Refashion these sticks and bones,
faggots left by the campfire,
stained with cigarette smoke,
till they’re dried like a poor man’s roof and old,
Take me back to torn sleeves,
a knife in the boot,
outlaw hair and a crooked smile,
salted snakeskin stiffening on my mother’s front porch,
till I stitched it to a hat they wouldn’t let me wear,
Boxcars bouncing on the rails through town,
drilling holes in our heads,
electric orgasm on the intercom,
before porn was sin,
before the trails were choked with thorns,
before they pulled my nest down from the trees,
Naked in the sugarcane,
green tunnels of paper-sharp leaves edging out the sun,
thin lines of beaded blood on my skin,
kindred to the crows overhead,
till the sweat burns my eyes and turns me homeward,
These lone wolf ribs are lean,
years spent hunting philosophies and chasing dreams,
refashion these sticks and bones,
till I have regained the joy that comes with solitude.
5.22.2010
faggots left by the campfire,
stained with cigarette smoke,
till they’re dried like a poor man’s roof and old,
Take me back to torn sleeves,
a knife in the boot,
outlaw hair and a crooked smile,
salted snakeskin stiffening on my mother’s front porch,
till I stitched it to a hat they wouldn’t let me wear,
Boxcars bouncing on the rails through town,
drilling holes in our heads,
electric orgasm on the intercom,
before porn was sin,
before the trails were choked with thorns,
before they pulled my nest down from the trees,
Naked in the sugarcane,
green tunnels of paper-sharp leaves edging out the sun,
thin lines of beaded blood on my skin,
kindred to the crows overhead,
till the sweat burns my eyes and turns me homeward,
These lone wolf ribs are lean,
years spent hunting philosophies and chasing dreams,
refashion these sticks and bones,
till I have regained the joy that comes with solitude.
5.22.2010
I always see you this way, but blurred and less naked. You, my son, will always be the first born and last dead.
ReplyDeleteMay your words ring true till the last of my dying breaths.
ReplyDeleteDying breaths, or living breaths? Because if we're talking about 'dying breaths', the implications are edging somewhere towards reincarnation. If this is your intention, you master of subtlety, I must know forthright and nearer to now than not, WHAT DO YOU MEAN!?
ReplyDeleteDying breaths are those breaths we begin to breathe when we reach the apex of our life's arch, which is about the place where Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett got to when they were both so utterly beautiful in Benjamin Button.
ReplyDelete