it's all down hill from here

it's all down hill from here
the battle is over
it's all a pill you wear
to take over and over

i left you all my notebooks
and video confessions
my young faced rock star looks
and monday night sessions

then went to the river
slipped into her open mouth
sank into her barefaced body
in the crooked cradle of the south

it's all down hill from here
this song plays over and over
i was born an alien,
an airborn rover

i've disengaged from the bar chat
from your barn feed stover
i've retired from your ranks
from the ship of your stern drover

and it's all down hill from here

moth

i see you flapping at the light
you've brought your fragile troth
the residue of your love song
your soul's champagne and froth

i see your micromovements
your salivation for the broth
that separates your tiny island
from the horizon you walked across

i make out the outline of your body
camouflaged against the cloth
laid out to plate your supper
a meal to acknowledge your loss

you've given all of your beauty
your strings of poetry and moss
that you've strung from all the branches
in the paper shapes of moths

medicine

to remember the feeling of dirt and dance
i crawled into your farmer hands
your unsheltered earthworm romance
before the war and corn in cans

to remember the smell of swollen rain
i bottled up your december pain
then set it in the window's frame
til it was set free again

to remember the freedom of an unshoed foot
i came and found your flat tar roof
a fist full of banjo, a line well put
caked in my ears like a chimney seeps suit

you gave me medicine
you understood
the faces in the corner
the rotting of wood

you gave me your medicine
you knew i could
in the sea of madness
deliver my good

this is sunset, this is cart

this is sunset
turn of earth
tangerine
smear across the heavens
like a dream you've longed to see
drawing up your eyes from mouth born lies
drawing open
your sing song heart
a tapestry hung from the stars
a nursing ground for a fertile start

start your chugging engine
this is fire, this is cart
leading forth the masses
two wooden wheels
a platform part
climb up to its center
project your minor, major sharp
shipping the seeds from thieves
and handmade sleeves
the swift toss of numbing darts

this is sunset, this is cart
this is fire, this is heart

time, time

I trust that you know what you are doing
shovel digger, metal claw
dropping in from the heavens
with no forwarning

you've plucked the green ones early
infant faces
under ripe and
still dangling
please have patience

time, time
it's not the time

i bow to your clearance
been all wiped out
we're back to bread and water
promise, fake out

there's a yellow mother in the sky
she would have grown it
would have tried
but not the time
it's not the time, time, time

and i trust you know what you're doing
head selector
cosmic chime
dwelling in invisible corners
drawing shut
the blinds

now's not the time

how much longer?

i sat down
with the one who made me
he told me about time
before my existence
about horse drawn carriages and smokey distance

i asked
how much longer?

this room has a melody
and then no breath at all
this town has a felony
turns its head when i fall

tell me, tell me
how much longer?
i don't fit into these clothes at all
a swollen heart
a tattered rose
hanging forward from a stem
that grows and grows and grows

the feeling on the inside
is the one that i chose
i know, i know
but how much longer?

the ring

i retract
into the icing of a cake
in this unexplainable bakery
of limitless love
and fact
wedged between the cupcakes
and the sugar free attacks

it's a sprinkle, sprinkle, hack, hack, HACK!
a pinch of salt
a cavernouse gap
a laminated mennu
a rusty tap
tap you on the shoulder
slow you down like sap

and i'm boxed up for your wedding
i'm presented to the queen
and for all the micro celebrations
celebrated inbetween
for the minute of your creation
bringing unseen into seen
for audacious invitations
the handing over of
the ring