get me to the bar (it's one am)
before they serve the final round
i hope they like my brand new shirt
i lost my matches in his jeep

vodka tonic and lime
for the seventeenth time
    take a fourth smoke outside.
Tell the Manchester man
that his T-shirt's a blast
    It screams of suicide.
I wobble back indoors

got you on the phone (it's three am).
pick up my pencil from the ground.
i must sit up and stay alert
or else i'll drift away to sleep

laptop open and on
battery wearing down
    the alert wakes the dead
or maybe that was my snore
drool on half of the keys
    make my way to the bed
I hobble on all fours

got us on the plane (it's one pm)
it huffs and puffs the runway down
They'd played "All hail the broken blade!"
And all obeyed. We all obeyed!

Was it just Wednesday last
when we first hopped aboard?
    I'd not yet bought this shirt?
Christmas day how the rain-
puddles looked hard to drain,
    made poor trade with the dirt,
and squabbled with the spores

- - - - - -

and i fall into an empty sleep
vacant of all life, this dream
pointless wordless hueless
feeding on only steam
peopled with mundane echoes
of the daily bread

here's courage for you:
lust-brewed four-letter words
rendered animate
to better violate the soil,
to better prepare my legions
for Morpheus' broad fist

I'll die by his sword soon enough, you know
one night, on my back, with Paralysis as the perennial sentry,
he'll roll up my tongue
and stuff it tight down my throat
(screams in dreams no one hears)
and patiently wait as my final sixty-four seconds expires

- - - - - -

then he'll remind me of my vow
about the numb
runt I can't become

I think I'll wake myself somehow
our skull's alarm
keeps us from such harm

but i still yearn to raise a brow.
that there's my drive
---means I'm still alive

oops! your eyes opened up just now
means you're awake
and that's a mistake

for their pale vigil won't allow
this pen to stray
in its honest way

go back down to that trusty plow
your empty dreams
and listen for screams

4.28.03 LAX and
12.30.03 LAX (and afloat)

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