The Dead City

her body in the woods
naked and filthy
new flies unfurling
their iridescent wings
flicking to flight
in the green heat
stars catching all the hate
in her flat black eyes
her mouth is empty
soil where her tongue
once settle against her teeth

they call this place
Dead City
The Axe Handle Burroughs
Blood Smear Avenue
12 Gauge Park

hey, down here
we got this thing
called the psychopathic checklist
you score high
and you got a job for life
with the city council
hope you like the taste of
gun oil and brass

the ditch just outside
the fences
final resting place
the belt still tight
against strained muscles
Petechiae smiles
and knife wound kisses
they named her
the Ditch Water Bride
never able to close her eyes
with her eyelids all gone

Yeah, down here in Dead City
babes in the woods
are a common site
and shotguns
grow like weeds
buried in the forest
wrapped in burlap fertilizer
they sprout up
if you know where to dig

lily bones
decorate the bridges
down here
never mind the names
feet wash up on the beaches
rotted and stinking
children play with them
like footballs
the ghosts chatter
in the distant hills
spitting their indifference
down to the Native villages
our murderous ancestors
thought were theirs to take

brains on the railway tracks
two bodies for the price of one
facts and lies
are all the same around here
that sound you hear
that's the sound of the L train
going straight to Hell
yeah, down here
God has crooked teeth
and chews on raw bone sinew
red streaks in the pavement
we call meat love
and we all know the dark places to avoid

we don't want no tourists around here
so go on to your safe little homes
and shut your eyes tight
behind your gated communities
and white bread security raids
go on, pretend everything is all right

down here in Dead City
there's a skull-cracking good time to be had
and the Devil
let's us know he's still around
he's got that big old grin
and when his mouth falls open
terror seeps into the world
and all us murderers and thieves
we know we still got a place
to call Home

The Amazing Disposable Woman

I sit up in my kingdom of sickness
day after day
and look out over the alley way
that leads to somewhere else

I sit here and old conversations
drift through my head
I rarely speak
and when I do my voice cracks

Old promises broken
with the intention of never being kept
nocturnal admissions
never meant to be heard
quiet murmuring echoing
in the chambers of my bedroom
fingers still brushing my skin
shifting over my body
little smiles
and tears clinging to long eyelashes

He said I was too much
took up that doorway
like a storm
emotions rolling off me
like a drowning wave
still naked
still standing there
Jesus was not meant for anything better

He told me he felt like a sexual superhero
like a dark hipster poet god
all the girls loved
when I looked at him that way
I made him feel strength
as he brushed his fingers
over the knife wounds on his chest
and remembered my lips upon him

He whispered how he imagined me
slipping down a road in some tropical country
with hyacinths in my hair
marveled as I walked barefoot
through city streets
danced me to the end of the night
careful to avoid my crystalline ways

He kissed me under a street light
kept his hands on my wide hips
no matter where I went
we woke the neighbors
told me beauty like mine
was hard to swallow
and refused to sleep at my side

He extolled the virtue
of my green eyes
seemingly hypnotized by their wavering colour
like a drowning whirlpool
hiding in some green still lake
told me I was out to pull him under
just the same
cried in  my arms
and asked me to not hate him

how can I not hate
when love has led me to
the most vile
regions of my heart?
how can I not pledge myself
to this emptiness
when emotions
are the poison
my clouded mind
seeks to swallow?
how do I live
in the shadow of another
when he sees my body
as a home
and refuses to see
the cracks in the foundation?
how can I be beautiful
when they spit out my name
and wash me
from their throats?

in here
with no prying eyes
i am perfectly flawed
and my halo
is carefully stowed away
i am Queen
to the dust
and Empress of pain
they will call me wicked
in the fires of falsified love
carry the scars I left on their skin
remember the quickness of my licking tongue
the softness of my thighs

but I will
still be
undone
and never
beautiful
with my wild black hair
and my treacherous green eyes
my villainous snow white skin
and my deceptive softness

my empire is built of trash
and i will
throw myself away
before you ever
get the chance

Apocalypse Right Now

I sat in quiet contemplation
of the futility of human existance
our great weapons
pointed right down our throats
a brand new way
to kill ourselves

when I moved to the city
I lost the stars
so I couldn't watch dead light
invade my eyes
I had to meditate to
dull grey walls
and rain beating down
on broken sidewalks

sometimes,
just sometimes,
cities empty out
all the people leave
the windows are boarded up
the buildings crumble
a church of pointlessness
a shrine to vanity

no stars shine
up from under those broken skulls
empty eyes
walk the road to Hell
holding hands
shaking in the face
of an Angry god
called Pointlessness

clasp your hands
try to convince me that this is better
that you have the fucking answers
just under your fucking tongue
you are just as desolate
but somehow you convinced yourself
that you were still alive

I want you to know
I saw how you die
I saw just how fucking stupid you are
tin men all lined up
under the great firing sky
burning in the name of peace
I saw how you die
and licked my lips
at the thought of it

in sickness
I know the answers
closer in pain
to the reality
of our ineffectiveness
sold to the raw deal
convinced of their importace
but we are a gutter
for all things in us perish
God lives and he hates you
the world coughs up black clouds
and chews us down
with blood red teeth

and will be reborn
without us
to get in the way