disaster marches

My eyes are tired of wandering through other people’s windows. Clean plate glass portraits of love and contentment. Hand in hand and wrapped up in arms. Lip locked and caught in a escapist gaze. I’m still standing in the harsh bite of the cold. Outside in the snowfall sting. Wishing and hoping. Then I found her by chance. Nothing less than amazed with her. It’s killing me now the way she doesn’t know. Does she? I’ve tried to make it apparent. I’m tired of going through motions just hoping for things to improve. For something to happen. I want to make this happen. She’s all that I want. I couldn’t care less about much else so long as I’m in her arms. I want to come in from the cold.

I explode like a spider across the scattered stars. I drown in the stream of the brake lights and passing cars. This night is new but it’s the same. Keep me guessing and I’ll flicker like a pilot flame. Old dog. New trick. I’m struggling to understand this. Old dog. New trick. Take these hands now. Guide me through this. You ignite like roman candle skies. Glistening beauty in soft moonlight eyes. I drown in your smile’s ocean depths. Keep me breathing. I’ll dance on each stuttered step. Old dog. New trick. I’m struggling to comprehend this. Old dog. New trick. Hold these hands now. Guide me through this. Hold me close. I’ll keep the darkest nights away. I’m scared and senseless but we’ll be okay. Give me this chance, now. I pledge not to let you down. Guide me through this.

This is another Friday fucking night spent at home. Staring alone into the same damn screens. Computer, television, telephone. Waiting for someone to arrive. But no one does. They’re busy out there being alive. Here I am wasting minutes into hours. Even if I got out it’s not like there’s options. This town is a hell unto itself. Nothing for miles and the closest means of amusement are worn out and out of style. There’s one person I give a shit about within reach. Everyone else is hours away. Tension here is steep and I curse myself for squandering another fucking day. I wonder what I’ll do tomorrow. And the next. Keep convincing myself I’m content to sit and let life happen to everyone else? I’m sick of sitting on the same rusted fence and doing nothing with myself. Oh and whatever you’re doing tonight I’d like to be there. Sharing a laugh and living life. But here I am. Killing time, killing another useless night. Here I am, wishing I had the guts to call you up and talk. But it’s the way it’s always been. Yeah it’s the way it always is. 

This is a curtain call for the most insignificant of charades. Return with some reluctance to the stage and bend before their merciless applause. Rapturous raptors sinking their teeth into sensitive skin and striking at nerves with the sting of their claws. Here in the sewers and the shadowed spaces we’re just sheltered souls dreaming of escape. Timid and uninviting. Paupers mummified in red tape. This is a curtain call for the most insignificant of charades. Stand with some reluctance on their stage. Plastic masks feign confidence until the pressure’s too much. Retreat. Fall back, men. Retreat. Hoist that white flag and throw down your arms. Hands held high admit defeat. Fall back men, retreat. 

Pick the bones dry. Keep the meat. This bundle of organs is carrion for the stampede. Rotting in the scorching heat. I’m a forgotten vessel for maggots and plague. Choking black smoke clouds my parting words. Caught in my throat like a discarded verse. Condemned to the catacombs of the cutting room floor. Left for the rats in the cellars of dog-eared college ruled pages. Found again only when it’s too late. No redemption. No salvation. Feast on the static spit from the gaping jaws of this one-horse radio station. You know the nights are getting cold. Oh and the highs are getting low. So lick your lips and pick the bones. Eat the flesh, I’m coming home.

Marched to the beat of a faint and distant kettle drum. The procession carried on like a freight train to the basements and the mausoleums. Caskets lined the halls filled to the brim with dirtied dollar bills laundered from the pockets of the scam artists pushing pills, on the sedated public from the comfort of the podium like bait laid out for lions. Networks clamored for the coveted title of first on the scene. It’s our sad routine. Day to week to month to year. It’s our sad routine. Strike up that den of small violins, we’re playing ourselves out to a deadbeat slurring rhythm. Day to week to month to year. It’s our sad routine. 

Shades siphoned the breath from your lungs as you slept. Transparent figures in flight like vampire bats in the night as the clock quietly crept. Hours passed and we awoke in the serrated embrace of a morning with no place to hang our pounding heads. These minutes mutate into ruthless hours as our precious time is wasted on worrying about wasting time. Cut into the earth and dig a mass grave. Fill it with these squandered weeks. Leave no headstone. Leave no reminder. How many graves will you be content to dig? It’s high time you stopped waiting for chance to guide you. Make this something worth saving. Specters keep siphoning the breath from these lungs in your sleep. Guard your heart. Oh don’t guard it too well. Guard your heart. Oh but don’t guard it too well. Fight off those vultures, now, don’t hang that head don’t weep. Guard your heart. Oh don’t guard it too well. Guard your heart. Oh but don’t guard it too well.

Our spines entangle ‘round the old oak tree. Our ghosts labor in the damp of the cellar. Our limbs pile up at the steps of the smokehouse. This is the same old song. This is the same old dance. Our hands grasp at the soil of our shallow graves. Captain captain the ship is on fire. The sea’s contaminated and the consequence of our deed is dire. Black sails punctuate the first light on the horizon. Calling all able-bodied men to man the ramparts. Keep that fire in your bellies burning bright. We’ll defend our colors through the cold dark grasp of the longest night. Oh our spines entangle ‘around the old oak tree. Our ghosts labor in the dust of the galley. Our limbs stack up at the steps of the lighthouse. It’s the same old song. It’s the same old dance. Our calloused fingers grasp at the soil of our shallow graves. Let’s hear it for the polluted hearts of the great decrepit midwest. Young souls boarded up in cobwebbed corners and rotted-through caskets gaudily put on display for the most insincere of mourners. Captain captain the ship is on fire. The sea is contaminated and our souls are sinking in the mire. Black sails arrest first light on the horizon. Calling all able-bodied ghosts from the damp of their cellars. Let’s hear it for the polluted hearts of the great decrepit midwest. 

There’s pale hell dancing in the windowsill. Keep the record spinning until it’s had its fill. Oh there’s pale hell dancing on the windowsill. Let the night air in and the autumn breeze goes in for the kill. You’re the first one in line for the funeral procession. Blanketed in black and trimmed in jagged crimson. Raise that cold skeletal hand and wipe away your crocodile tears. Grief is the season’s hottest trend. So bundle up in the deepest shades of blue and accent the look with this forced point of view. There’s pale hell swinging from the windowsill. There’s pale hell setting in the west over the rivers and hills. Purple mountain’s majesty is engulfed in its’ ember clutch. Let the night air in and the autumn breeze goes in for the kill. You’re the first one in line for the funeral procession. Blanketed in black. Keep the pale ghosts dangling from the windowsill. 

Behind these ringing ears there’s a pulsing thunder. Strained eyes staring a thousand yards. Aching muscles, snapping joints and it’s par for the course. Screamed at the clouds until I was hoarse. Nothing in return, just more bad weather. It’s raining a little harder now and I can barely hear it all crashing down. But I got so used to disappointment in this cold ghost town.

So I’m searching for a stone in a sea of crashing blue crests. Outstretched arms struggle to fight the current and pinpoint a single pebble at the bottom of the sea. I grasp for what’s in reach, paid off with but a handful of sand sifting through these fingers. Oh I could’ve sworn I almost had something that time. But it’s still just a little out of reach. But who am I fooling? It’s out of grasp and I know it. I guess it bent this until it broke. I just pinched that lucky penny until Lincoln choked. I counted on luck to carry me through. To sit on its shoulders and leave the rest to you. But I should have known. I said what I meant in an awkward off-key tone. I paid the consequence. Spent a little too much time sitting on the fence and somewhere above the surface it’s snowing. Somewhere things are simple and picturesque. But here things are quiet. Just a little too calm. Chalk it up to my inability to speak. I’m far too inarticulate. It’s no one’s fault but mine.

Love is in the air and it’s strangling the unsuspecting. Hooks at the throats of victims sweltering in summer heat. The midway lights are beacons to vacuous vessels. Fit for the fight but wrecked when they wrestle each other from the threshold of absolute blight. Lord I’ll be one of them come tonight. Or so the pipe dream goes as I search the expanse of litter and scraps to find a familiar face. Something to drag me along as I drift aimless through space. Caught in the sensation of scents and secondhand smoke. Come in ground control it’s time to abort. The mission’s a failure so bring the good ship home to port. So get a good look before it all disintegrates beneath a flourish of erupting gunpowder and light. Feign interest and attempt to get this right. Hot damn, son this is small town life. 

The ink spit her image onto the sheet. Her gaze eroded the pulse pounding behind my ears as I fed the salivating beast. Not a moment’s hesitation. No guilt. Fed the deafening roar what it craved. I ditched the DNA and promptly condemned it to a watery grave. This ain’t no sin. But I’m bathed in regret and begging forgiveness of a friend deaf to such pleas. Not a moment’s hesitation. But guilt for miles. No one’s at fault here and there’s not going to be a trial. But I can’t shake this feeling of betrayal. 

You brought the rain clouds in tow when you rolled into town. High atop that skeleton throne bedecked in your copper crown. So I looked to the sky and opened wide for the rain. You caught it in a styrofoam cup and passed it off to me as a token of mercy. Your belated act of good faith. I drank deep and stood in place. 

Lacerate. Baby, lacerate. Shred the documents and burn the receipts. My words don’t mean a thing cause they ain’t got that swing. It’s just a jumble of letters uncomfortably jammed into place. So forget I ever said a thing. I had one finger tight on the trigger and jumped the gun altogether. My aim was erratic at best and after a number of misfires I was a criminal compelled to confess. Weak marksmanship but weaker resolve. I let the ghosts into these ears and forged a path to the animal bleat of their commands. Followed them to the letter. Look where it led me. Everything so royally fucked. Hapless heart halved by my own hand. Cupid’s arrow kissed the toxin open-mouthed and soared straight through. So how’d it feel? I forgot how to function in those blue green lights. So lacerate, baby, lacerate. Cut and paste those lovelorn letters into ransom notes. Blackmail me with each jagged serif. Let’s see how long I last until I confess. It’s a trend. Reckless marksmanship strikes again.