every rider must have a ticket

my girl,
with occupational eyes
eccentric gossip in her head
like the moon, she has never been faithful
speak to me in your bleak voice
go wild, Irish Rose
wild like the world
like the thorn,
that pricks blood from the stone

in the night
in the light
trembling when the cock crows
hello little girl
my little girl
with big plans
in her back pocket


you deceive and corrupt
with your naked-waist politics
in the dark night
an old bare-footed man snores
nothing grows
burning hair
boiled claw
broken torso
and wrinkled skin
Apollo with a box full of smiles

my face dead cinder block
the determination of tin can hands
moving down dark within me
love creeps
eyes not engines
virgin pure swaying
you point the gun
and seal my tomb


discover the secret dragon hat
dazed and snickering
with a couple of farm angels
with dead eyes we see
she strolled over
and stole a kiss
I lay down my burden

following the sun West
we walk and laugh
on creeping legs
the mocker of our gaze
tempts us
with hungry haggard throat

the iron gate
of this hollow place
reads a notice of damnation
it was not fire but worm
not a tomb but a machine
the ways of Heaven
are numbered
we scratch them off
our playboy centerfold

between two dark doors
we meet at eternal ends
a twisted steel universe
my mind wanders
from rust to sundown
this world's blind gaze
turning and dying
papered with visions
of wrath and rumor

we keep heading down the dark road
I lay down next to the suffering
the security guard at the Tulsa mall
asks if we have ever been in trouble
with the long arm of the law

we are surprised by all of the statues
with movie star smiles
they are dreaming of me again
 naming the images that flow
happy dancing chickens
we ate them with mashed potatoes

I would grind it down to a nub

bending down, touching
some break
they cannot breathe
solid wrapper
my soul bleeds
if I had something
just anything
then I could dance

she was asleep in the next room
shoot and destroy me
like the age
like the trauma
with a stone around her neck
with her hand dances
shouting blue and rattling dark

you stand in the midst of them
as a mother of all flames
we shall build upon your glow
like the hills of Waukon
seeing the river for the first time
my might is bone and sinew
none stays at my feet
only frothy breath of the destroyer

feeling good like a saturday night
like a suicide
the hard evolution
not your original plan
they are hanging from your trees
following you after dark
little green eyes
ready for a change

it is all in the nature
in the smile and the handshake
all these colors coming out of my fingertips
they are the prize
they are the tatse

we were riding the double decker bus
you were talking about your cooking apparatus
how you could turn the cocaine into rocks
we lived as enourmous flesh
inspired and dominating the town
at night we set the town on fire
just for the sake of fire
it needs to be tended in the right way
the devil can't rule by himself

he needs to fill his city with souls
broken love in his hands
in his care
he was found guilty of all charges
abiding in the suffering
endless and wide
hairy legs and armpits
you say you don't care
shut your fucking mouth

the angel at my side
two angels with fierce eyes
now we got the spotlight
the weeping have their decay
let them out the window
let them fly to their freedoms
empty and wandering
a gray girl
no sunshine in her eyes
they had beaten her down

we stood in blood
and spoke to ghosts
when they came for you
I stood up and told them no
they were surprised for a little while
to hear someone tell them no
they had grown used to getting their way
it was the flower on the ground
it spoke to me
it said fight

take the skin
take the body
take the hood of the shadow
build a tempest
release the storm
carry youth upon this pole
hold it up high
blow my body
blow my mind
send a wind between my days
counting them like pennies
pass my heart between rat and rat
grind me down
to the bone

the day god told me find love or die

sunken years under
a few years of ruin
exhauasted before heaven
close to the crowd
dim sulfur mountain
five years of blue gods
the buildings of heaven
divine adoration
inherited pilgrim blessings
I carried the burden of your solitude
as far as I could

constructed thoughts
a bright new sky
the anguish of life
the terror of love
living in the hills
to the center of trembling
this low dog barking at the moon

clear boned women
skilled in the arts
ashes and furniture, scattered chicken bones
sketched open breasts
sky upward like the young
you spoke of the potentiality of miracles
your sister walking through the door

sprung crows
nestled feet and beaks
cawing to the picture in their head
I followed them to the thrid floor
falling away behind them
I had too many questions for them all
looking to see what it looks like
all day cold and either one would work
only the devil can tell

she waved at me, yielding me her heart
one face, one world, one reason to exist
essensce of the bold lie
the taste of freedom still on her lips
erotic lips
oh her experience was so true
there was a freedom in her eyes
that could not be reproduced
on a factory line

 this was not an sos
not a cry for help
but a cry for revolution
take up the weapons of the weak
and resist your oppressors
throw down the chains of your bondage
be free to be yourself
to live the life that you were meant to live

there is a hope
within the midst of the darkness
I took out my pocket knife
and carved your intitals into the tree

death row

my heart heals the petunias
a spoken garden
the alhambra and candle stick maker
stop the hoax and remove the hex
the real death head
grinning jackal
an absolute world
mad lions hanging from trees
my bones sing

picking up the pride
one leg at a time
you don't understand
I was hiding behind that tree
and you came over and cut it down
just like a good fucking buearcrat

noses pressed up against the wall
pledge your allegience
eggs and bacon
with bone marrow
milking the dust from the floor
over the body of suffering
hotel room
an half empty bottle
on the floor

eternity and the soul
walking down the sidewalk
killing everyone
she cried
my belly and shoulders
blood letters
he settled for the next best thing
a two car garage
next to a shrunken head

there was vooddoo in the mornings
raising the dead
her puppy could do tricks
an innocent expression
beaten over the head
with his peg leg
justifiable homicide

the rock of our salvation
drunk driveways
cocaine sidewalks
in the backyard with a cooler of beer
Iron Maiden is playing on the stereo
an angelic cigarette
tomato soup and cheese sandwich
your new tattoo of a starfish
we learn in desolation
from desperate angels

the top backbone

the ladies waved
screaming recognition
a beautiful love
filled with hate
start your engines
the gentlemen left the room
only us scumbags were left
we took advantage of the situation

open bottles like friends
long lost comrades
angry and wet ladies
such devotion
to their trade
to the deception

I knew you would soon
find your way on top
you always do
it doesn't matter where you start

bitching backbone
praise nothing
learning to recognize
the low hard fat one
Picasso and his glass of wine
sitting next to the warhead

my hotel room whore
like a dripping sink
she reads to me from her copy of tarantula
noble and dumb
like all good politicians
rolling a doobie and pontificating
releasing the hounds

it was the belly and the balls
a smile and huricane
we were setting up the walls
dug out dirt patch
a noon day shitty street
a smudged head cap
moon walking and when I died

we widened the gate
with dynamite and prayer
pulling the shades down low
Chucky lost three fingers
we awaken the road
blood and taxes
brother can you spare
something for the congregation

all men fall into the abyss
consumed by the invisible
we divide and conquer
the lost flesh
in empty apartment beds
listening to the echoes of time
holding the cards but not wanting to play them
desire eats the bug
and the bug eats oblivion

fly paper

these thoughts of you
full moon looks
bleaker corners
and tomcats
howl you bastard

remind me of the hunger
and the fatige
that grips me
bones and all

we wandered for hours
among the dead porkchops
asking questions to god
it was a blue love

tomarrow we will have more
busted and rusty
sitting beneath skies
as only we do

a minor key
sing sparrow
tilted so far
with a bloody chest wound

the villages rage
up and down the street
beating their breasts
indifference

tomarrow we will find an answer
bleak and dusty
stunted by the sun
Arapahoe

dead mouths
biological
untouchable
we harvest the emotion

this unholy thing
between two twins
cursed soul
and grime

external blade
so let the night bleed
on your shoes
on your torn carpet

the puppy dog shit stains
from long ago
reminding you of a dead past
with beads and trinkets

atom bomb
fucking war
angels weeping
insane demands

5 am rain, New Orleans
she kicked her legs and laughed
an interesting face
through the doors of the mind

they stab into me
pushing ignorance
cosmic vibrations
sold in the store

she tried to look ambitious
and endure the blood
through blinking eyes
she would ride all night
into the plains
dreaming the visions of the dead
speaking the words we had long forgotten


---------------new stuff ----

in the animal soup line

i am with you\
in this tempest
that you created
your mother's shade

spare me the trouble
spinster breasts
your innocent piano soul
dies madly

plotting Golgotha
so much about being lost
the zodiac speaks
and plays basketball

hiding ourselves
dismal pastiche
I have been driven madd
in the shelter

an elsewhere world
a promise of a serpentine
driving your car into the water
a very minor element

shared dissatisfaction
with the human worth
to seek and not see
to sleep until death

each tomb's stone rolled away

Mexico City

a furnished solitude
with square hipsters
you spoke of god
everthing swings together,

vortex, live vegatable
building your father's wilderness
in this city
under blue bluffs

I see the river
and it sees me,
entwined through our veins
and tributaries

deceive me again,
asphalt horse highway
a handful of white cross
tender throat boogie

crawl out your window
and taste the snake
your first peacock
in a booth in a cowboy tavern

knee bone flesh
sutured back
tomato silence
she flows

in and out of my dreams
like Mexico city
a step backwards and a step forward
infinite

a police bomb in the streets
barking tavern owners
come here and drink
come here and feel

once in a lifetime
mad mescaline children
chicken tacos
fish tacos

I had definite ideas
about politics,
Leon Redbone,
and the end of the world

kicked in the eye

the wounds elevated
comedy and tragedy
resurected
and we as well,

by some gesture,
I think Proustian
a sentimental song
it was a surprising song,

we cracked under the pressure
of the atmosphere
the dead end
the kid with the black eye

you curse the ignorance
all this talk about Denver and Saint Louis
the muddy Mississippi river

your boat stuck against the rocks
the victims are all victimized
by the possessor

prodding me with your finger
trumpets and trombones
the book turned upside down
she put the republic away
back to it's place on the shelf

sigh and fondle
inside your leg
elusive thing
perfect lucifarge
he should be muddled
a bloody stain about the head

I don't know why
I only hear bits and pieces
I did see the master mix the letters together
in an old soup can
what do you mean?

he poured them into a can
and then, he stirred
mixed and mixed a gain
like shuffling
trying to cling to life


the practical is the wolf
how they behave in the penthouse
rolling the lumber
more caps for their pistols

extended travels
rattle snake handshake
looking for home
friends and family have gone
and the girls running after cows

a body in motion

you speak,
authored and second chance
the agenda tucked
tumbled
unique voice and intelligence

awakened the powers
you make it more intense than it need be
step back,
hold the shoulder
let blame fall

scurry behind the door,
under floor,
under the covers of the whimsical
could you?

and what of this, ... we

these things are not hidden
by putting them in plain sight,
we turn them into the mundane
and they are easily ignored by the masses
seeking to be entertained

denying the existence of the boundaries
according to your terms
my weakness and my power
to be left on the roadside
by the vision

a cosmic exile
yes and yes,
tell me more

once a self, ultimate
these frantic desires,
deceiving
my motives are only superficial

you were afraid to show your weakness
to pretend,

I was all you had,
even if the pretending made you,

... less, human

in the jungle

turns,
budding shoots,
no, not a turnip

the arms of the breeze
my old fan rotating
in the hum

fandango
thunder bolt and lightning

the ideas are more important than the things
i could not bring myself along

the pines
and the hunk of meat
the pink turning grey

a fucking tiger
sweet, are you still?

to justify their reality

i would not call them  cautious
the livig still vibrate
behind the walls


and you wanted your words to embody your convictions
strange pictures on these walls

shouting and stamping
mechanical assisted

the damsel in distress calls and I must go
off to write your death in stone
pin cushions
rosettes

Did I see you turn back?
and jump in to the deep end
 quicksand
pelicans

disturbed by the life you encountered
a room full of girls
begging for candy bars
through hell

with teeth and excrement
a life of blindness

this is america

being lost,
this is what we know best
to expect something and receive
something
totally different

a loss
I used to joke about god
and our foolish attempts to make plans

what does this reflect?
hardship
totalitarianism, maybe?
nationalism,
reginonalism,
a wine glass voice????

why should we sustain the crucificion metaphor?
what does this say about your morality?

sweat, sperm, saliva
I loved a world from each one
it was an empty mirror

the realness,
the cpacity to affect me
far removed from dancing feet
you want to hear more of the fool
and how he became a prince

how magic hung upon his breast


that was for a different time
the fool now sits on his front porch
selling crack cocaine
to white collar workers

everything a swindle
I can see the loss in his eyes
no one believes in him any more

angel eyes
naked and drugged
bleeding on the floor
looking stupid

skull warriors
popping pills
wall street terorists
hanging tombs

this is America

when love comes

abandoned devils
they, serve no self
no climb
the bowl that once contained rice,
is empty

to wrestle with the notion
that life could be overcome
not abandoned
in a roadside ditch
lolita

the means to a drug
mortal body
and divine universe

there is no self
only the primordial

my obsession
it keeps me
sorting the potatoes

high on mescaline
wandering to the nonesense
the musing of crickets
and bullfrogs

to fall into that well
instictively drawn

infantcy
the cry and moan
to pinch and tickle

they called her fancy
the best minds
no longer pulling the wagon

when love comes
there are no bargains
no repeal

she moves bleak

....

Carnival

the lies in your bedroom, spanish harlem
to communicte with the unknown
the unseen
unspeakable

tread upon
each soul's

hallucinating hallways
in the midnight

speak, oh jezabel of your bustle
summoned the dead
leaving us uneasy
moving between worths

I saw you somewhere outside
it was lunchtime
a mutual surrender
to speak the truth of the future
of all futures

pecker check
with pliers
cherished scraps in their drawers
that you can't decipher

a snowy landscape
unfiltered by the mind
just stark and bare
new minds

we will soon have to corrupt them
make them usless for their mothers
wearing out their shirts
in a room

the clock ticks
hands and knees
to race out the door
with tears stinging their eyes

saying their prayers
a little town main street
it once was a forest
a home for squirrels

popular tongue
stainless steel
errands under blue skies
fish jumping waters
bumble bee wings

run Esmeralda
seek that which you cannot find
with your wild hair
and bony legs
all mare
and no nightmare

to the crimes
rust polished off all my instruments
the love letters
and fat cigars