Infinity Blues

by Ryan Adams

  in the name of the future

  because

  fuck you and your sleeping wordless criticism

  and

  that path before me is lit with possibility

  and lore

  and my cup is not full because it is not a cup

  it is a life

  it is a heart

  and me

  I am trying to show you something

  about yourself

  not me

  that a person can do anything

  and

  that is what hope is

  so,

  with all due respect,

  fuck you if you dismiss this

  because it is a process

  and

  I accept

  if you discount what it has to say

  but if I draw a line

  and say

  what have you done today

  be prepared

  because while you are sleeping

  I am with the sunlight

  and the life

  and joy

  joy will rise in the names

  Orange-Burst

  Orange-Burst knows–

  full-tilt knows, bumper car sparks knows

  beach bum salty hair in eyes–knows

  that I am here

  under it.

  Made of sunlight

  Orange-Burst is

  and all “Nun-ya-business-esque”

  because it rained

  and

  I have a thing for lamps.

  Lights–lightbulbs–signs with lights–

  you name it–

  I have a thing.

  Not digital or laser though.

  Working ones–

  Ones where you have to be careful or

  DAMN

  that small piece comes off the rods

  those tiny metal legs

  extending up

  and the connection is lost forever

  I’d cry if they turned off the Chrysler

  cry baby tears

  but maybe I wouldn’t know

  sometimes

  sometimes I can’t get out of bed.

  I spend almost every waking hour absolutely alone.

  Orange-Burst knows.

  I love it.

  It laughs

  out loud with light

  as a heaven might

  and

  a man needs friends at 6 a.m.

  and I don’t work anywhere

  but here

  so

  Orange-Burst–

  off we go.

  Fast As Fuck

  Maybe all you meant to say was,

  “gosh, what a waste to see a good man lose his faith”

  and that is why

  when I got lost

  and you knew,

  you told me to write,

  because I was very sad

  and a sad man is a sad thing

  too sad for words

  maybe

  but his own

  so

  While they thumb for a dollar now

  and loose change

  when the offering plate comes around

  silver

  and charity-bound

  I am dumping collections

  entire passages of a life

  because

  I dug the ditch

  I roofed the house

  I bagged the groceries

  I got fired

  I sung a song

  I broke myself

  I broke others

  and now

  now I want to be, NO, BEAT that idea

  that a man does not change

  also

  like an athlete

  or a machinist

  I want to know how much my spirit can lift

  how fast a heart can go

  and

  how slow a world can turn

  when frozen by the violent twists

  of a dream

  gone thuder-tornado-thuNder tornato

  even when I misspell

  so

  Maybe all you meant to say was,

  “gosh, what a waste to see a good man lose his faith”

  but I heard you

  a bunch of ways

  now after-while a buncha ways

  and

  this is the work

  and

  the work will not change

  unlike me

  fast as a fucking scene

  inside a t.v.

  the size of a galaxy.

  Pay Up, and Let the Kids Play You Sissy

  It looks like the mirror-house was glass

  … “fuck”

  the rumbles must be low

  to be grumbles muttered

  because a truth was told

  and stomachs were hungry

  not yet lunch

  and there was a bunch of shit on about war

  war

  fuck that

  go to war, kill others, yourself, whatever

  for “safety”

  but I have never felt safe around anyone

  who wanted to kill me

  or whom

  I thought might die needlessly

  all that blood

  and this feeling we have a soul and there might be a God

  in fact

  that there might be a rather large presentation

  scientific

  mathematic

  ready behind us,

  whatever made our parents

  and you know

  whatever also made them love and then laugh

  fuck

  take baths and talk

  and make us,

  it might be a bad idea to forget you did not measure you

  and cut you out of a cloth

  and seed yourself in a field of flesh

  and fill your veins

  which spider-hatched

  into a nebula

  of tangible webs

  before you were even given a name

  and declare yourself a God

  who punishes

  because

  and if only this

  because

  if one stands behind you and after you

  imagine his legion

  and in your slow-ass monday-morning mind

  imagine what darkness

  falls under that kind of light

  and

  remember

  soon it will be collection day, either way

  and you,

  you are what you will be using

  when that receipt is handed to you

  and someone will pay

  ok?

  good.

  How Spirits Sail

  Winter is so fucking over

  so fucking over

  in here

  so last year

  I don’t have time for you

  but love you now

  love you still

  but removed myself

  Intensive care unit typewriter

  station on full alert

  maybe manic but harmless

  and less hurt

  Pain can be taken from a place

  like in a heart

  in its last season

  and moved to the knuckles

  Hands in the dirt getting way dirty

  digging into something

  looking for evidence

  of life in circles

  I stand still and watch me

  I revolve perfectly like a planet

  inside a system of myself

  and release a faction

  I gang myself up sort of

  because those colors on a dress

  and the life under it or outside

  is boozy and makes me yucked

  Nobody in this place is even aware

  of who is borrowing

  from where

  who is touched and by what

  And that whole thing is madness

  if you know you are the name
/>   or the other hand connected

  to a life inside a desired light

  With eyes like yours and a mouth

  and ears and arms and legs

  and worries and fellowship

  raised on shores you did not see

  Because, we got here separately

  that is how it works

  how spirits sail.

  Fuck That Noise, Jimmy Shoetaps

  Let’s go up and down

  like me

  and my moods, or yours and someone else’s too

  and see if we can build some rollercoasters

  no seagulls ever got to sit on

  for the clattering rails

  of words and heartbeats

  all in perfect time

  with the wave

  and then the next wave

  as it crashes into our beach

  where we go

  not always together

  still

  our electric park of thought

  and

  you know, fuck it

  ride ’em all

  at least once

  or twice

  for the laughs.

  otherwise

  the dust will gather

  and on the metal

  rust will settle

  and I’ll be up here fixing this shit

  forever

  and

  you know,

  fuck that noise, Jimmy Shoetaps.

  Asshole

  What an asshole.

  Somebody was born today and you went and built a boxing arena.

  What an asshole.

  Sure, poetry and art are certainly not charity but if YOU built it

  and

  it’s your wallet that gets lined with unicorn feathers

  or you were in a position to TEACH not LEAD

  and you

  showed a child it was possible to bleed

  then when that First Punch goes out

  shouldn’t YOUR FACE be the one?

  huh?

  Is that how it oughta be,

  for the balance to belong to the floor

  and to set an example

  before you have to even the score … ?

  You don’t care, do you?

  No.

  So you will now be happy and certainly sleep easy and of course

  get fucked royally

  but if by other royalty

  still …

  What an asshole.

  What an asshole you are,

  swallowing yourself in shit.

  Garbage Scepter

  Sour Crystals form

  and the kings

  the kings of the alleys and NOT the streets

  the streets outside them

  hold their staffs

  their scepters

  and loot

  in sack cloth

  to reckon what is theirs

  and by their staff

  they draw a day

  and they draw a night

  and we know

  we who are not of the living in those boxes of garbage cans

  we know

  this is their kingdom.

  Old Flowers

  Old flowers

  Break like eggs

  in a rented room

  with a slow bed

  This church rising up

  like old men

  surrounded by houses

  all new like children

  With a rain-blasted steeple

  fit for vampires

  Christ

  it makes me sick

  and my stomach screams

  because it isn’t working anymore

  like my skin was crawling with bugs

  I cannot see

  interrupting me

  and my shitty dreams

  Apples, bananas, and pears in my green glass heart

  rot quietly along to a beat

  my legs crossed

  my typing foot

  banging inside the desk

  from my wild typing foot–feet–

  tired from over-sleep

  with a mouth full of smoke and rose petal

  tea and eyes following an electric tower

  someplace over the water

  the car swings back and forth wildly

  minus driver

  or a road to guide her

  I tell lies to get inside her

  if only to turn the key

  to an off position

  and let it happen–sparing somebody

  Ten days ago the water went

  into the hole where it sits

  like an entire city arranged

  on a dirty dinner plate

  on a tray made of clay turning dirt

  from humidity and hurt

  for broken men who hurl with knotted shirts

  stinging themselves like bees

  looking into mirrors

  the image of an enemy

  someplace in the middle millionties

  with their legs tied

  and wasted lipstick girls laughing their wallets off

  turning money into bags

  barely between the cars,

  rushing,

  glassy like the sun was coming out on repeat inside

  but not really

  with electric wombs

  those rooms were made for sleeping

  not research for alibis not worth keeping

  star-lined and straight

  like a military bed

  at 8 a.m.

  there are no coincidences, said my friend

  who bathes in light

  but joined a cult by accident one night

  outside

  streets on streets on streets

  like orgies

  for starving feet

  a picture of what is mine wrapped up in her mother’s arms

  above the light

  which happily

  descended from me

  as I too dwelt

  lower

  before it rose

  and it is now always turned on

  All-Fucking*night

  and me

  I break like eggs in a rented room

  with a slow bed

  I break like eggs

  or old flowers

  damn

  fuck

  pity

  shame

  I will never be mine

  for the never being yours

  or ours.

  Summer

  summer is a state of mind

  a smelly fish

  no meat

  all scales

  that television of yours

  has harpoons

  and they breach the whale

  your sea

  an angry field of static

  disconnected from the door

  I see the outside

  from the inside

  but go noplace

  near there anymore

  landfill is a sky

  sky is full of swallows

  filling your cup

  poison

  how do you even spell that

  cleaning your plate

  thoroughly

  everything you do, so perfect and pretty

  and never showing up

  for the always being late

  this place is empty kind of

  sans love–home-esqueness pose

  without you

  I look at the lights I hung

  I see the outside of my apartment

  but from below

  not above

  and I see traffic way too heavy

  from mistakes

  and words used

  turned like iron weights on ankles

  and me

  inside like too many bodies in the trunk

  to hide

  us living

  but summer is a state of mind

  and I am going

  and willingly

  forever

  so say goodbye to
this me

  while I am still yours

  before the dirt comes out from under my nails

  and I no longer feel shitty

  or

  beyond the reach of God.

  Whatever Makes Her Happy

  I sat with her in a movie theater

  midday

  friday

  falling asleep

  someplace between my seat

  and her shoulder

  with clouds passing in the frame

  since that day

  things have never been anything worse

  but not the same

  days are born

  they revolve

  but they do not change

  –eternity is here–

  –and here–

  Our soda is too big for us

  Our popcorn might as well be on fire

  because it is anywhere but in her mouth

  my mouth

  christ my mouth

  or anyone else’s inside this place

  inside them

  she or I

  replaced by another shadow

  or shadowy face

  and

  My clothes are dirty

  My mind is not in charge

  I had a few reservations

  in several areas of interest

  but I am the ticket

  and I turned the plane around

  I didn’t show

  I just didn’t.

  Inside you I have every one of you,

  demonic assholes tearing and screaming

  the housing projects come down

  like a video

  no posse

  no cars

  and the women in the lower districts laugh

  and taunt us as we go

  because the way I talk is like gunfire

  and I am fractured with loud parts

  army clothes

  and my face is loud

  violent crowd sound loud

  and spitting vowels

  this is all a bit much

  and confusing

  and

  well

  whatever, man, whatever it takes

  whatever makes her happy.

  We’re the Worst

  the wrong side of worst

  is

  I draw lines

  between my enemies

  and my friends

  and

  they intersect so much

  I can’t see their faces

  for the bends

  in the book

  and what a bath break

  took

  because you’re all way too much

  and lovely

  but also

  just yuck