love shack

i meet an older woman
she's an artist, a painter
whose passion to create
has always been driven by sex
she loves sex, she says
teaches tantric lovemaking
even though she's aged,
put on a few pounds,
and can't quite enjoy it
like the old days
it fuels her vision
as she pours out her heart,
sweats on a canvas
that stands steadfast
where her lovers used to be
she married three men
and divorced just as many
as the monotony of monogamy
always reared its monotone head
i ask her if she feels
her desires are what drove her
from the men who bravely
or foolishly called her 'wife'
of course, she says,
they always wanted her to be
a woman she never was
she loved them, but some people
just can't be married, you see
it does more harm than good
but she's happy now
living alone, painting,
she has a grown son
who works in D.C.
as a liberal lobbyist
(she doesn't really get along
with his father very well,
the true love of her life, she admits
and the one husband she regrets failing)
she asks about my personal life
girlfriend? relationships?
i decline to get into it
when an older gentleman
wanders up and extends his hand to her
she catches his eye
with a beautiful smile
and i walk away
as she falls in love
all over again

grace

tonight you're in my dreams
you smile at me in a parking lot
and slowly walk away
i follow you, of course i do
through a giant, old apartment building
out through the back
where you climb on poles and wires
and dance among the flowers
i break an old lady's fence in pursuit
but she don't see
and i get away clean
while you're swimming
somewhere warm inside
because the cold just gets you down
i stand near the water
talking with a funny man
he says you're lovely, graceful
what a lucky guy i am and
i have to correct him
that you're not mine to have
that i've been following your eyes, your smile
for many miles, many miles
he laughs at me
i'm not so sure if he mocks or approves
but i watch you move and dance and swim
until the morning comes
and you're gone again

i like hashbrowns

just enjoyed a late night breakfast
with an obscene amount of hashbrowns
the restaurant was buzzing, busy
a drunken jerkbag offered me a dumb hat
that didn't belong to him
a girl with ugly lipstick
covering half her pretty face
cried into another girl's shoulder
ruining her black and white jacket
i should've taken the dumb hat
given it to the lipstick girl
everyone can use a gift  
when they're sad

yellow

i'm sitting in a yellow room
it makes the black on the back
of my neck stand on end
they used to bake bread here
now they just serve it to you
in fermented liquid form
there's a much-too-skinny woman
walking around the place
you could pick her up
and twirl her in your ear
to clean out all the beerswax
i wouldn't do that, though
partly from the warning labels
and partly from the nonsense of
such a random notion
a group of strangers sit beside me
laughing about sports scores
and mourning the passage of youth
what's the combination
of pity and envy?
penvy?
itty?
petty?
probably petty...
'Send Me an Angel' by
some eighties band i can't remember
is playing overhead
silly eighties band i can't remember,
angels don't really exist.
only fleshy hoomans
with their toenail clippings
and battle scars
pissing away the hours
as the great darkness of the
universal abyss
slips ever closer to your periphery
where are you now, anyway
you silly eighties band
thought you had it all figured out,
didn't you?
it's ok either way
your music lives on
in every single one of us
the people beside me are now
talking about golden showers
pissing away the hours...