by Ryan Adams
yuck
gross
the moon plays with a ball of yarn
it tells me jokes
tells jokes also to the yard
dogs go ape-shit
and in the pile of garbage
they roll
snort
and then get up begrudgingly
and go settle down
in a lie
under a tree shadow
fuckers
lucky and pure
in their madness and devotion
and without doubt
so noble a thing
but when living
so pure
minus all that second-guessing
and congestion.
I do not talk about how I feel
so much as I talk about
that I am feeling–“something”
but I dunno what fucking what
really
it’s so nonspecific
it talks a lot of shit but doesn’t back it up
if I planted something
not the evidence in a coat
but a tree
maybe it might slow something else
everything being perfectly balanced
still I blush
when I get the feeling
a woman is thinking of a saddle-up
forgive me but
I mean,
I got the ticket for me
for us
For Charles
Today is Thursday, Charles,
and I had that old dream again.
I bet it was something like your drinking problem.
You can never admit it
or let it go
so you glorified it
until it wasted you
and your possibility
and you died
right after people started looking like horticulture
and whatever.
I bet God made you join a rollerskating league
I bet you hate it
I bet it’s all men too
an all-men rollerskating league
so you don’t get any ideas
and besides
rollerskating is a bag of funballs, Charles
and you
they put you in the movie store on the day you passed
in all your drunken glory
and you
you were a good writer
and you saw things
and they were messed up
but they didn’t have to be
and those docks
by the swampy pier
they aren’t meant for learning
but for ships
cargo
and
the sea.
Today is Thursday, Charles,
and I had that old dream again.
But you are still asleep
and will be forever
and I wish
I wish you could wake me up one more day
to cry
and write a brief note
and leave it on the refrigerator of the world
that you were sorry
and that you really were just scared
and loved too much.
Goodnight, Charles.
No Movie Tonight
Just tonight, walking home I thought,
Maybe I will treat myself to dinner and a movie
but I got cold feet
and I just couldn’t
For all that walking down the aisle alone again
For all that unnecessary static I feel
watching grouped shadows before me
side by side
taking it all in together
it does not remind me of her anymore
but it does remind me of me
desperately alone
and
there is just no one
no one
not a soul with a match to relight that fire
and I’m terribly afraid it is in no way an over-exaggeration
but a fact.
You can feel that stuff from this altitude of 33.
I can see the fast-action valley below of youth.
How merciless and warring always
teeth-gnashing war machines, but all pretty and dumb
colliding
and at this height
well
one must saunter on toward the summit
or what point was it anyway
if for stopping now
to find the peak
and know a measurement of a single light
inside this machine of mine
which keeps growing hair
breaking down
and
capable of the longest of sighs
as darkness surrounds.
What If
slice it any way you like
be it a loaf of homemade bread
or a block of cheese
I like it when the mail comes
I open the box one-armed
with a string I keep tied to my belt loop
on its end a gaggle of keys
and there
there is your magazine
we don’t finish them
but we try
us youngins or under 40
but as instructed by our elders
we stack them neatly
in our bathrooms or our sitting rooms
or wherever a window is
that gets the most light
for reading them later
under the reflected brick thrown
unnatural light
and
EVEN when you make a funny cover
about politics
some of us don’t mind
or even understand
because
in the front pages our poets speak
simple and condensed into phrase
and it is as if at once
I learn each time
to understand a world of hearts
one must focus on a single beat
its flow
and be silent and in the know
what courage it must take
to be at ease enough to expose a truth
single and fit for a feast
of your offices
overstacked with the words of us dreamers
trying our best
to be clever
in the way we use words
when they rhyme and repeat
or not
but
slice it any way you like
if it made it in,
there is a bit of dancing standing fits
when you open the box
and your submission
somehow
against all odds
made it in.
Electric Nothings
Am I still a country mouse
If forever now
I boxed me up
and shipped me up north
and
gave my heart to a city-style dream?
or
am I not a geographical thing?
Am I still a Southern pie
If long past baked
I boxed me up
and was overlooked
for
people here eat mostly cake
and
remember when Johnny Carson used to do that thing
that thing
where you playfully end up
riddled with the whipping cream
interrupting a blush
as it fell onto a suit
from a smiling face?
Am I still?
Because I feel like electric nothings
most days
and find myself engulfed in measurements
my soul fastened to my shoes
my shoes the counterweights
and
I don’t feel like I belong much here
or there or not
any more than anything flickering
> digital
that a spilled glass of something
could make forgot
gone too
like a season well spent.
This is how we go about it now
now that the curtain and the cast
are simulcast
before and after intermission
with all of us mid-bow
to empty house crowds
and
my body tells me something LOUD
“hey, mister,” it says
you are yours
so
I let the words take me where they will
and marry each morning
that clicking sound
far from electric nothings
and south.
War Is Awful
That gun,
That suit,
That thought,
“aim … then shoot”
How’d you do it?
What’d I miss?
I kill cockroaches
sure thing, man
I never miss
Well, that’s a lie
But what the hell
They invaded
So why not try?
Why not?
Is that how it goes?
That gun,
That suit,
That thought,
“aim … then shoot”
Someone made that thing
lust or love
directed by the hands
and silence above
below a floor
not sheets and bed
but rapid miracles
reproducing
like light orb circles
dropping from words
meant only once
for ears now yours
once your mother’s
surrounded perhaps
by careful doctors
and a nurse
plus plenty of hot water
and your tears,
all miracles
considering the lists
everywhere
talking “End Is Near”
take this, take that
to calm your fears,
fix you, not IT
like you were a world
funny, but not cute
you’re not
so
That gun,
That suit,
That thought,
“aim … then shoot”
How’d you do it?
Fuck You, Mister Know-It-All
Sometimes I tell myself,
“Fuck you, mister know-it-all”
but I know I’m right anyway
so I don’t talk to myself
for like, seven days
because
I am an asshole
an asshole with a big fucking mouth and also
I am trapped by multicorns
several of them
not to be confused with unicorns
who are also assholish, like swans
beautiful but will fuck with you,
NO multi-fucking-corns,
which are just downright,
um,
nasty, yeah, nasty and awful mean
so you know,
next time you get mad at yourself
think about this
or me
and feel free to keep smiling
and walking on through it
because,
well, what am I even saying here
who am I to tell anybody anything
I dunno shit about anything
my life is a fucking mess
“fuck you, mister know-it-all”
I would tell myself right now
but I’m busy
I’m busy being a poet
or whatever
infinity
plus
whatever makes it impossible to retort
I get the last word here
always.
Sand Sea Tide
I wish it were sea spirits–joining me to the ocean of sadness
or static tides filled with anger and depression–my own faults
sea spirits, green sun-glinting eyes
skin like scales, every color in them
when they moved ever so, standing upon
the beach, with merlin’s staff
but I am simply crazy
and me
my loneliness, which I spell so well
is killing me
off
like a crushed bug under a nice set of heels
I am surrounded by misery
and my boat sets sail
and we drift
into that fog
where I shall never see your face again.
sand
sea
tide
when I ask you to take my breath away
what I mean is,
forever
for-fucking-ever
My Watch Hates You
Dear Time,
Fuck You,
I used to get wasted and stand at the edges of buildings
not for show, there would be no one anywhere
not fried style
not even a stranger
and I would know I was wasted when I hung over the side
because naturally I am afraid of heights
that’s when
when I would snort a speedball off my hand
you know that place
between your first finger and thumb
that’s where you snort them from
I would buy coke
and buy heroin
both powders
and premix
and put them into little pieces of paper
which I would hide in my jean jacket pocket
very small
and I was like a magician
I would pretend to wipe my nose
the way anyone would with allergies
mid-lunch with someone
and I would drop the line into a linen napkin
or just a plain one
and I would snort them
all day
all day and night
but at night eat at least two sedatives
and one painkiller
then get wasted
wasted as fuck
and when the darkness filled me up all the way
I’d find a quiet ledge
and I would try to accidentally fall off
I did this for at least 6 years
I miss it
not the drugs
but whatever else that was, but I don’t do that anymore
now I work myself to death
that is my new punishment for myself
and because
during that time at the end
I lost you
I lost you there, I guess
I lost you.
so
Dear Time,
Fuck You
and
watch this watch this watch this watch this and watch this watch this
watch this and watch this
Asshole.
Forget It
slowing hands at ends of stems
pedals
arranged white, purple.
cornrows like directing orbs
of orange/tangerine blast
over a silent
waterfall that is you
and
forget it.
marsh lands toxic dump radioactive
semi-truck
spills toxins, fire, a wreck
fire explosives and up and
down and up and down
so afraid and insanity-bound
glacier
that is me
so
forget it.
Fruit Gets a Lot of Still-Life Action
sit still,
no,
you fucking sit still,
dialogue
between a camera
and
&nb
sp; a bowl of fruit
it’s tired
it’s been there forever
and the set is exhausting
it’s tiring work
getting too much love
isn’t it?
so it starts to give
the lights are too much
the hours are too long
and the orange is more brown
now than yellow and red
mixed
and the green of the apricot
has softly fizzled out
nodded off in its chair
a sitting bed
in a green bowl
on a table
with large hands moving the pieces
round and round
a race against the clock
time always wins
the cameraman just forgot
for they are driven
driven by madness
against a time
and
the world stops
they think
when you isolate it
small enough
it fits into a frame
but it is a trick
to make you think
that fruit gets all the action
it does not
it dies behind the colors
in the darkroom
and
is nothing,
zero
so move, soldier, move
winter is coming
Aplomb
since nobody is listening,
I will sing this
aplomb
aplomb
I’m singing that song
but I am not dignified
without dignity
I am alone
and no one is listening
this is MY hillside,
my right and left
sky and tree line barren
white canvas
north and south
devoid of color
listless
totally shut-mouth
since nobody is listening
I will sing this
over myself
over myself
and the thump of my own heart
kicking my chest
beating it
with its blood-fist
aplomb
aplomb
aplomb
aplomb
aplomb
I am alone
I am alone
and
no one is listening
Do Not Loan Your Heart to Women
if you raced me home
you would end up
in the woods
woods–white
silent
and
scary
but you know that now,
you know
as we watched the clouds break