Play if you want to
don’t if you don’t
I am the man at the print shop
supplying the paper
your dental plan is printed on
I am the mother father brother sister
of that kid on the milk carton

Sweat, sweat; tons of the stuff
there’s a hole that’s waiting
and it’s jet black
this is not a nice guy’s game
and that I tell myself
to fuel a sun for each new day

Silence my cue and guide, I stood and left
to vacate corridors elsewhere and –while:
with time my thrust, all pins’ll reach home.

Doll of voodoo nailed to the wall
with strings long cut and forgot,
he now stands on his own.

Which he sought, he wants not found
for your savior’s not the savior of him,
but rains they fall, they stack and paint
ever more rust on the pins.

Nepenthe there may yet be
but well has she hid;
Daylight may yet find us
but weak has she waned.

Sitting on a bench in the city aquarium
staring into the turquoise
chloride shadowplay, and suddenly
I’m afraid, so very afraid

Chewing the lunch I made to go
sandwich with tomato and cheese
wrapped in paper, tied with a string
and I’m afraid, so very afraid

Kids run by, with teacher in tow
hammerheads, stingrays observe
wide awake they dream of kills
and I’m afraid, so very afraid

I’ll die an old man, in my sleep
sons and daughters there to mourn
it’ll be a life before it’ll be a death
and I’m afraid, so very afraid

On that bench I understood
for no real reason, I just. did.
how much I stand to lose
how high my throne and days

The world sparked up inside me
as ice against the glass

Jack met Jill
‘neath the tower they call Eiffel.
She smoked cigarettes
like only the French know how;
he dared and asked for a light.
Gendarmes stood their bored, bored watch
to his winning smile, her shades in the sun:
in the City of Light, the countdown begun.

From Tokyo to Cali, the Pacific slept
beneath the arch of a 707,
Jack and Jill as close to heaven
as the trench they call Marianas.

Three months into it, they worried no more;
in all but name, over and done.
“It’s all a blur in jet lag’s wake
and easy on airports not to hear.”
Just say it and let us go – and out it came.

“You ran out into the rain,
silence traced a hellish sound.
And so I learned the person you were:
you fall in love with places, not people.”

I spend my time betting on Trojan horses
and find security inside the uniform
for you have blind faith in your eyes
and know that the system cannot fail

Water under the bridge, and water down
from the heavens; I still miss you like a friend
and trust is not what it used to be
so here I descend into the day

I spend my time wasting life from the tap
and bask in the shine of a sun unsetting
for you trust you won’t feel thirst tomorrow
and know that global warming is a myth

A future made of helmets, and a future
made of jumpsuits; I still see you as the enemy
and it shows little love to command legions
so here I ascend to cast the first stone

Running around, and no one knows
the serial numbers, filed away
and they’ll never prove a goddamn thing
and I ain’t going back inside

Truth’s a pile of guns on the riverbed
summers that endure
as flowers on the grave
and days are purgatory instead of purpose
a forge where men are made:
knowing all this, I sleep like dreams
safe as safe houses

I number the days that I have stolen
and only firearms could ever explain
that money opens all doors
but a bullet can go through as well

You don’t go placing your faith
in blue tattoos
in leaden smoke that veils
the mark of Cain

The Chariot of Death is an unmarked van
his robes updated to knock-off Armani
reaping made easy by .45
and He will wipe away
every tear from their eyes

In this black suit, I wear bright soul
tonight, I’m custom-made
a secret agent with a license to live
and you know I could tell you more
but then I’d have to you-know-what

I’m anything you want and need me to be,
I’m an open bar, a payday Friday
the highest high and lowest low

I spend 10 minutes in the gents
just practicing my lines in the mirror
I’m a hip flask full of finest anything
(I’ll drink to that)
I’m a Saturday match, home or away
ask anyone and they’ll tell my story

On my tongue live French confessions
that hush hush ‘cross the tables go
my eyes a Siberian cool, my silver sterling
running on an Irish boxer’s heart
I am cash up front, I am so very easy

I am the night
and don’t give a fuck who knows it

I’m bid welcome to where all is fair / where Chance and Random share the throne.
The table’s round but not one’s a knight / all strangers, masters of their own.

I take my seat and am dealt my sentence / which I can always take or leave be.
I look for eyes that show and tell / but find mirrors staring back at me.

Kings exiled to peasant hands / held for ransom, they cry for Queens.
The court is broken, their life’s a game / the ladies lie beyond Green Seas.

Truths are never black and white / they are always black and red.
In this club, I indeed feel fine / and fear only hearts that want me dead.

It pays to think how far the blind see / and of that, I’ve never had a doubt.
Accepting risk, I dive in the river / I’m all in and all I want is out.

Jack’s a marked man drawing dead / let the chips fall where they may.
Push or be pushed, my house is full / so c’mon, you bastards, let us play.

Hijacking paper planes, I bring freedom for my people!
Stapler ninjas and rubber band artillery in wait;
the rough men ready to visit violence.
Flatlanders, we roam the plateau of Desk No. 4
like Better Days before, like Lesser Futures will.

Elders comatose in the folders,
heroic dead asleep in digital coffins:
bought and sold with souls so closed and open to pick with a paper clip –
we wrote our Constitution with zeros and ones.
To plummet and bloom in the spiral of days –
we are the ghost in the copy machine,
prayers that fill Smartphone Temple.

Cigarette breaks make for Sundays.
My kin sought shelter under $10 bills
and behind a stack of chips
while others ran for the hills.

Love’n’play unfurl beneath a 100 watt sun;
on the edge of Lake Coffee Stain,
and beyond Mt. Calling Card Stack
lives myth and rumor, lives He Who Has No Name.

I am not a number – I AM A FREE MAN!

World was possibilities today:

to wreak havoc on pristine fields
just by walking over, my shoeprints
ending soft and spotless white
and I suppose that’s a way to leave a mark;

to stop to look out from every window
and fall in love with a stranger’s face
as they laughed, caught a snowflake
on their tongue, on their palm
on anywhere in their life;

to make snowmen in the park
(and snowwomen, too, in an equal world)
who’d guard short light – wait
for reign of spring, birds returning
and I guess it’s a good life by snowperson standards;

to be a kid again and not care
that I’m twenty years late to it,
fussing how great is the day,
how I don’t wanna wear that stupid cap,
how it’s not that dark yet and five more minutes, mom,
how I am gonna be a million things
(when I grow up, after cartoons and chocolate milk),
how I know the world is possibilities
without really knowing it at all.