Five written between 5/6 and 5/11/02.
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true man
i am standing on a ridge
looking out on this strange valley
i have been weaker
i have been stronger
but the yippie is still bright in me
upon this ridge
there is a hole
where lies the best of me
that pain is speaking when i say
when i go i will not grieve
ch:
old demons
leave me my sweet days
old loves
let me go on and be a true man
the black bird
and the old tower tree
the back porch swing
where we would while away
i swing alone now
with a dark song
the tree is gone
in the darkness done
-
sweet illusion
when you were a policeman
saving the rich from the poor
you’d cut the park and sweep for the green
where the saddest lives were glistening
you’d reach down deep for the roach
protestations making you smile
you’d feel as though the ten short minutes
were the hot and sweet highs of your life
ch:
keep the blind tight
do not ask questions
to be all right
you must not know
awakened
it flows back to you
when you were a policeman
you went to H Street one night
you found the magical bag underground
where the diggers dug way way down
you sat in your car in the lake park lot
and by the light of the silvery moon
you became highly aware of the subatomic
now your island proved an illusion
sweet illusion
now you have never been a policeman
-
black hole
for a minute i forgot we were through
i was thinking about history
and strategy gardens
the pinpoints on which it all turns
plans were made twists were hollowed
i forgot i was dead
another man preoccupied tried convicted
and sent to apartment dwelling
ch:
i am speechless
as are all men who are past
falling quietly into the black hole
for one minute i was alive again
thinking about chemistry
pheremonal joy and happiness
seamless and better than heroin
one can live through the loss of heroin
however and i knew all this
except for one minute
when i forgot and somehow felt
it had all worked itself out
-
drifty
she has a lonely dark apartment in vallejo
and the walls hold art and visions of shame
she’s hooked on all one hundred things
power sex and burglary
and when she sings she goes there
she looks out the kitchen window
across the street are strange monkeys
the sky is filled with strawberry glaze
her neighbors have cartoon faces
ch:
drifty has a car and a band
she never had a grip on nothing
she’s perfect and highly professional
drifty goes there
she has an enemy in the darkness
for whom she shows defiance and resolution
she was held deep in his red coal black eyes
for centuries she could not fly
now freedom has loosed her and she goes there
she looks through the wall at the television
little men with feet backwards are whistling
a hellish green demon gibbers in french
and the books are beginning to sing
-
life
blue ball in its orbit
around the mother of us
red green and yellow ones
ominous and tiny ones
on the blue things are happening
here a submarine springs a leak
there a lonely man is drinking tea
in ohio unimaginable cruelty
ch:
it came boiling up out of the rock
it was a freak chemical virus
it eats everything
life
monkey monkey the monkey man
thought up combines and pressure vessels
if he makes it off this planet
he will thrive
on the blue things are happening
here a spider changes everything
there an old man sighs and watches
in zurich they’re ready to strike