Naked

I) Rodeo

I wake up from this dream...
And the countless books you've written,
Are still growing, their pages turning themselves
All the lanterns you hung about the dark field
That whimper like candles floating in a wheat sea
The demons you captured in your mason jars
And placed them on display, so everyone knows your strength
And the hundreds of girls you've turned into angry women
Their moistened bodies left to singe in the sun
You, as a dirty farm hand, a child of dusty rodeo days
You, as an inhuman orphan, without feeling other than unusual pleasure
Crouching like some old, crippled dog who's scared of the gun
Asking for help in the corners of dark rooms when everyone's asleep
Vomiting your values when some vice comes to twist your gut
And begging the questions that those old thinkers used to ponder
The status quo of a generation gone to bed with fantastic visions of sex and humor
A crownless king who builds pyramids for his burial and statues for his unborn sons
A strange beast that always holds a thought to itself
As you ride your dog, naked across long fields of simplicity
And fall asleep in the dirt and dust of the barn covered in stars and night sky

But now as I come to...

I see you as a child of discontent and sacrifice
A weak soul that's been encased in some mortal cage
With a mind that plans to think about thought itself
You are not the hero you thought you were born to be
But a father in future tense, who'd fight off the Gods themselves
But a wounded soldier wondering when you'll get somebody to kill
But a strange lion who cannot roar
But a string of strange lives that come to an end just as some other adventure begins
But as a man who’s too stubborn to settle for anything less than victory, truth or love
A hypochondriac overdosed on schooling and worry
Finally up off your friends couches, sleeping without thoughts of anger and sickness
Slicing raw chicken and tomatoes on a pizza box with me as we make our friends dinner
Still alone on Christmas, sweeping away pine needles from an old farm floor
And still dreaming of the day when you are recognized for the path you walked


II) Burning Moths

When I turn my head...
You are no longer cupping yourself
Running naked through fresh, falling snow
Jumping without thought off the ridges and cliffs
Like a bison does, only knowing what's a couple steps behind
No more are you still wet from your own birth
The sun's finally dried that scarred, beaten skin
Your father, dying, or already dead
Was nothing more than any other old hopeless man
And the lovers you buried, well and alive
Still burn in your heart like a bullet
That continues to spiral through you slowly
Everyday was a leap of faith over doubt
But you always doubted when you fell in
And the way the sun made you ripe and green

But now when I look back, your way

I see the long lost boy who thinks he's found
A creature of loneliness and despair,
Like myself, but only you continue to run
Ripping apart any form of understanding you find
Lighting love letters and tokens of hope to give yourself light
But the briefness of the fire leaves you colder than before
And the moths aren't attracted to the suffering
Instead, they beat themselves against the sun
They burn golden, silver, and bronze
And you burn out, black, ashy, and gray
And you step away from everything, everyone
And nurse that old dying or dead man
As if he were a symbol for your internal sorrow
And when he dies, I see you never returning
And you turn into the arms of the wrong woman
As you write your songs about a red-haired ghost
Who was more than just an object of affection
Who was more than just a fake doll used for quick happiness
And is now more like a dim light in the distance far from shore
I know you’re willing to swim, but you’re afraid the light will continue to drift
And yet I see the sun still hanging there above my bed
Still talking as if nothings changed, still telling me everything will be okay
And for some unknown, unguided, mortal reasoning, I believe in it
I believe in the hope of a new day

III) Grown

I used to hear your voice...
And I'd hear the strain of a thousand broken hearts
That came huddling at your front door
All of them yours for a time, that you tried to paint in a mural
But the rain bled them away, and they slipped into the sewers
There, they became whole again and came wandering back home
Crying, shuttering from fear and despair
I'd hear the meek glass-like texture of your sound
As it rang out from your throat, and chimed thinly through the air
In a terribly desperate song of solitude and subtle hate
I could make out the innocence of a soul nearly forgotten
Curled up in a fetal ball, waning, slowly becoming sour
You deserved more than anyone ever gave you
Making wishes on digital 1’s, colons, and 1’s
Knowing there’s hope in every little hint of the world
Running up mountains for those who sent you in vein
Believing in love no matter how many flowers died in your vase

But now, when I sharpen my ears to hear

I catch the sound of a giant being born out of human means
The sound of everything breaking, but without the melancholy tone
All of a sudden, you're stronger than I, than most
And you look back upon your wet trail of paint
And your gross path of broken, bleeding hearts
And you only see cowardice, and unhappiness with life
And that little boy who wore the shoes of a man twice his size
Finally grew up, and decided to strip his skin
And just let his true self live in the sunlight
But a soul kept in the dark quickly grows cold
We're glad you braved up, but unhappy when you move on
Moving away, living in a plastic painting
Where everything is the color of the sunrise
And the ones like you gather to talk about the ones like us
And how you miss them even though they gave you no more than shit when you were home
I wonder if you’re still willing to lay yourself on the line
Show everyone the cards you’ve got, and still feel like you’ll win
You’re still that kite whose string is anchored down in your parent’s yard
As you drift and sway, in that new spring morning sky
So gentle and blue, clear and translucent like shallow water
You’re up there looking on for the birth of a new day
For all that is good I suppose

IV) Generals of War and Time

When I close my eyes I can still see you
And your rose colored cheeks
You're a poet, clinging to the bodies of past pioneers
Wondering when God will come save you
And catapult you into earth colored heavens
Where Kerouac will give you a drink and a pair of boots
And you'll fall asleep on that old freight train
Sung to sleep by a chorus of harmonicas and hound dogs
As they blissfully mutter the blues unto your heart
And in a paradise of existential clowns, unhappy and drunk
You'll wait beneath an old, dead tree for a man to come
And the generals of war and time will hand you their honor
Their bayonets all gold and splendor
Their gunpowder now just gems collected from stardust
All the women you've written vague poems about are constellations
You dip your fingers in their light and write their names out in the blackness
As you sit in the rocking chair on the old wooden porch
Hanging philosophy from tree limbs like dried up leaves
As I wait beneath them for the words to melt away
So I could catch them in my mouth like snow flakes or rain drops
And planting gardens of flowers in random patches of green across town
Taking photographs of the dead opossum as if we lived in the blackest of comedies
As we run naked through the fall forests
Our bodies cold, our skin leaking, our fevers climbing
And the mud that clings to our feet, almost like it was frozen on

But when I finally let the light of our own sun back in…

I see the sick, fleshy poet who tries to feel no love
Who waves his hands like a preacher, but just tosses empty verbs
The worries of a choir of lifetimes suspended in righteous apathy
Set in a grooved path of repetition and reluctance
But with the mind of a wanderer that never wants to get free
Contented by the dreams of countless past poets and writers
Who have challenged the thoughts of people for long enough
Running away to scum bars in Brazil, so he can never feel the heat
Of his loved ones breaths as they whisper onto the back of his neck
Lost in language, with some European drinkers happily dizzied by a slight buzz
Knowing damn well this life is something of a journey worth telling
But not having the eyes to see within yourself the beauty of your spirit
Waiting on this train to stop, so you can waste away on some old pale mountain with me
You're one without identity, born from plays and scripts
Wearing political colors so people guess your motives
I see us talking on the mountain, Jesus' cross glowing, attracting insects
Two lovely strangers, making love in their trunk giving us cold pizza
We come to the conclusion that we must doubt ourselves everyday
For the minute we stop rethinking our ideals, we resign lives
Calling me to tell me how strange this dream has been
How it’s healthy to know the blind self, the truth beneath our noses
Saying “You aren’t supposed to be happy; you are supposed to live”
…we aren’t supposed to be happy; we are only supposed to live…

V) Asphalt Folk

As you walk passed me, I can see you
And you’re a novelty of sorts, placed on antique store shelving
When we pull your string, you quote the phrases of fantasies
A magician who knows no illusions, but tricks the mind nonetheless
Walking through town at night seeking out an adventure
Singing, clapping, humming, stomping out your favorite tunes on the asphalt
Beating on stoves and counter tops in the kitchen as we make music
Listening to your mother ramble in her uncertain insanity
About all the lovers she’s kept in their packaging and inside her closet
You walk through black fields sparkling with neon explosions with the love of your life
Everything dissolves into rain that falls into reds and yellows, blues, greens and silvers
You live like you’re still being born, feeling everything
Running your long, boney fingers over the surfaces of cars
Scraping off their paint and stitching it into your clothing
Still sticking glow-in-the-dark stars over your ceiling
To remind yourself that you’re not ready to place your feet on the ground
Falling in passion with the most obscure toys you could dig out of the earth
And locking them away in a drawer full of secrets you keep beneath your head
A collector of youth, diving into the soil to leave time capsules full of dusty dolls
As we write stories, obscenities, jokes; and draw caricatures of our saints on your walls
And study the nonsense for clues to our thoughts, and feelings from a lifetime long gone
Building taverns out of blankets and cloth, where a light hangs in the center, spinning forever
The softest, purest sounds, form like milk and puddles of wrinkled rain
As they drift about us, flowing through quilts and sheets and come to each of us a different way
Shooting bee-bee guns and tossing shuriken inside the house
And losing ourselves in our own time capsule, but nobody comes to open it

Then, as you pass by, gone from me, I see…

An old wizard left to forget his spells and charms in a dark hall
Where ghosts of your past are like gusts of wind spiraling off the ceiling fan
As you head down a dirty, country road playing Bulgarian folk music
On a cheap violin made of some prophets house
Singing like some lounge man in a cheap suit
Your poor mother living alone in a house that wreaks of piss and Irish food
As well as cigarettes and a downtown hair salon
While you continue burying time like apple seeds across the south
And that place where so many of us, found who we wanted to be
That humble and plastic planked mansion of psychological suicide and depression
Where we left our messages on the wall, now covered by paint
And a carpet where we spilled ourselves, leaving stains of a whimsical life
Now ripped up and tossed away, until a hard, cold floor dosed in fiery paint rose up
Where we were more like replacements for souls that would have made real people
We were vicarious, put in the place of something that might have become something better than us
And you still chant those lines of fantasy out from your forsaken antique store shelf
Still hoping the eyes of the world come and glance through the front window
And smile as they look on at the foreign, inexplicable way that is forever yours
As you bend yourself, naked in the spotlight of everyone’s half eclipsed eyes
Shouting “I think I’ve found my center! I swear I’ve found it!”


VI) Revolution

Just before I place my fingers over my eyes I see you
And you’re wearing women’s underwear
And your face is all twisted like a poor man’s Picasso shuffled your eyes
Your hands lifted, your fingers all configured in strange geometry
And I see you as a scarecrow, alone, crucified on a family farm somewhere
Colored like a coffee stain, straw falling from your ragged shirt
Lonely, unhappy, reading your books like you were talking with good friends
Cluttered with the thoughts of five or six or seven women at a time
Wandering down the highway, thumb to the road, headed for a childhood memory
Sleeping in truckers houses watching terrible movies with their family
Feeling like a burden to yourself, those around you
The outline of a teenager colored sloppily by acid and ecstasy
Smelling of marijuana and alcohol, fire and smoke
Your sandals wearing the dirt of several restless years in the woods
Making plans, making plans, making more plans, falling through your own bridges
Terribly tired, your eyes weighted by everyone, by everything
Kept awake by euphoria that billowed out of your bathroom
Moving me to sleep as your hands slipped up and down your guitar at night
And the clumsy sound stumbled through the vents as you studied the trade
But when those noises made their way to my ears I heard something within them
I see a revolutionary without a spine, just a dream of the future
Scared of technology, frightened by politics
Yet they are the very things you pursue
Your body straining itself beneath baggy clothing
As the high pitched twitch of distorted strings
And scratchy voices twist together in a split-second of perfection

But when my hand passes over my eyes I see you again…

And you’re sleepwalking across a tight rope
Trying to cover your trail, start over
Leave the ones who know you, who love you behind
Naked somewhere in a barren forest
Snow about you, but you’re pleased with the loneliness
But at the same time in your head you know it’s a lie
Some funhouse mirror reflection of the underground man
Trying to tie down your plans and ideas that float about you
Swatting at them, afraid they may never come back
But once you have them, you never put them into action
You just pin them up on a piece of cork and stare at their strange nature
With a hint of humor and pride in the still warm, and dying thoughts
I see a critic without anyone to listen to him rave
A motion picture in rewind, where the hero falls backwards into the darkness
A boy with one shot at everything, and he takes it out of mind
Diving into new streams that soon become old fishing grounds
Where you simply cast line, nearly begging for some fish you haven't yet caught
The less like yourself you are, the happier you become
A soul that is on fire, burning for the sake of burning whatever you can
No real reason to be afraid, to be shy, to be alone
But no real reason not to be either
Swearing your dog is your only friend, and freedom is the only way
So many would follow you if you took more than one step forward
Dreaming of the day you come out of the smoked out house
Dressed in only a flag, proclaiming the truth with a fist of hot ash
And pushing through all the terror that rains down upon this world
And showing us all the hope that we truly need to see
Living forever, connected to some tiny bionic weight
Thinking of the future...Thought will soon be taken away too
Destroying, exploring, fighting, screaming, ranting, all because it's all too short not to
Sending yourself off the cliff without anything beneath
And descending forever in the spiraling, tumbling motion
That all great minds must fall into after they've reached their peak