Great, Dark Nation

I see the ones I love strewn like
stars across America --
thorn and spur in the dark
the lives we live are in the dark
We barrel through her cities,
tumbling in oil-stained streets
We drag our knuckles down her sidewalks
We spark and ash in her gutters
piss behind her fences
We swirl to her slurred songs,
we tremor to her boom and heartbeat
(I pull her slender hips close to mine,
rock her gently, meet her eyes)
Scattered across America -- we glitter
Great, dark nation
Stars whirring, streetlamps burning

I see the ones I love blown like
seeds across the plain --
dry and dusted eyes to the wild
the lives we live are to the wild
We trudge through the thick soils,
through the blood of America
We dig black nails into her skin
We move easy in her afternoons
astride her long crosswinds
We burrow in her broken ground,
we breathe slow at the fall of night
(I dream of grackles bobbing
along barbed wire in the dawn)
Scattered across America -- we sleep
Great, dark nation
Seeds waiting, grasslands swaying

I see the ones I love skipping like
stones across the water --
spiraling toward moss and mystery
the lives we live are for the mystery
We bound blazed and aimless
on the breaking rapids of America
We sink to her lazy depths
We settle among her lost multitudes
watch the sunlight ripple above
We lie still within her current,
we forget, we are forgotten
(I call out, my words dissolve
in her static and thunder)
Scattered across America -- we vanish
Great, dark nation
Stones hiding, waters rising

Mother's Day

Prop the new flattop in my
Father's lap -- He thumbs a slow
chord, follows with a clean seventh

I press that slick solidbody
close to my ribs,
fingers eager to hit a few
cigarette-burn honkytonk licks

Settle on an old favorite
-- I can croon the hell out of this one
We almost hit the chorus
before I notice your eyes

Blaze-red and screamin' --
You cover your face -- buckle
let out two heaving sobs --
The little girl awakens, remembers
and spills onto your hands

Guess I never knew
Those whinin' rhinestone notes
could draw that kind of blood

Old Country

You across the table at witching hour
, planks warped between us
-- blue streaks and high chamber laughs
You turn your head every so often,
sip a drink and shake loose
your hair, coiled on an index finger --
And somehow we haven't changed
I feel you in the quiet
Foreign sweetness still in my mouth,
scent still hiding in my shirtsleeves

The Barn

Almost a place of nightmares
A setting for short fiction
-- We ascended to the hayloft,
stepped long up dusty stairs,
gripping a longhorn's skull
Far above the horse stalls and
shit shovels, past the chained-up
dogs and schoolhouse ruins
Where a boy could stomp a heavy heel
on sturdy woodplanks, lean, unchecked,
over ledges and dangle from rafters
Where the old world ran wild

We hung that skull on a nail
above the double doors
leading to sky and long-haired horizon
-- a sunbleached monument to ferocity
And danced some inspired barbaric dance
on haybales

to be
interrupted only by a stiff-necked
ghoul -- leftover villian from the
silent era -- flashlight to chin
groaning
creeping slow up the stairs

Poems in April

For the month of April, Br. Adair and myself composed some 30 poems based on Google image searches.


View the entire collection here.

Things to come

Dear Descending Apocalypse,

Do what you need to do, but please don't ruin pint night or leak under my front door.

Thanks.

Bullets & Bones

The record is out ... so for you curious few, here's where you can listen to and/or obtain it.

CD Baby
iTunes

Enjoy, lads and lasses. It was an intense process ... but this is a record I'm proud to claim as my own.