For Liz on the Road.

You are lovely in all of your
wilting and waiting
the banjo wails tales
of your trail

pulling me fast to the tracks
of your steel-toned
and toeing these stones
like the boughs.

Sing sweetly the summer
a slumbering under
broke branches
and fixating sun

I've a tune in my hand
with your ink in my wailing
old river
to carry me down.

A cliché for 23 August

I've got roses behind me
and stars up above
got nightfall before me
and nothin' to love

but the ocean, the sky
not a thing on my mind
but the clear blue breeze
at my side

A Postcard

I fly through the lone star open evening
under the highest of skies
the widest of skies

My pale feathers dip quick, pulling lines thought a
heavy golden green ocean
A breath of honeysuckle sighs
into my open mouth
forcing sweetwater land
into my lungs
I can breathe
Oh Texas

Out here where the people dare not to go
the earth still shimmerin' with saccharine glow
I stretch the tips of my fingers
the tips of my tongue
and coax the sea
into my body
calling, "Please, please, please."
only, "Please, please, please."
Oh Texas

I catch on a vine and tumble 'til my shoulders rest
heavy with exhaustion
Petals in my hair, blades as my bed
chest rising and falling with the almost setting sun
Oh Texas
I scream, "Don't tempt me!"
"Oh don't tempt me!"
Oh Texas
Oh Texas

I grin to the sky as its clouds make pictures
reflected in my eyes
"Don't tempt me."

I laugh dragging my fingers
deeper in the soil
I want sugar in my veins
and nothing but the green green day
'til the horizon
Oh Texas

I want to walk these rolling waves
with the feet of Jesus
I want land in my lungs and a breeze
that has traveled for miles and miles
just to kiss my knees
and I will fall from my feet
crying, "Please, please, please."
"Won't you take me?"

I want an ancient earth to swallow me whole
rest me 'til I can breath on my own
I know, I know I can't do it on my own
I've always known
Oh Texas
Oh Texas

I don't want to be
don't make me be
another ball of fire
in your gilded sky
Oh Texas
Oh Texas
Oh Texas

081509

I don't want to wake up tomorrow.
Three dollars and sixty-nine cents.
'Cause my breath is too short,
a five piece churro;
oh man, I don't have any churros. No.

Mango smoothie please
are you makin' fun of me, please?
There is peach in my mango smoothie,
please?
Three dollars and sixty-nine cents
at window 7, please.

Rachel, it's a poem. Please.
I can see this guy making my smoothie.
I want to know what this guy's life
is like.

And hellfire is coming.

There is something a-sneaking
don't worry my lover
for here I lay hiding
one glove to another

behind the dark eyes of
the blackest of beasts
a begging for sunshine
you're waiting behind-

They tell me,
you're waiting.
Don't worry,
for we're all
just
waiting
for

a flashing eye
of porcelain thigh
and quiverin' escape
don't expect an exception

you're coming down
just the same
like all the rest
with tears of vain

blatant grips at salted rain
don't tame me now
my darling frau
You-
are-
my-
wife!

I can't loosen these leads
you've broken me down
to a breeding bank town
with cousins for kissing

and missing and missing
Can't get those boys out of my gut.
So baby,
break loose.

Tie my obligated bones
to barn doors painted
and set me ablaze
we'll paint the walls red

red,
red,
red,
red!
They thought they could hide us away!
But baby lean close, and I'll tell it this way,

Behind this dark flashing
of coal coating lashing
I lay here, awaiting
awaiting, I lay.

A honey violin playing at the trading post.

I'm going to abandon my heart
and leave it on the street.
Maybe I'll throw it off a bridge.

Because my heart is broken
and rattles each step that I take.
Because my heart can't function
all wrapped up in duct tape.

Instead it twists what's good for me
into steaming cauliflower
and coats trouble
with a taste vital for survival.

My heart is jerrybuilt
and it needs to be removed.
I will leave it on the street

for an animal to carry off
and feed piece for piece
to its bleating den

and then
I will strip bare the metal bars
that once directed my Raleigh bike
and fit them neat into my newest cavity

with this useful tool
in final trade for my bleeding romance
I will never cry for you again.