walk through the fire

Things could be different
any day now
it could all change
Maybe now is the time
for a break
for those clouds to go away
for the right chemical reaction
the right equation
to make everything right
What are the chances
that this madness with endure forever
what is the point
if this is all we get
Maybe someday
the hot and the cold,
the rapture and the droll
won't conspire against us so
can I write the rules
can I do it my own way
Let me write a check or two
let me break your bones
and walk away unscathed
let me walk through the fire
spit flames into the sky
and never get the feeling
I'm about to die.

the one with damaging eyes

My jukebox turned to rain
the last time I saw your face
my eyes go dead and distant
every time I think about
your sweat mingled with mine
I lose my grip
when I think of you
all the lines I wrote
all the calls I made
and it seemed like
you were barely there
Why did you have to be
so far away
You were shouting at me
to walk the line
you were warning me
of danger up ahead
but I never heard you
and we all know
the rest of the story
we all know you got out of town
and never came back
I will always feel for you there
you, the one with damaging eyes
me, the one who never heard you
you had rock and roll in your lips
I had my memorized lines
and such hopeless dreams
You wanted someone to save you
from the dark and the void
I wasn't the one,
I just made you bleed more
When you left,
they laughed and shook their heads
they never got it,
never understood how life can twist you
and cut you down
until there is nothing left
I wish I was there in that
Nebraska drizzle
when they put you in the ground
when the hopeless lost
one of their own.

my noise in you

Look away
you've got to look away
you don't know what to say
my words dig in deep
my eyes penetrate
I am an escaped convict
running for my life,
running out of time
I am the monolithic murder fiend,
blood on my teeth
You are disgusted
but you can't move your feet
I know you don't know
what I'm saying
but I'll say it anyway
You can deny it
but we both know that it's true
You've got my noise in you
you feel my teeth bite down,
your hotness gush out
When your eyes close
you can imagine anything
and you will--
anything but this
anyone but me
When the day comes
when you can touch your scars
and not see my face
then you will know
I will never leave you
alone with the voices,
alone with the noise.

a thirst in me

Why do such cold nights
follow in your wake
why are your eyes so stalwart
and shining when they despise me
It is a trap
and I have been snared
there is a thirst in me
for your evil
There are so many ways
this can go wrong
but I blindly feel for you
I am the caustic, failing, graying
man with too much on his hands
and never enough time
I have put questions in your eyes
you've put a war in my guts
What are the chances
we'll get out of this alive
I just want the torments to cease
the nights put to sleep
and your hands back in your lap
Someday I will be at rest,
at peace with myself
Girls like you won't twist me,
break me, sabotage me
someday I'll stop this endless reiteration,
this poorly written and poorly acted tragedy
someday my vile mind
won't conjure you
and maybe someday
I won't need your sad songs
to keep me alive.

your menacing eyes

You get a bad taste in your mouth
every time you look in the mirror
those eyes have something
dangerous in them
You've grown hungry and mean
and you can't shake it anymore
there was a time when
you could blame it on circumstance
and bad luck
only a fool would believe you now
Can anyone sit in the same room
and not feel your menacing eyes?
no one can cover for you now
questions have turned to statements,
intuition to fact
Everyone sees you're dying
and at your own hand
Their eyes follow you
with disgust and helplessness
you give away so little
yet they know so much
Is there an explanation?
These are not the eyes
you were born with
this is not the path
anyone thought you would take
You are an angel of rot,
a caricature to fool the simple
you are the end
that refuses to come.

dioxin addiction

I'm addicted to your noxious chemicals
your love is hazardous waste,
chlorine bleach, plastic fire
You are the blackest smoke
filling my pink lungs
Your smile
spits poison in my face
behind your mascara eyes
is genocide, falling bombs,
dust bowl, famine and apathy
You don't even know
that you deal in carcinogens,
that in your wake
is a thirsty, desolate land
Your words are dioxin
your tongue is a fire
that never goes out
Whatever you did to me
I wish you would take it back
whatever you want from me
I'm sure is long gone
I am an abandoned church,
my gothic stance is all that's left
rocks have penetrated my windows,
my insides are moldy and flaking
my doors are locked
but somehow you've
found a way in
You like it here,
for some sinister reason
We belong together
we are the last of a dying breed
we are a unified brokenness,
dying animals holding onto one another
shuddering, coughing
laughing in the moonlight
extracting what life we can
from the shifting shadows
and the festering mess
that surrounds us
boring into one another
for the last holdout promises
and smiling our sick, cancerous smiles
for the last time.

the comeback

These are my blacks and blues
I've gotten them
from everyone like you
these stains go deep
my pain goes even deeper
and it never comes out
Try to make me
show my innocence
try to wrench is out of me
my vulnerability
the brokenness
that makes me human
You can drill for it
with all of your technology
you can place it in your
centrifuge of control
You will never
separate me from it
you will never break me down
Try with all your miracles
try with all your might
I have become bored
and am looking for a fight
I am a stubborn stain
of graffiti in your mind
Paint me, sand me down
I will always come back again.

wandering stars

Fate isn't fiction
and forever can be yours
you just have to find
those fine lines
you just have to sing your songs
to those ugly crowds,
those dirty masses
and come out clean
Ask me why I abuse my muse
and the answer has always been
because she is there
Ask me why I cannot look away
and the answer is clear
I have nothing else to do
When the worms come for you
just remember
they got to me first
I sat up so many nights
that I forgot everything
but your name
and the way your voice sounded
the very first time
you crackled on my line
I don't think you will ever know
how many meager years
I searched in vain for you,
how many nights I probed
the heavens and walked among
those dirty, dying stars
we were all the same--
our eyes were always brooding
and ever wandering
we were such lost causes,
study hall rejects.

what turns your gears

It would be like building a house,
locking the doors
and walking away
You know their eyes shine
with the promise of endless weekends,
summer vacation and
planets in a telescope
They are science fiction
you know what turns your gears,
lubricates your moving parts
keeps you young
Losing her would
plunge your world into darkness
losing her would be like
losing the sun and the moon
Without her
the stars could fall into the sea
the wind could rage
the earth could melt
Nothing would matter
you would be Jonah
mourning the gourd
cursing the day you were born
waiting for the man upstairs
to burn down the world.

cotyledon

Those first two leaves
don't mean anything at all
they're like training wheels,
anonymous instruments
to get you started
That's what my hands feel like
right now
that's what your body feels like
right now
Your face is turned away
but I still feel your
embarrassment and fright
you are so unsure
of your own weapons
It feels like
you've given me everything
I have no qualms
with disrupting your world
there are no reasons
to look back
You keep telling me
you don't mind
but I know
I have uprooted your soul
You have come to this
strange and brooding place
to find out about me
but all you see
is their blood splattered on the walls.

one good thing

Trouble like a lead blanket
is smothering me
I can't think
can't fight, can't run
can't even make a move
my insides are churning
like an underwater Houdini
but I am not a professional
I have no tricks
Sitting in front of that screen
has cratered my brain
The endless datastream
of bad news
has turned my world to rot
All I'm asking for
is one good thing
I've become lean and wizen
in my search for it
I've turned to isolation, insulation
from the noise
from the angry crowds,
the tear gas and dead bodies
Sitting in this quiet place
is a salve
being here with you
is a healing balm
and everything is right
The world can fall apart,
the clouds can rain down fire
for all I care
I will watch from my easy chair.

have you noticed

Have you noticed
my clothes don't fit me anymore
my skin has worn thin
in strategically painful areas
I can't finish sentences
thoughts flop off my tongue
and fall to the floor
My mind wanders
like a hungry and dying wolf
Words are clumsy tools to me
I break them like a brute
Have you seen my blankness?
The despair in my eyes
cannot possibly hide
Too many warnings
were left unheeded
Too many thoughts
were left all alone
Too many nights
I fraternized with devils
Where were you when the lights went out
when the walls began to crumble
when the windows rattled with screams
and I gave my soul to them
for one more night with you
I've borrowed too much time
and now it's time to pay
Well,
Have you noticed?

looking for you

How can so many ghosts
live in such a small house
It's just you and me
but it feels like an epic, a tragedy
How many nights will pass,
how many new days will come
and whimper away
How will we reverse this subversion
Where is the healing balm,
which words will satisfy
Which direction will propel us
from this moldering place
I don't wear a watch
because time has turned on me
I feel shattered,
hit below the belt
I am gasping,
grasping for anyone's hand
Looking for you
and your lying bedroom eyes
You and I are so far away
our pain has alienated us
our misery has made us strangers
The sun is full of ridicule
the breezes are cruel jokes
I am burned from within
So many years of deadfall
have fed this inferno
I wait for the healing rains
and the new life they bring.

bleeding lyrics again

Where is the rest
in your world of constant motion
you imagine a slower pace
you imagine a lot these days
"anywhere but here,
any time but now"
has become a mantra
You are shut off
you are disconnected,
dismantled--lock out, tag out
Burned so many times
you are blatant in your distrust
your emotions are knots and tangles
your directions don't make sense
It's amazing you function at all
Once,
the future was wide open
Once,
your capabilities astounded even you
Now,
you bleed like a living voodoo doll
Now,
even the wind makes your sores angry
your harmony is discord,
your radio plays static
The stink of your fetid wounds
has reached your nostrils
A sane man would cleanse
with bleach, with fire
You think you can come clean
with your confessions, with desire
you ought to know
a library of words
won't take your pain away.

drinking damage

How does something so small
hold you up
How can a liquid
make you whole
How many bottles
do you have to empty,
nights you have to obliterate
before you are pure again?
You are a walking dirge
sunlight fails
birds drop from their perches
shadows choke and
oracles die
as you walk by
All because you've had enough?
The bright side is hard to see
when you're digging your own grave
Everyone has their opinions of you
well, if they only knew
"the lot has been cast
into the lap;
but the whole disposing thereof"
is out of your hand
You are a simple man
with so many demons
You are on a death binge
and have lost control
So clench your teeth
and brace for impact.