Sometimes The Sun (11/?/94)

Sometimes the sun doesn't warm you
Sometimes rain does not feel wet
Sometimes your hair starts moving
And you haven't felt the wind yet

Sometimes it's cold when it's warm out
Sometimes it's hot when it's not
Sometimes the seasons will fool you
And sometimes they don't

Often times it's just as you expected
The snow comes down in flakes of white
Other times it's too strange to mention
Sometimes it's too clear for sight

Sometimes the clouds don't shield you
From the glare of the sun
Sometimes it feels like it's burning only you
You're the only one

But then the sky will fall just right
And settle onto your eye like silk
Sometimes the snow isn't cold at all
Sometimes the snow tastes like milk

Sometimes time's all around you
Sometimes it drops right through the glass
Sometimes the air weighs less than you do
Sometimes you're nothing but mass

The Fire Eater (1995)

Gotta quit. Just stop.
Know it's bad for me
Swallowing death this way
Tempting fate, or so they say
Maybe fate's just tempting me

But, then, see...

It's more the torch that disturbs
Than the flame
The length of it, 'coz, see
The torch only goes in
The fire itself goes out

Handsome Devil (1995)

this time I fell nearer
so the aftertaste is clearer
it's either how it's supposed to go
or I'm at the devil's door

thought I didn't fear her
already am but can't get near
it's either now or never you know
and I'm praying on the floor

if I fall nearer this time
I'll tell you what it's like
it'll either make you sick or make you cry
if I fall nearer next time
I'll tell you how it feels

by knocking on the door or kneeling down

oh let me in
please let me in
let me back in
I know I've fallen far I know I've strayed
Saddest game I play the door is barred
or did I fall because I don't know how I feel

William Carlos Williams (1995)

it's like a scab i just can't let it be
i should just cover it
i should just cover it
i should just let it be

i wanna cover it
i wanna cover it up
find a big band aid
slap it right on and cover it up

if i cut myself again i'll cover it up
if i let myself be cut i'll cover it up
if i cut myself i'll bleed
if i cut myself i'll bleed bleed
cut myself i'll bleed
i'm gonna blind blind blind
i'm fucking blind
i'm almost blind
i can't see without help
see without help help
without help help help
help help help help
i'm goin' to Patterson goin' to Patterson

Breathing Facsimile (1995)

Writing in the diary of a woman
Who reminds me of you
Surreptitiously I struggle on

Her underthings lie, concealed
In the chest, in the corner
Upon which photos of her sit

Windswept and glowing

I have looked in the chest,
Disturbing nothing, eyes only,
Fear and propriety preventing
Touch and love

What a trade, tragic
Nothing but a dime on a track
In front of a train, halted

I do not really know this woman
Perched on this chest on colored paper,
An acquaintance really

But her diary will miss these pages

Pages full of my life, with you

Yours Is Not A Simple Name To Say (1995)

Yours is not a simple name to say
It shudders on my tongue
And hangs there til I feel its weight
It flutters, I've begun
You've placed some heavy lace upon my face
Upturned and streaked with wet
You've traced your fingers to my hand
I've learned I've peaked and yet

Can I come full circle babe
Or will I trap my dreams
Trap my dreams inside of me?
Can I round the curve?

I've spent two much time apart from myself
I've touched the cold in fear of night
I've held some people down just to kiss them all good bye
I've never done it right

So yours is not an easy name to say
It holds me to my word
It keeps me close to who I am
It flutters like a bird

On Leaving Denny VI (1995)

There's all this flesh and it wants touching
She wants me and she who just walked by,
She looked at me too, two girls at once,
A leather chick, a strait laced marm, an older babe -
I've got this body once, it wants to share

And yet, with all of this desire comes a
Feeling in my gut, of drinking down a cup of
Warmest dirty water, which is filled right up
Again, don't want no more, push it away, there's
Ashes in there, ashes and tiny little bones

But the curve of all those unimagined breasts and
the length of all those lengthy leggy legs, without
love, without disgust, it's so much easier that way
It's so much easier that way

It's noon and it's warm
And the breasts they plaster onto buses selling lingerie
Just make me mad
But they also make me think of you
And her, and her, and her, and her
And her, and her, and her, and then
I'm mad again
And, then again, it's just a bus with breasts

On Leaving Denny V (1995)

hate the one who holds you where you are?
no
love the one who will not hold you down,
even when you want them to?
love the one who leaves you for another?
love the one who leaves you for nothing?

the roads were a grid, and I drove
by your house just once, and why
when I knew you weren't home

I had to force the wheel away
the rest of the time
while photos of mostly everything but you
slowly formed themselves
and dried themselves
on lines

On Leaving Denny IV (02/14/95)

new skies, new roads
same roads, same skies
same shit, different toilet

his cat fell to its death
a thief left behind his blood on broken glass
and vinyl and on the dashboard
where his stereo used to be
and then i took his wife
by sitting back and answering her call

this smugness is not self-congratulatory
and now i leave a denny of my own
it's too safe here, i could stay here
so i go
she came to me on the back of love
and i left her in the hand of fear

and he takes his photos in a room
that they once shared
he must have a corner of his heart
reserved for me

On Leaving Denny III (02/14/95)

i'm holding my heart in my hands
whether i hand it over directly or
simply drop it, it will end up
in your hands
don't writhe on the ground for me
don't write those words of love
just wait
why it has to be tomorrow not today
i cannot say
or can i?
driveby love, just like murder