Against You

you said it, you knew it, you saw it comin why'd you do it now

you've lost it now

pretension - you've lost direction we were singin' your songs now were turnin em off

and were sorry because we miss you and the way you sang before.

if i was in your place right now i just might do the same

but id have the decency to change the fuckin name

solo

if i was in your place right now i just might do the same

but id have the decency to change the fuckin name

Last Round

After swinging several punches at the love I've tried to K.O, (for years)

I'm starting to get winded. 

Not that old,

Can still see my stamina draining.

Kid love 

Is where its at.

My child heart was strong as a bull.

Maybe it was a lack of knowing how bad it could get.

Not knowing what it felt like

To be exhausted 

By anothers

Bullshit.

Scoundrels With Smiles.

sniff and ask.

Beg for love.

Laugh at our own pain-

blood cash we pay for the real,

green kind we can waste.

Cretins.

Lovers.

Louder laughs than most.

Louder than the wealthy.

Not poor enough to cry-

 broke enough to swindle.

Scoundrels with smiles.

We feel bad for the well off.

Mud will always be mud

...Peter stayed with the couple for two days. It took this long to get rid of his shiver and stop sniffling. The days had been uneventful- Victor, the Father of poor Brother Isaac, spent his days with a whip in his hand. He brought lumber to the town and demand was high on account of the storm. It was the worst flood most  in the town had ever witnessed. Victor had a large cart drawn by 2 mules. Gladius and Jude. They were steady and never rested. Victor never rested. He worked every day of the week. 

Peter hadn't known this was something good people were capable of. Working on sundays and no hellfire? Peter wondered what it took to be wise. What was the proper angle at which to look inward? He had been looking at some supposed force- and began feeling stupid.

Victor was no sinner. His wife might have been a saint if there ever were such things.

Brother Isaac- A fool, but Peter could sympathize for he too had worn the same blindfold.

Peter laid in bed staring over at his coat again- through its thread to the letter inside. He had avoided mentioning it at all cost and in some cases so deftly diverted the conversation he could laugh. He didn't however once he began feeling sick again. For their future sadness.

He felt well enough to head back to his room in the monastery and started to his feet. They still ached but compared to the initial pain of thawing this was nothing. Peter grabbed his jacket from its resting place near the wood oven and threw it over his shoulders. He couldn't enjoy its warmth once his fingers brushed the letter in his pocket. He had to tell them. He didn't want to see their faces. He didn't want to go back to the monastery.

The sun was peeking through the clouds, through the window into the cottage where Peter stood weary. He drew the letter and dropped it on the edge of the table. He looked at it a second and turned around. Sick. His caregivers had gone to Victor's family  home and Peter's escape was unnoticed. 

Peters thinking was so different- Godless. In his recovery it had all begun to seem so foolish and now standing in the mud it was illustrated. Sung to him. He had dropped his bible on the bank of the rushing stream and could see it from meters away. Blossoming and soaked. Dead. It was never alive. It isn't real. Its pages have turned to oatmeal and grit- but the mud is still mud.

Peter followed the river south and never prayed again. He never punished himself for this foolishness-  he was enlightened. 

Depart and open your eyes.

It is just that simple.

Mud will always be mud

and Bibles become weapons.

the mud was still mud but the bible had become oatmeal

You Can Have Her

At once we would up and hoist our sails

call vast crews and raise fortunes to travel across the sea

to the ones we loved.

As with our hunting and gathering

our odyssey takes a new form.

I'll sit with my torn up socks, my last black pair

feet on a stack of white ones-

looking out the window wishing I could make it across town

not very far

to have a drink 

or all of it

with some Penelope.

But my boats got no gas-

its dead on the shore, washed up.

All of me wishes I could get more 

but I spent my last four dollars on that pack of Wildhorse

which Mike

who quit smoking 

bummed a bounty.

So the crew of my galley will sleep another night

and I wont.

The sails will rest folded,

Th e cauffers have run dry 

and shes run off with some suitor anyway.

More sitting and starring.

400, 600 years ago there would be caravans curving and bending across the plain

hundreds of ships cresting the endless horizon

No destination was too far.

But tonight ill sleep on oak creek because the  pharmacy is within walking distance,

and my floor is covered with change.

Maybe it isn't even neccisary  to get the girl at the end of the quest.

I was always more interested in the mistresses and demons on the way.

and what good would sitting alone on the edge of a bed be 

with the last of your wine 

if you didn't have something monumental to complain about?

I to the suitors-

YOU CAN HAVE HER!

Suitors to one another draw daggers.

the second one kills the first one to flag her

3 and four both bleed on the floor as the lonely one

I

drunkenly swaggers.

Where would I get a fortune anyway?

Crazy Rachelle

There was a girl in Highschool- Crazy Rachelle.

She was some sort of glowing terror. Blond wavy hair, curly at times. Some times it would hang down past her shoulders, in front and in back of them. Sometimes it was all pulled straight back to a knot- revealing the contour of her skull.

Crazy Rachelle only had one smile. It was wide and pulled high, revealing  her gums. White teeth jutting out- straight down, and perfect. This smile almost never left her face. At times it seemed as if she was straining herself, fighting to keep it on. It was a beautiful smile on its own, but guessing its meaning, or having an idea of its function made this a very unsettling contortion of the face.

Resting in barrels above her red-circle doll-face cheeks were two plastic eyes. They were fixed. The girl did most of her looking around by moving her head, like a predator, never dropping its guard. They rarely ever strayed from their factory pre-set FORWARD position,when they did she would look human for a second. But this wasn't some saving grace- she was still Crazy Rachelle most of the time. 

What made me think of crazy Rachelle was a sudden memory that hadn't been remembered even once since it was stored. It was of course subject to wear and tear over the years but one fact (the point of the memory I think) permeated the haze bourn of time- Crazy Rachelle had done something completely crazy. Something terrible. For the life of me I cannot remember what it was she did. I have asked everyone I know if they remember Crazy Rachelle and they all do. But not one of them remembers what she did. Most have a vague feeling, just like me, but wouldn't have thought of it unless I had brought it up.

Im still constantly plagued by this question. Images of what it was that this girl did to give me such a foreboding feeling. They played on and on in my head. Flashes when I wake up, or sneeze.

Crazy Rachelle standing on a lunch table- Crouched over the mangled body of a student. Jeff. Blood all over her smile and entrails in her hands. Those eyes were only glued onto her head to make her look  human. Demon.

Crazy Rachelle on her hands and knees scrubbing blood out of her fathers carpet as he watches.

Crazy Rachelle laughing hysterically with the head of her baby brother submerged in bubble bath. The kicking-furious but creating no shake in her un yeilding wrist.

The kicking stops.

I don't think I'll ever know what Crazy Rachelle did, but I'll probably have thought of it twice by the time I die.

The Art of Borrowing Instruments- 1/?

I went to go pick up my car at the club Berrigan and I had so hastily vacated. The day was shit and I had no hope of it getting better.

After a 2 mile walk in the rain I was relieved to see my car. It wasn't pretty, fairly dinged up but I knew it was warm inside. I hopped in and couldn't help but laugh at my bad mood. I was so angry it was unbelievable. But I was warm and didn't care. I looked on the seat next to me- A stack of flyers for that nights show sat soaking. The soft top had a leak. I didn't have a trumpet.

I had spent the day calling every horn player I knew. Most were out of town or playing that night themselves.

' Hey you got a spare horn I could use man? I'll owe ya one, real big I'll owe ya one! ' Id plead

' Look man im puttin it to good use! I keep my eyes on the things I care about. Close. Get your shit together man! '

Bastards.

I sat in my shorts and undershirt the whole day- Dialing. Mary was at work, and after leaving on such a sour note I wondered if she was coming back. I had started to wonder this more and more often.

At about 3 PM I began to panic. No leads what so ever. This was my portion of our household's income at stake here, and I didn't have the tools for the job. I had called everyone I knew-Nothing, and decided to hit the streets. I leapt to my feet and threw on the first rags I could find; A pair of Cheap wool slacks that fit too loose, A wine stained sweater (white making the wine look as some gapping wound) and a cap- Never lose your cap. I suppose, never lose your trumpet aswell. But first and foremost- Never lose your cap.

Grab the keys-

Swing open the door-

A glance left-

A glance right-

Then the realization.

My car is still at the fucking club.

'Fuck me...' I went and grabbed a bigger coat.

Now I sat in the car looking at the soaking loaf of wasted flyers (20 cents- drain-o) and wondering what the hell I was going to do about the show. It was in 3 hours and at this point I was going to have to start choreographing a dance or learning to sing a song- We needed the check. As If things between Mary and I weren't desperate enough, coming home empty handed was surely going to send it all to hell. I laughed again, nervous. The rain started in again with more force than ever. I had landed just in time. I heard a screech of tires and a big white van barreled wildly into the lot- right in front of my car. I was blocked in.

'Oh great those fuckin' gangsters are gonna have their way with me!' I thought. I might have said it out loud. ' Yes.'

The back doors swung open and I was shocked to see 4 large blacks jumping out. Relieved again. I laugh. 

They were scrambling to unload their gear. A band. 'Well Goddamn, I bet they got a trumpet.' I stepped out into a rain that seemed to disappear, deflected by my newfound hope.

'Hey boys need a hand with all that?' I offered with a wave. They were surprised to hear me shouting only feet away from them. The rain was coming down hard enough that seeing inside the car was an impossibility.

'Yeah man! thanks!' The fattest one said. Their green suits were turning black with wetness.

I was handed two drum cases and I mainlined for the back door. The same door I was shoved out of, with a gun in my hand. It was a different door now- It was a safety from the storm. It might have meant a trumpet, but I wasn't sure yet. I had tried to get a look into the van- to see if i could make one out. No dice.

I made it into the ballroom and set the cases down by the side of the stage. I took a second to shake off my dripping limbs.

'Ey you! you left somethin' here last night!' An old phlegmy voice called from across the hall. I looked up and saw a tough old bastard in an apron waddling toward me with a few trays under his arm. He was short- Maybe 5 foot 2, but he was clearly made of stone.

' Whats that?' I inquired- it hit me later than it should have but before he could reply I gasped.    ' No fuckin' way you've got my trumpet don't you!?' 

'Yeah, found it in the back room, Surprised those hooligans haven't sold the thing by now. They steal glasses, they steal silverware, they steal the damn tablecloths.' The man motioned toward the other side of the stage with his head. ' It's over there.'

I started off for it, sweating bullets. That was too close. The Little man made an awful guttural sound and stomped his foot. I turned and he was looking up at me without expression. I reached into my pocket and handed him the 3 dollars I had on me. He laughed at it and walked away. Fuck em'. I went after the trumpet. I picket it up and its weight was just what my hand- my arm- craved to feel.

The Black men had finished bringing in their gear and were all crowded by the door passing around a cigarette. They waved me over.

'Here pal, thanks for the help.' the shortest one said. He was the leader I could tell. Brimming with charisma. He handed me the cigarette.

The drive home was perfect. I smiled the whole way.

I was excited to see Mary. I could cheer her up. I knew it.

I had the trumpet.