Eaves is out now on Infrequent Seams.
Freak Show
So this is America, folks,
I say, holding your hand
Beneath the Verrazano
Seagulls sunbathe in truck tires
Pigeons copulate on telephone wires
But our faces are golden
Amid the wreckage
Of this lonely island
Let’s go to Coney Island
And oh, can we go to the freak show?
And oh, can we go hide our troubles under other people’s woes
So this is the city that we dreamed of
Here’s a sad song:
(It was supposed to be a love song)
So we find a bar to fight in
And a bed to love in
And a sound to hide in
And we set our freaks out in the nighttime
And see who can yell louder and who can cry harder
And oh, can we go to the freak show?
And oh, can we go hide our troubles under other people’s woes
Doppelgänger
And rounder versions of ourselves
Were selling poltergeists for kindergeld
You said, the market’s awful good for spooking now
And I was spooked, I must confess
When a specter of your ordinariness
Came wafting down and perched upon my neck
I went down to pawn off some epiphanies
They laughed and said I ought to try at Tiffany’s
And sadder songs than we could know
Were getting trussed up for the rodeo
You said, it’s not the same when it’s not in stereo
Oh my darling Doppelgänger
Is it true you’re pretty tough
I could hang you out to dry forever
And it wouldn’t be enough
And glockenspiels of skin and bones
Were feeding lustily on quarter tones
You said, isn’t it lovely to be young and lovely and alone
And pretty girls in old man shoes
Were riffing on a Wienerwalzer blues
You said, you’ve lost the only thing you had to lose
Oh my darling Doppelgänger
Who’s the real one, you or me?
And if all our dreaming lives are better
How can we ever hope to be free?
Spiders
I have my sources
Spiders in the web
We live in strange times
Strangers in my head
I have my secrets
Buried in the back
Pages of past lives
Codes for you to crack
How many people share my name?
All of our questions are the same
Strip me of context
Strap me to a party line
Rid me of my flesh
Rob my spirit blind
Inundate me saturate me complicate me investigate me consecrate me with your information
I have my sources
Ghost words in the cloud
I lost my choices
Sourced them to the crowd
How many people know my face?
I want my history erased.
Saints
Are you waiting?
Do you know when and why I lie?
Do you cry when I move my bed away from the window
Just in case you try to visit me?
And you can read my lips
But can you read my mind
Yes, you can read my lips
But can you see my sad little life?
Are you smiling
Through your tears of blood?
Do you notice when I try to be better?
Do you feel sometimes
Like no one really gets it?
Well, so do I.
I can’t deny
Your ancient eyes
But I’m not so organized
So can you crawl out of your candles
Do you watch from the tiles on the wall
Will you dive from the tops of your fountains
And escape from your front lawns
Will you come down, come down
Smash your glass cases
Bones breaking through the reliquaries
Can you fall out of the windows
Crawl out from the medals round our necks
Will you climb down from the mountain grottoes
And escape from your front lawns
Come down, come down, come down.
New Year’s Day
On New Year’s Day
We eat foods that look like money
On New Year’s Day
Loosen our belts
To tighten them again
And tell ourselves
Five hundred tales
Of who we’ll be next year
Lining up all of our ducks and bones and fingernails
On New Year’s Day
We leave our masks to melt
And by dusk we see our truer faces
Lined, puffed, hungover
Halfheartedly regretting a haze of sins
We half forget
On New Year’s Day
We make a clean escape
From a foreign place
A rogue embrace
A stranger’s face
Funny how you look the same
Funny how I feel the same
Little more or less hair
Little more or less skin
Funny how I feel the same
On New Year’s Day
We crack our eggs wide open
And count up all our little chickens
And it sickens me
This shit-regret
To see the world intact
With all its morning joggers
And afternoon party snacks
Entitlement Face
You said your collar does that automatically
Stiff and upturned like your aristocratic nose
I see your face in the billboard sheen
Blinded by the gleam of your expensive teeth
I can smell, I can taste
The money in your shoes, the money in your kiss
Dirty paper in your embrace
Money in your sweat, money in your piss
You make your lists of stocks and bonds
Play your games of ups and downs
Buy your girl a metal gown
And cast her head in bronze
You lure the girls into your subterranean man-cave
Ply them with sugar-treats
Your golden face and her blackout smile
Take what you deserve on your designer sheets
I can smell, I can taste
the money in your shoes, the money in your kiss
Toxic assets in your embrace
Money in your sweat, money in your piss
You said your collar does that automatically
Stiff and upturned like your aristocratic nose
I see your face in the billboard sheen
Blinded by the gleam of your expensive teeth
In your irresistible entitlement face
In your irresistible entitlement face
You fucking piece of shit
Slovenly
Do you remember
The days before men and money?
We were mostly fearless.
We wore bright stockings and party hats.
There were no shadows.
Slovenly
Slatternly
Nobody could catch us.
Then someone came
And hung weights from our wrists and ankles.
We went inside to different rooms
Of ivory and gray.
We decorated our small interiors
Filled them with artificial light.
Fear may be love’s shadow
Now unmanned
Now unmoneyed
Let us go slovenly into the night once more.
Let us live larger lives.
Vasectomy Waltz
Mystic crowned in vegetables
Question mark boy straightened man
Resonant body
I knew you when
Owls swoop down over
Unkissed girl on Sundays
Swallowed in a storage unit
Vasectomy of desire
Love letter footnotes
Remember half built house
Why do you keep me
Mystic on a mountainside
All our souls in song collide
This is not a first or last goodbye
Undead, undying
Sixth mountain mailbox
Still send you scraps of me
How we still colonize
Each other’s dreams
Wasteress
Staggering, swaying
Paper bags under my eyes
Offering apple pies,
I’ll be your wasteress tonight
Scrawling on napkins
Stacking the creamers to the sky
Put a song on the jukebox
But it’s full of lies
You’re the last man
In this lost town
I’m the last girl
And we’re both wasted
Staggering, swaying
Head spinning like the rotating pies
You’re the last man
In this lost establishment
I’m the last girl
And we’re both wasted