And I don't give a fuck

Anatomies of sorrow.
Were there only ten reasons?
Otis Redding.
Sam Cooke.
Marvin Gaye.
Tom Waits.
Trying to find another...

Down to the Faust Tavern.
Maker's Mark on ice,
Shot of well tequila,
No salt,
No lime,
Hi Life back.
Sit at a table.

In April...
I don't know where the fuck
I will be in April.
So then I should just...
Whatever you want...
I can't think about anything
Beyond this weekend.
That's all good
I'm working to live my life
Two weeks at a time.
I'm done after I finish this Maker's.
I'm gonna have another shot.
See you back at the house.
See you.
You want anything?
No,
Just finish that fast.
You can go on...
So you're just gonna stay here
And drink?
I reckon.

There's the thunder
Of Death Metal.
Some leathered fuck
Behind me
With a nervous knee
Shaking the floor boards
Out of time.

You walking me back home?
I'm walking back.
Coming back to the bar?
I reckon not.
You reckon?
I reckon.

You know Oscar Wilde...
I can hear you sigh.
He said,
There are two tragedies in life:
Never getting
What you desire;
And the worse,
Getting
What you desire.
When you talk like that
It exhausts my brain.
I'm just trying to say
I love you.
Well it's tiring.
And I don't want to have
To try and figure out
Something like that now.

You know,
I see all these couples
In the grocery store
Walking around
And I think:
Jesus,
What chumps.
Why would you stay
With a woman man person
Like that?
And then you come along
Complaining about
The Bordeaux selection
At this yuppie fuckhole,
Or the price of havarti,
Asking why I picked up
The wrong green salsa
And I don't feel like a chump.
And that's when I know
I still love you.

Because I don't make you feel
Like a chump?

Because you do
And I don't
Give a fuck.

The only thing interesting about her was her skull.

source

Living under the constant pressure of death.

The tragedy of youth is to believe you are going to live forever
while that of old age is knowing you have run out of time.
And what time remains is saturated with a core-tiredness.
The energies contained within hope have been long depleted.

Words like empty shells,
no longer full of life,
quiet echoes of what they once were.

God,
I am sick to death
of all these dead metaphors.
The sea shell is traded
for the dried carapace of the cicada,
clinging with a dead mother's grip
to the bark of the pecan tree,
this sepia skinned remnant
smelling like insect death
Van Gogh's boots
her jacket on the hook
that still holds the shape
and perfume of her days.

What is there left to do that hasn't been done already?

The bored artist idly carves
into the face of his muse,
desecrating her beauty,
heedless of her pain,
watching the blood fill
and fall from the wounds.

Is this it?

He reloads his brush with her blood,
spreading the skin apart to dig deep,
has no idea what he might paint,
somehow the dripping brush
seems too much

The only thing interesting about her
was her skull.

Ancient Lullabye

White Woman, James Whistler
source

The rats come out of the walls at night
As bones crack in the leaves
Balancing upon the edge of sleep
Teeth gnawing at my memories

My mother dances with a door
Pirouettes a rug around the room
I say I've never heard her laugh that way
As her face unsolves in the moon

An old man trembles in the barber's chair
His face wrecked with new grief
As the razor erases all his tears
I watch minnows clean his teeth

Whiskers brush against my eyes
The globe shatters beside my bed
A woman whistles ancient lullabyes
About the memories of the dead

After a Sickness

source

I am better.
But not the same.
Diminished
From what I was before.
Perhaps this is old age.

A thousand Lilliputians,
Have secured their ropes around me,
Drawn down the flesh of my face.
Dug trenches around
The ghost of my exhausted smile.

The quicksand drag of the grave
Unties my shoelaces.
Having stumbled a few steps in,
A gravity guides my feet,
Tucked tightly in the winding sheet.

Maybe there's no more easy days,
Hope close at hand,
Now all gone beyond the pale,
What's left is the futile fight,
The dull ache of awakening.

Maybe that last glass of wine
Still full
On the nightstand the next morning
Will keep mocking my ambitions
From the night before.

Thoughts recycle this pained drama.
It's strange to feel you'll never be
Quite who you were before,
To see a stranger in the mirror
Mindlessly brushing your teeth.

As a wounded dying animal
Looks out at you accusingly,
Sinking further deep down
Into the depths
Of your eyeholes.

I imagine there's strength
In seeing your blood
Still warm in your children.
But I wouldn't burden another creature
To wear this guilty mask.

I didn't believe my mother and father
Would hang on as long as they did.
Up every morning with a sigh,
Somehow remain alive,
Asleep leaving on the light.

It happens all over again again.
It's difficult to think of doing anything else
When living is all you've known.
No one teaches us how to die.
To stop doing what we've always done.

Everyone mills around the station,
Mumbling around in a ring,
Collapsed overcoats sitting upon the benches,
Suitcases spilling threadbare undergarments
And long sleeved dress shirts.

All uncertain of their ticket status,
Compulsively wandering
Through empty pockets,
Occasionally wondering
How they ended up here.

Wasn't there something else we were once doing,
More important than this tired waiting?