left to breathe in each other's air,

But we'll just laugh and melt away

Burn our flesh for God to say,

"Come with me, now it's your time to go!"