by Ryan Adams
and
on the line with somebody
releasing the hounds
the dogs
heated only for a second and those numbers flying
and
perfect shapes of lost causes darting ceaslessly up the avenue
and shoppers shopping and people watching
from the tops of red buses not on the night loop
and fussing
with car horns and the rustling of bags everywhere bags
my god bags bags everything in them all around you
even when the street ends
and becomes the correct address
or the park begins or ends
this is our mess
and i
i hear for now the sound of bells
like
biblical and oughtta be horns
or trumpets with figurative angels
sitting there
blowing like hell
lunch mouthed and was it fish
or was it like a soup with fish
because the sound
is not the only thing
that
coming from your mouth
is so very very loud ha ha
i made a joke with figurative angels
involved
oh well
low gong
goes the clouds
pa-paw special
the truth is
i am always
getting my
feelings hurt
because they
are bigger
than me or
my hands
and i have
my grandfather’s
hands
capable and daring
digits
ten
far from
zero
making
somethings
out of nothings
being a believer
these were things
he liked
and pranks
he loved them
i miss him every day
i miss his laughter
and his football commentary
and eating t.v. tray dinners
with him
and his war stories
and how
he loved my grandmother so
so
so much
he had a hat
he had a cane
he had an overcoat
and a suit for when
needed
and he fought in two wars
and cried
cried sometimes
silently
as i sat beside him
both of us looking
out into the light
shifting through
the spaces in the
leaves of the
magnolia tree
in front of the
house
where i really
grew up
he couldn’t stand
Dave Letterman though
the way i can’t stand
Carson Daly
so there was that
but
easily forgivable
for the man who
said to me once,
“Ryan, you are not like other children
you are special and it will be tough
but just never forget this
if you never forget anything in your life …
Never …
Bet …
Against …
Yourself.”
my grandfather
That is who i would like to be
when i never grow up
for growing in.
Anxiety and Hope
Our City
It’s a Jewel
Misted
and Hushed
By Its Own Hand
It Is a Fiction
And a Kid
Bubbled Up and Popped
Like a Thought
All Loud
and
Forgot
Like a Girl
Heels Dress and Gown
At a Ball
After the Ball Comes Down
And All Acquaintance
Be Forgot
Etc
Is Nothing
Compared to the Glass
When the Glass Got Dropped
on the Crystal Tile
Like That
In a Moment
So Fast
It Passes on the Street
In a Heat Flash
In the Flurries
of Holiday Bodies
and Cheer
Misted
and Hushed
Like my Old Heart
It’s a Jewel
Our City
But without you
it’s just glass and steel
reflection-pretty
and lonely
with a me inside it
feeling shitty
with hope
or
anxiety
Return to Santa
“hope,
did you have the party?
did you?
under the soft light of their fathers’ money
and the
swift movement of capable arms of an electrician
specialized in illuminating rooms
for the lacking of heart
did you?
because i saw the red light on
way up in the terraced balconies
one looked almost fell
and i thought of you
and your friend
my loss
i never caught their names
their drunken clothes too expensive to name
as they rum-tongued each other
street-side
in the almost rain
you stood beside me
and didn’t see
me
as i watched you mouth the lines of each amnesia kiss
was it her you wanted
or maybe
him–
to get to her;
you never know, with an allergic bundle of bad skin
they
grab your arm just right
and wrap those fingers tight
and that’s enough
you know
to get me through a night
and like a fool
i dove right in.
hope,
did you bury the rest
did you make them stalkers too
even though
you have been separated by every one
continental
in hospital
or
worse, you imagined them–
a broken stone
at
each grave
you
dug with your bloodied fingernails
you bite
while you think you sleep soundly
in your perfect snore
in the dark
between lines of rude yellow light
you stole their favorite shirts too
i bet
that future-boys
they would have meaning too
did you
I didn’t get enough dirt
you didn’t dig deep enough
or did you think,
’oh, he is just a hick from the street
and his connections will do
those hicks, they grow tired
and
eventually sleep
so you can steal their shoes
and feel
what it is like
to be
a contender
in the ring
my face beaten into piles of bruises
and toothless smiling’
i can hear you
in the hall
it was foreign
but i understood it all
’oh daddy’
you will always be the one for me
fill it up
for another drink up in the country
with the man
who sold his project kid
for a box
for people to stuff their faces
full of slutpowders in
i should have split the sails
that night
alone
on one of those ships
in the piers of copenhagen
with my veins
and
lashed it into stuffing for future pillows
for your
useless night banging
and
perfectly acceptable excuses
later
when explaining
oh, hope
you know
she always has these things
we gather, no regrets
life is a fucking party
and we summon the spirits
of the coldest things
once
to be heard
twice
to be sold
you are so far from feeling
and
being a cutter
is just not anything but work
once
it ruins a loaner
you ice your soul down
with
elderly fat drunken thanksgiving turkeys
who have a job
destroying others people’s life work
for more money
they would never use
attention is attention
and
that thing
you carry
like it was born into your hand
will turn
you back from stone
to flesh
one day again
if the galaxy is set free to balance itself
after your pummeling
of the naïve
if only a sign
from that other soulless fuck-face
god,
if only he was the perfect man
then
the rest of us
could all go home
back
to Santa
and
wait until
someone dreamed of being loved too much
elsewhere
on a planet
where
somehow
they forgot to make cowards
return to sender
address
North Pole
i was
a living present
for
some
asshole
and
god help,
i am sorry
but
today i don’t feel so good
and
i don’t care anymore
who loses
because
we
all know
when a man is left to his own ruined soul
it is never a matter of if
but
when”
For Your Tears
those people out there, who are they
intruders
bylines
and ghosts
fit to wreck it all in a night
take down the house
board by board
replace the walls with bottles
emptied out one by one
till we are see-through
like souls at sail
souls at sail
on fire
water in the pails
allergic
and getting higher
draw me a map of those stars
and i’ll sleep in here
and you will die a little
for your tears
Orange
A hand to touch
A fit, to mask or shake just what
It is January or not
Time splinters off in a drool well
It rains or it stops raining
A sink clogs or it stops draining
The mask falls off
A new bouquet swells
A sneeze lets loose
In the house the animals stir
The print on the couch dwells
It lets go of its color
And the light fades
What color is that?
What moment is that?
What figure is drawn?
On what eyes?
A child yawns
A seat on the bus is closed
This light, This year, This hour
It multiplies itself by the word
It goes soup on the bowl
And the bowl draws near
Its color revealed
A kind sleep
A hellish dream
On my skin that sun goes orange
And I burn myself
And my eyes cave in
This horror of time clicks my heels
It laughs that laugh of cruel poses
Our dreams are not our collective
But submission is easier
When we pretend this together
A fantasy a clock
A hand designs hour not hands
A minute exposes cracks
A time forgets us
A stop
My eyes hurt
It is too much
Orange
We Paint Together
we paint together
something smallish
crooked wirey
dissolving like gray candy
on white dinner plates
and i talk and i talk
and i t a l k
i am so full of shit
and i don’t know i don’t know
till i hear us talk
when you talk like adults
and i am trapped
like a kid in a boxy room
my mouth shuts
a trapped door
and piles of dirt
for brooms
sweeping the ends of the earth
for rainbows
i feel like i misspell
when the thoughts come put
out
like collected cows
flatulent and cross
like city weather
i am a subway map of the stars
trains do not go
to
yet.
Writing, Dying, for the Trying
in ten seconds
an alley cat
will rush through the marshes
and break the glass
into my arms
with a bucket full of cash
and i will still be here
sober sober sober
writing dying for the trying to get right
in no quick succession
a gang of ducks
will surrender the enemy
haven just given up
like a train cliché
running through my head banging
and i will still be here
helplessly helplessly sober
writing dying for the trying to get right
when the belly
laughs
when the head
hurts
when the bed
groans
when the mind
goes
i will still be sitting here, with you, or not, buried inside this, almost alive,
talking to no one
writing dying for the trying to get right
The Statue of Liberty Is French, Asshole
Shock sets in
the blast of the hot air touches her face
like a lover might have
with hot electric sand mouth
and cabinets inside her
made of grot
from over the ocean
a witty french girl with spikes
almost mossy
a shade of green
sick tone
the statue of liberty
is on the outs to
night
for a hot bang
in the
stinking piles
of garbage in Brooklyn
Oh, you know
roof parties
and
and sensible girl gives it up
one night a week
i mean
one night a year
in that same
that
same dress
how
are
they to know that
those
easy boys all of them those easy boys
you
are
so
stupid
fuck you
says the Statue of Liberty
to Brooklyn
pissing
into
an
ocean of
dead
bodies
I Am One of Those
I am one of those
Satisfaction machines
coal dust sooting the hillsides with ash
and sky gone gray night after night
day after day
always
long machine moans and out of context it’s beautiful
to a fool
then comes the Scotch
and the cigarette stains
and the food floor and the blanket gets sauced
with burn marks
and pocketed shirts for cigarettes
bad-breath dreams
and no dog because the dog stays with the girl
and girls don’t like their alcoholics when the dust settles
and they dream of their father dying
and no amount of night is enough
for an unsettled stomach
in a girl
so pushing past the dresser drawer to be pilfered through
looking for notes from a boy not me
and socks and things i don’t understand
comes the bitter parts of panic
and outside the stars sing into plastic cups
into trucks of cars and beds of trucks
tailgated in the suburbs
New Jersey parking lots filled up with yesterday’s puddles
reflecting the lights of some steel plant
consumed with people roaches and rats
and Disney dreams
and me
and my bad habits
screaming commands to their children my years of pain
my past
and I fuck them over for every day straight
wrenches in the Satisfaction machine
and a great white fuck you
to everything I was
But inside
I am still one of those
The Whole Universe Is God’s Shithole Apartment Complex
this whole thing is an organism
a machine
i count endless stars
like atoms and space between them
we’re bugs
bugs on the cell
bringing down the house
and the house is fell
this whole universe is a trap
with hair
i bet probably or not
something with some kind of eyes
these flickering stars
its tiny insides
i still want to fuck her on the hillside
though
i am just that way
built out of dreams