I'm a cut-throat boy, your an empty grave, we can still be friends when I get off stage

here's a deluge of all kinds of new stuff

There were those afternoons
at the cafes
in monmartre
smoking a pack of gauloises
watching the people pass
we would sit for so long
that now I cannot see crowds without tasting
that thick black coffee
in those impeccable porcelain cups

Or that rooftop, on the fourth of july
the world was on fire
we danced to apocalypse
told the world it could go to piss and ash
make it's bloody mistakes
we would be here to kiss it to sleep





Tin Can

the countryside is graph paper
calculating our distances
stringing us along the power lines
we whisper through cans
that we strung one summer
when our sweat stuck to the air

"If I stand still I am lost"
my words drip off of my tongue
maybe I have been drinking
my breath feels hot and wet inside the empty can
I press it against my ear
and for a moment
can pretend it is the warmth of your breath
like those days
when I would wake up sober

"Are you there?"
your voice is a squeak
makes me a mouse
scurries across the lines
haunts the inside of the can
tumbles into my mind
makes me a dot
on the farthest corner
of those cold, distant squares

"where did you go?"
the streetlight above me flickers
a threat
I beg, fold my knees
pray to faltering light
we are in this together
we need each other
I am talking to the streetlight again
it wanes, shows me the stars
brightens
and fades
I beg for one more moment
"Don't go"
the inside of the can presses a red circle into my skin
your voice is fading
"Tell me where you are"

I cannot answer
you cannot be here
the inside of the can feels hot and wet
like my cheeks
like my breath
the street light whines and sputters
I beg for one more moment
one more shred of light
it gets so dark here
"I am standing still"
a flicker
"Where?"
At the end of this line
stretched between the two most distant points
in the countryside
"Where I've always been"
one more sputter
then blackness all around me
I tug at the line,
feel it jerk, in the night
against your hands

and your voice leaks out
telling me to come home

standing still
at the end of the longest line
that we strung up one summer
when we were so close
that the air cracked like lightning between us
I whisper
"good night"
wherever you are




Werewolves
Werewolves

Swing from the subway poles
wrap your fingers around the edges of buildings
propel yourself forward
howl like a werewolf
howl like youth has consumed you
set you ablaze
you only fed the fire with endless toothpick joints
and pints of cheap beer
scream, snarl at the moon
charge the park ripping at the grass
howl like vampires
you are limitless
this city will be burned to the ground
we will dance and stomp and fuck in it's ashes
build it with our own hands
a temple to distant sanity
and then tear the walls down with our bare hands
we are Banshees, we hand each other poison
sing sweet mortality into the night air
we wake up ghosts
haunting our own footsteps
gunpowder burns on the virgin sidewalk


Phantom Float, For Mike Hail

A phantom floats
sifting the cold morning air
as it haunts the shuffling ghosts of the tenderloin
it keeps company the skeletons of mission bay
in the concrete and closets
the dawn passes through it
and kisses the foreheads of the
tiger eyed saints of the holy vein
it does not speak
nor touch
nor even scatter light
it remembers substance
a body
it hovers above the water
in the shadow of the golden gate
trying in vain
to catch the falling angels
sinks with them to the stygian depths
it's hand resting on their broken fingers
in it's most desperate times
it spirals within the foggy banks
gasping for weight