Knoxville

Slept on the floor
Sucking the face of the morning
Stumble out to Farragut
Where your father "lives"

Dip in the creek
Like some Suburban baptismal
Remember the time
You were still five?

Coke bottle highway
Pickup for candy
Seersucker G.I.
Bill sprawled out of town

And the Vol Navy
Will send in the SEALS
Led by Walruses
In SunCatcher pontoons

The haze will settle on old Fort Sanders
Been clean for two years
This is why I had to
I heard you moan in paperthin closets

Took you home excited off of bad words
Ended up in Mule Hollow all wasted and cashed out
Drove toward that giant Gold Ball
Like some Kubrick Baal

Then the Angels in the Outfield Stumbled me up the hillside
And I slept til 4:30 and we had to lie
The drive home was awkward like the way broken legs look
"So now that you've done it, don't you want to die?"

No wonder we're fucked up from all the sad crickets
Who won't play when fights go all night
And only get lonely when we're thinking
And wash out our pre-dreams and turn out the light

So let's all get real cool and go to the mountains
Sit by the dark rocks and moss ourselves down
Wade in the thick icy fingers
And sail miniature sailboats in kneehigh socks

Once I slept while a bear was secondhand Krogering
Next to our car, I practiced fake sleep
My parents they tried to crack my silence
But I hung limp like mom's cousin's wrist at the grill-out

Treat me like Clinch and 12th where I summered
And wintered the hard times with temporal thrill
Timeshare emotions get trashed every season
Especially when Spring Break never ends

Relegation to Coupon Clipping

Dreaming of the end days and how many girls I'll kiss

Stage diving into despair politics

Because time's got my shit on lock

I'll teeter on that totter

Wayne loading me with Porsche dreams

And James Dean things

And maybe I'll go out and never come back

But keep coming back

I'll keep coming back

I always do.

So Jazzy

I have a new band going called So Jazzy. Here is our MySpace. Check it out!

Defenestration

Defenestration of the Latin Rite:

Catholics claimed that angels saved them

Protestants claim that they landed in shit

Maybe both were right

Untitled

My next door neighbor was a Berger,

She dressed her kids as condiments on Halloween.

She huffed keyboard cleaner and copied Pollock

with her blood.

Crosseyed and teary, garden hose playground driveways

Ramps for your babies into devotion to war.

Lifejacket riot vests and hockey stick Non Lethals

We can go down to Kosovo

We'll get there faster if we take it slow

That's where we wanna go - way down to Kosovo

Algeria

We once held each other in parks

And the fur really flew

I'd bring you lunch

Til' you retired and died

Your grandpa fell in Algeria

Crying to his mother

Non Kosher ways to go out

His own personal Eucharist

Exurb Excerpt

Pruning the tree of knowledge and arguing semantics with Ophidia.

God sent that snake.

It writhes blackly with yellow stripes in the exurbs.

Weighing Debts

Coo with me

We’ll go far

Chime on in

And we’ll stick like tar

You’re mothmouthed and dusty

I’ve done without and trust me

There’s no place like home

See, your papa was trusty

Neon Whips

My throat is tight like the neon whips above the bar door. My voice is flat like warm soda when I’ve yelled too much or sobs have robbed my chords like a stoner hand in mom’s purse. And the shades are drawn. The doors snap back. Tears bleed down my face like some wrestler paint of yesteryear as I flee the scene and the club sharks and all the Ambers and Kellys and Jessicas and the fake palms and dry gins and I’m tired of being the lacey Dick Tracy. I’m tired of squashing the fire in the disco with fluid movements. I’m tired of squashing the fire in my soul with fluid movements. I’m tired and I’m scared and I feel like I’m peeking during church camp prayer in 5th grade. I feel like I’m peaking in this awkward era; 22 and so many wasted nights, wasted times, wasted friends, just… wasted.

But it’s better now that 2002 has passed like a ghostship in murky, misty, midnight waters. 2002 is no Space Odyssey. There were no cues, no signs of stopping and my skull felt crushed from the beginning of time. But that ape grew up and learned to drive and learned to civilize. Dialing in. 7th caller. Tickets for two. You and me and the morning light – shimmering tuxes and draped gowns. Decadent shells for the descendents of light rail pioneers and cul-de-sac cowboys. It’s all mixed up, you see. We’re supposed to have it ALL. We’re supposed to be the driving force our generation needs to generate itself, generate culture, but instead we’re left whining and grasping and sucking on the proverbial teat of the taxes; “What a strange bedfellow” they say. No, only the nerds. The careful ones. Those who find middle ground between cowardice and recklessness. But that’s just Plato-minded drivel – stuff that makes your head swivel. Back and forth, a disagreeing “no,” I don’t think so. So? Let’s take this outside, no?

80s Aggregate

Watching Baby Einstein to forget that I've been kicking tires on so many phases, and most have wheeled away like deals from yesterday.

Driving old cars fast with cigarette precision

He rolls into Cleveland with a trunk full of grateful hearts

Smelling 80s aggregate and collective scraps of knees

Now you’re smelling it.

Putting Ed Hardy cologne on your soul wounds

You’ve got me dressing preppy

With powerful bacne

Binaca sprays into gapes

The marrow of life dripping off my tongue and fingers like

Local honey

I wanna feel you in the bike lane

I wanna feel you on the roof

I wanna feel you by the woofer

I wanna feel you thrice on the star crossed fire escapes

And it won’t be nice when your son won’t smile

At Christmas time

Cul De Sac crummy

Cut off from grit

But it’s a collection of the stuff

Can you feel lit?

Placeless Sleepovers

Placeless sleepovers draw capes out the door - mid night march under orange hums so bright. And skeletons fell to the tink of glass. You took karate. Mother takes you home. Home is where the wet heat husks purple sprouts waving across property lines. It's hard ground and that's where you play. GI Joe is buried for ancient aliens when they finally arrive; artifacts of youth and agony all sushi'd up in dirt because like the fancy folks say - from that dirt you came and to that dirt you do go. But not ghostfaced kids behind Japanese shades. They stick around. They stick like jabs and Kraft mac. Foyer chimes calling them out, pink marble surfers, guided by Reagan handrails. Ooo but it does you no good. They seen you lying, he's got that belt. Now you're grown! Swarms of sulkers crying "but it ain't our fault!" They're damaged goods, sick day Sambos, milking it. Tomming something hard for that soapy selfhelp. Curators of crap upon crappy crap; those memories of dark groves in Saturns and moonlit urges. Those heavy days crushing in. But you're stuck on the river, paddles of jelly, 5 AM road rage, leaves in the alley. All the world's creakin' along in their socks. Alone on the porch, alone in their flocks. Life ain't nothin but pain and cocks, dew and drops, peace and pops. God: that magic tumblin' fox; keep me ornate; keeps me goin til I plops.