Die-Hard

O winsome daughters!
How new is the world,
and every old thing within
awaiting your discovery.

I cannot promise you the world,
but I must guarantee one thing:
that I will fail you.
Someday I will fail you
and you'll take up the torch
and be uncompromising
and never yield,
And you will be die-hard.

Stan Rogers

One day God looked down upon the Earth and saw
That Stan was not for us - he was too beautiful - 
And took him for His own,
But left for us his son
To sing, for man, a semblance of
His serenade unto The God. 

RCP

I still see her smile,
like an angel, from across the desk,
compelling its return the way a yawn demands a yawn.
It was the mischievous grin of a girl now
evanescent and forever up to no good,
but anyway good

But we place value on other things.
One day in December they shot her in the head
and dumped her for the angels
at a shitty house in Gresham.

Next time shoot louder

Oh! What a beautiful thing you made.
For a moment, having been
conscious everywhere at once,
Mind stripping from cell as you so graphically painted
Onto the walls of your room.

Suitor

A girl is very aware of the way she walks.
At a wedding, that morning she took great care to pick out
the right thing to make them look at her -
She likes how the men look at her, and the things
they say when she goes around the corner -
drooling primates caballing about which bridesmaids they'd like to fuck.
A girl is very aware of the way she walks.

Her mother is aware of this as well.
A girl is strapped to a board in an ER bed and her mother won't look at her face
(at least they had a pretty drivers license picture to show registration).
The teeth could not be found, and it will be some time before
she walks again.
She will need to walk if they are to find her a proper suitor.

Corky

How do you fix a broken heart?

The same way it was broken
With violence and submission,
The application or the dousing of a spark

I saw you standing there with your heart shot out
Holding it in your hand
Staring.

PCR

I am just a man
Seeking for myself to make a life
To take a wife
And to leave this world someday
in a hole no bigger than my size.
Could not, dare I,
Could not I ask for my own cares?
I dare could not.
Suffice I just be careful.

We dropped into the stillest horror
And they lay motionless
Like a snapshot of Hell.

Newport

This is not goodbye

We are like the waves,

And I am headed for a different shore

of the same Sea.

I crashed against you in its stormy wrath,

Never stopping your momentum,

But, I hope,

forever altering your path.

Cartilage

There was a time when I ran west
till there was nowhere west to run and so I swam
then sat and felt that sunset burning on the strand
and once again that cartilage crack, cracking in the sand
and out of my hands
get out of my hands
get out of my hands.

Persona non grata

Of aberrations, I remit
Beneath the sun the stars submit
I thought my task to be completed
But dreams are not so easily deleted

For the mockery I have permitted,
Deluded reverie, I've committed
Damnatio Memoriae
The Damnation of your memory
And of my foolish dreams.