21st Century Compliments
I found you in a garbage bag
They were pinning your picture on a wall
Took you in my redness
So beaten by the past
Each finger was a different color
Wooed me to your back door
But now the colors don’t call me anymore
Saw you dancing on a checkerboard floor
It’s not enough to change the steps
It’s not enough to change the sheets
You can’t walk away anymore.
A World of Her Own
Once there was a girl
Who built a little world
Right and left in the middle of her brain
When she was good
She did what she was told
When she was bad
She built a world of her own
Once there was a boy
Who loved the little girl
He wanted in her world
Though he loved her
And she loved him
He couldn’t get in.
Ambition
Wherever you go they follow
Closer
It seems like sometimes
You’re never alone
You’re the prize
You’re their salvation
Who gets to own you
Who gets the bone?
Ambition
As Strange as Mine
Watching the wind
Whip through your hair
It blows through your fingers
And everywhere
You make a left turn
And the car seems to go
Faster, now faster!
Remembering something
You left behind
Picking up new things
Along the way
Do you see out of eyes
As strange as mine?
You taught me things
I wished I knew
You said it was easy
“Anyone can do it”
You said it was easy
Simple.
Breaking the Rules
We are a mass confused
Playing the parts
Breaking the rules
We’re locking the doors
The neighborhood’s bad
Hard boys in schools
Soft girls in back seats
Breaking the rules.
Christmas Day
All the children in Ireland are starving
And it’s Christmas Day
All the children in Ireland are starving
Force fed by Mother U.K.
Give all your money
To Baby Jesus
It’s Christmas Day
Take a can of beans to the ghetto
Heaven’s just a can of beans away
Put your hands on the T.V.
Jerry Falwell will take your hemorrhoids away
Give all your money
To Baby Jesus
It’s too late to pray
It’s Christmas
Ho! Ho! Ho!
Merry Christmas.
Clotheskin
Deerskin caress skin so close
Touching death
The prize of war in winter
In summer
There is much more
Than the tanning of a beaten hide.
Seven layers of thickness is thin
Though beaten and tortured
the scars show their way in.P
The angry bruised by their love
The hard hide is living well
By cutting
Those beaten
Know beauty as pride.
Seven layers of thickness is thin
Though beaten and tortured
the scars show their way in.
14 and 40 hooves
Beating the dust
Beating together the glorious chant
Not just cloth but kin
Not just a touch but a feeling.
Conformation
Always searching for the perfect beau
Money is no object
Object my bad grades
Sire you rule the kingdom
and I, for mercy’s sake
bow and follow beau below
Thou art gradual
following the sniveling hounds
One always bent behind
Is why I cannot love you
A step behind a dog
Sit up
Beg
Roll over
Rulers in vain control
Lavish in vain control
I cannot be you
Be head with tail in between
Legs entangled promises
I’m forced to wed.
To conform
It’s only natural
That’s right
suffering
Meaning without union
Always searching for the perfect beau.
Divide and Conquer
God tried to stop the war
But he can’t afford to lose
Divide and conquer
Divide and conquer
God creates his own destruction
And he’s licking his own wounds
War and peace
War and peace
Bloodshed
Bombs bursting in air
Gave proof through the light
That our flag was still there
Wars, hate and prejudice
Created by our ancestors
Our generation must
Not let it be
Don’t Fucking Die
Cancer is so stupid
Dividing to Conquer
Limiting itself
Killing it’s own host.
Family and Friends
Fearful and broken
Trying to be so brave
Afraid of the unknown
Eating at my whole being
Killing me from within
Tearing at my heart
Tearing me apart
Don’t Fucking die
Don’t Fucking die
She said
With a tear filled eye
Don’t fucking die
Echo
child,
i am young,
my ankles
enraptured
in green sea
and breathing-
give me breath.
the sands pull out
and in circles
i am beautiful,
when i forget.
child,
i am older,
my wrists
untied
from dark waters
and holding-
hold on to me.
the sands pull out
and in circles
i am beautiful,
but i forget.
Exorcism
Scratch the tears out of your eyes
Scratch the pain beat in your heart
Scratch the devil you hide inside
Scratch the tears out of your eyes
Leave it all behind
Take a holiday
Leave it all
Take a holiday
Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
If I should die if I should doubt
Call up the Devil and run him out
Fair Stand the Fields of France
-Charles Bukowski
in the awesome strumming of no
guitars
I can never get too high
in places where giraffes run like
hate
I can never get too lonely.
in bars where celluloid bartenders
serve poisoned laughter
I can never get too drunk
at the bottom of mountains
where suicides flow into the streams
I smile better than the Mona Lisa
high lonely drunken grin of grief
I love you
For Her
His pulse beat like a boxer.
His brow was hung in appetite
The kind of hunger that hurts
All hunger hurts
He stopped in time to catch her breath
It was accidental
But he sealed her glance like a zip lock bag
He sealed her glance
His mouth was dry
An untold story
He spun and swung like a lazy susan
He did this for her
He did this for her.
Hers was a key that meant nothing
The kind of puzzle you buy on the corner for small change
Germ Warfare
I’ve never breathed fresh air
I’m not afraid of germ warfare
I come to you an aikido warrior
Past your resistance
I battle your soldiers
Surrounded by your refuge
I infiltrate
I change your mood
I Used to Not Read
I used to not read
I had a best friend
And she didn’t read either
It was an unspoken pact
We just didn’t read
It made life very simple
One day life was too simple
In fact I had become a simpleton
So I picked up an easy book
To exercise my feeble mind
That made me feel good
And Then I made a new friend
She had dyslexia
She was right or left in her brain
And she was sad
Because she couldn’t read
That made me read more
I love to watch my new friend
I love to watch my new friend dance and paint.
Impostor
You’ re looking all around to find yourself
You’re looking all around
Rid yourself of the past
Impostor
You see yourself two years ago
You see yourself
You’re a stranger now
You see yourself three years ago
You see yourself
You’re different now
Impostor
Where do you look inside of you?
Where do you look to find yourself?
Where do you look- to yourself
Any way you look
You Imposter
In Technicolor
I have seen your creatures
In Technicolor
You have been my torture
Socializing
The more you hide
The more you’re uncovering
Can’t go on with your de-humanizing
Instant movies packed away in a camera
They’re just creatures for you
They just have a temporary view.
It’s Too Hot for Revolution
You need to wash your car
You’re so consumed by apathy
Why don’t you buy me a beer?
I can’t get no satisfaction
But I can’t see me wasting my time
Somebody give me a break
Why don’t you hit the street?
You say it’s too hot for revolution
Why don’t you hit the street
You say it’s too hot for revolution
But the revolution has come & gone
& passed you by
What ever happened to
Little black boys playing in the stores
The things you were going to do
Playing with their toys
Buy a new house and boat
Trade in your ET for a GI Joe
But I really don’t care.
It’s too hot for revolution…
I still see futility
Goin’ out on a Saturday night
People are alive yet dead
Cruise on down to the beach
Why don’t you get together?
Tryin’ out my latest moves
Was it something that I said?
Jack-knife into Oblivion
You’re so cool with your shades
Hiding under cool disgust
Stabbed you so deep
Stabbed you
You creep
You’re spilling yourself
Spreading yourself
With a Jackknife
Your dancing made me sneer
Anointed you with a beer
It seems a stupid gash
Now that I’ve seen you in the flesh.
Mad About Plaid
Herrera/Ray 1983
Oh pass the Scotch pleats
Our tribe is red and a bit green
Sporting Bag Ladies
What a scream!
Sporting bagpipes
You’re somebody’s dream
School girl school girl
Colour me lips
Colour me kilts
I’m mad about plaid
Plaids march in line
Now and then
Across now and then
Plaids march in line
March First
March Two
March Seventeenth
St. Patrick we colour you blue.
Manana
Standing against the cold
Feeling I’m looking pretty bent
And older than I was.
A car goes by on the wet street.
A smoky bar squawks behind me.
It’s an ugly black jalopy of a bar.
Light in the gutter
The puddles pick up,
I’m drunk
And broke and broke and drunk.
No one waiting up for me at home
No cat in her lap,
One room hot plate
Maybe the power’s turned off.
This is a Houston street
Where no one walks
They drive. I stand.
I don’t want to move.
I don’t want to move.
Nova Grows Up
Poor sweet Nova crying in her room
Poor sweet Nova grew up too soon
She thought the world was only a playground
She’s finding out it’s a grownup’s game now
Listening to beat music
Wants a lullaby at night
Wearing a bikini
Playing with her dolls
No one will be there when she falls
Thrust into a grownup’s world
Trying to prove she’s not a little girl.
On Guard
Will you turn your head
And cover your eyes
While I scream for your touch?
Fear this closeness never known
Will you turn your head
While I let my guard down?
Solo viewing a movie
Run and rerun many times before
Through the door
I swallow the key
What is inside me?
My soul undressed in nightmares of nakedness
Please turn around
While I let my guard down.
Parallel
He moves in solid patterns
A doormat for the deaf
In waiting she listens
He does not hear
Thin strands remembered
Adjacent tomorrows
Elusive and sore
Between fingers and missing
The sound of one hand clapping
Religion the poseur
In so many paintings and silent prayers
The whispering prayer
The coffer
The offer
The coins join jingling
And the deaf listen
Awaiting the answer
The shepherd is left
Holding the lamb
Penetration
Deeply felt yeilding
Softly giving under pressure
Two bodies merging of variety
Foreign tongues
Sharp yet gentle
Piercing but low
Subdue desires – Submission
Opposition – Uprising
To have an effect throughout
One blending
Foreign to each other
Hard and cold
Soft and lifeless
Concede – Penetration
Sublime – Giving
Untainted virgin
Two bodies merging penetration
Familiar touch
Sharp yet gentle
Piercing but low
Merging absorption
Pilgrimage (for the Pendre Punks)
The longing hearts of empty men
Reach for a world of promised freedom
Weary but a dream they seek
Their hearts unquiet hidden desires
So, add a dream for the simple man
And mad excitement to grip his balanced soul…
Magic entertains his mind
Danger threatens the comforts of home.
A fire in search of your own dream
A fire, your life is an odyssey
Bitter sweet joy of discovery
Paired with the hopelessness of the search
So, add a dream for the simple man
And mad excitement to grip his balanced soul
Magic entertains his mind
Danger threatens the comforts of home.
Please No Mary
Limbs hollow from blasting
Her heart too strong
Lasting from slipping doors
Came needles and thread
And a quilting circle
Became her bed
Sew! Sew! Sew!
We must have her head and her cherry in tact
Find the butcher and the ax and tie her to an ass’s back
“How many sheep must be bled?” she cried.
Dolphins were her savior
They cried out, “Savage behavior!”
This could have happened
Her stitches in tact
This is what happened
She made a Jesus Please don’t name your children Mary.
Politician
Politician kill your son
We stand in awe of the all mighty free America
We do anything to keep our country free
Even kill your little baby boys and girls
Upper Class
Lower Class
Kill your ass
defeat
Walk your talk
Show your cock
Practice what you preach
We stand in salute of the all mighty American dollar
We will do any thing for a fucking American dollar
Even kill your son
Even kill your son.
War is good for the economy
Politician kill your son.
Radios Make Sad Lovers
Cream colored snakes
Black leather jackets
Words with mistakes
On the corner wall
I tried making dates
But he didn’t care for the state
I lost him in the crowd
Radios make sad lovers
Walked into a bar
saw him staring at me
He winked his eye so only I could see
I walked right out and went back home
Turned my radio on
Just to keep me company
But we all know that radios make sad lovers
I bought a foamy beer
and I tried to make a friend
I suppose he’s Queer
But no one much cares
There’s too much static
Everywhere
So I lost him in the crowd
Bars make sad lovers
So I went back home
And it got real quiet
I turned my radio on
Just to keep me company
I switched dial back and forth
To find sometjing that interested me
But we all know
Radios make such fucking sad, sad lovers.
Riding Horse
No perception
Ask the world
Got a cigarette
To scream at you
When you’re under
Nothing
Everything
Nothing matters
Sounds the same
Riding horse
On a merry-go-round
Depression bringing you down
Screaming for comfort
Crying for relief
Saying you know better
You’re so fucking smart
Riding horse on a merry-go-round
Depression bringing you down
Savage Song
Ten little Indians on a wall
Reservations for them all
Nine little Indians
Skins so red
Shoot them shoot them dead
Eight little Indians on the wall
American equality, do you recall
The seven little Indians skin so red
John Wayne shot them dead
Six little Indians standing tall
Take their pride and watch them fall
Five Four Three Two little Indian boys
No future for the little Indian boy.
Soldier of Pure War
See my gun, I’m close to God
A soldier of pure war.
I’ll shoot you if you don’t believe,
I count my dead on my rosary
Hypocrisy
Hypocrisy
Soldiers of a pure war.
I wear the collar so full of promise,
A lying son of your Lord
I’ll take you to the jungle boy
So you don’t need to worry no more.
I’ll give you everything you need
All you’ve got to do’s believe.
Do you see the man with the holy gun?
You see the man with the holy gun.
He eats the bread of living life,
He drinks the blood shed for his Christ.
Bombs explode outside God’s door
Walls of religion crumble down once more
And the boys in the jungle who once believed
Are now lying cold on the floor.
Soldiers of a pure war.
TheRapist
First you come into a room
Someone crazy comes inside
Starting off in space somewhere
Full of pseudo-intellectual pride
Asks you what you like to do
If your daddy played with you
Then they even try to know
Dreams and secret places that you go.
Therapist
Mind fucker
The/rapist
Mind fucker
Drug you up
Take you down
Make you sick
Turn your mind
Blood test
Heart beat
Brain waves
Ink blot
Straight jackets
Lunatics
Trust us
We can help
Therapist is your friend
The rapist is your friend
Two way mirror paradise
Video tape everything
No way to escape their eyes
No way to feel anything at all
If you’re good you get to go
To the park to meet a friend
Score your favorite drugs from him
Straight jacket time again.
Threaten you with electroshock
Lobotomies and drugs galore
Give you drugs to make you talk
So that you can’t even walk no more
If you’re extra special sick
You can be the therapist
Kill yourself within a week
Wreck your car or slash your wrist
A Ha Ha ha!
The Thief Who Would Not Have Me
In wrong words
And emotion
I am tied to you
Like a leper bound.
In rotten flesh
You tear me apart
Without a single word
Not so much as a look.
You have pervade
And prayed upon my senses
To leave me
Restless and hanging
In desperate nations
Of vast obsessions
Of you:
The thief who would not have me.
Too Young
I heard on the radio
I could not see my
Favorite star
I’m gonna pull my hair
I’m gonna wreck my car
Oh what am I gonna do
I got my hair dyed blue
Now I can’t face my school
I tore up my fave t-shirt
Wore my high heeled spikes
All I wanna do is hear your voice
Singing on the mike
Can’t go in till I’m 18-19
Got to dream about the stars
Got to put my safety pins
Back in my diapers
Under age and I don’t know what to do.
Walls of Tunisia
Again, against
The will of the wall
The soldier falls
The man with egg all over his face
Scrambles to his feet
With the sounds of air passing flanges
The old woman cried
Her mercenary tears
Touching softly the scarred scarf
This boy from Tunisia
Oh, Mama! I come home
To safety’s aroma
The Mercurochrome soldier
Has followed me!
She spreads the cloth across
And arranges the eggs,
Invites the stranger to dinner
Fell cater to the traitor
Smooth talker straight aims
Her foreigner came
Takes the cloth from the wall
The cross over, Which his red lies under,
Humbled
Again and against
The walls of Tunisia.