Bruised and damson
My soul
Running along
Flailing about
Barely alive
And a roll
Under the tire
Would wear
Gross dalmatic wings
Would rummage
Through the dal
Inches then inches
Two digits deep
For a ring
For a ring
For a ring
For a crime
Of gorging
On soup
And belching lies
Lie liar lie

Goat voiced and wired
Fading to the bend
So very different
And thin and thin
Horse from the whiskey
Branded I fear
As a secular waif
From a heiress of fear
Tone deaf and inward
That can’t be denied
But onward’s a spirit
Inside Inside

Fly-by, Fly-by
Not much but it is
Am I to be grateful
For a fly-by
There is no query
There is no glance
Not even an interest
Just 6-feet of distance
Lovers and clingers
And longers and leavers
Are fly-by, if fly-by
Not much but it is
Am I to be grateful
For a fly-by

I am soldiering on
As the fifth
Delegating all glee
To a lewd line of levity
A thousand bands
Agree and agree
That a cloud-stretched hand
Is still far shorter
Than the gad-about lot
And them sugar packets
Couldn’t even help

I tripped into last
Happy to have never had a chance

There was once
Something stunning
And fascinating
About the stretched neck
The open mouth
The steady stare
The quick strike
The chomp
The crunch
The breaking bones
And the quick quick end
Back behind the shed
In the pin
I remember tiny red-beaded eyes
And the smallest flaring nostrils
You Delilah
Wretched Delilah
And one baby
After another
After another
After another
Save a limb
It is the fifth sin
Playing on repeat
With a limiting shell
And nothing else

It is pressing
We need you
Lying in lush grasses
Is over
For it’s all turning
The whole world is
And there’s a sparkle
In your eye
God Almighty above
You wiggle and squirm
With the surety of a boy
Hand raised in the front row
On the first day of learning
Oh you know
And you know you know
So we call on you
We call on you
So tell us please
The height of what you know
Tell us what we can bear
Tell tiny truths
Whatever weeping may come
Tell what is to be known
And paralyze us for listening
What words with wisdom tell

I prayed in Carolina
That night you found the gun
That I could know the difference
Between your highs and lows
That if and when I woke up
That storms would name themselves
That I’d be braver than my brother
And being scared would get so very old

I guess I knew then
In the deepest layer of my thin skin
Your bark is broader than your bite
And even though it would be quaking
My voice consistently called you out
For being what we all knew you’d been
Just a girl scared of drinking
The poison of your father
And the bitters of your mom
And all of them

God has always
Seen us through
We find hundreds
We find more
We find plenty
All from His hands
Just because He wants to bless
So incredibly undeserved
So unexpected
And the confidence
Is not arrogance
But tried and true
Experience with a Provider
God has always
Seen us through

It’s all
Going to melt
In the end
It matters
So little
So I’m
Not scared
You can
Have it
Even if
I have less
Which is
Easy to say
For I know
I have talons
Especially with
Cold uncertainty
But I’d
Like to think
That I’m
Consistently generous
In plenty
Or drought
It might be
Runaway ego
Then again
It might be
In my DNA

You stand on your mountain
Let me hear your echo show
You stand over there alone
You canyon minstrel brave
Recite line by line
The words you’ve come to love
To dread to hate to mourn to escape

You peer from your rooftop
Let me hear your echo show
You dress a good liar with scorn
You cut off needed criticism
Like ancient guillotines
Yet with the charm of a doll
A snake a boss a clown a porn star

You bellow and bellow and bellow on
Let me hear your echo show
You curse with the pull string
You swill the good vermouth
So stumble down the runway
And press your thoughts into hearts
And minds and foreheads and tombstones

You paint the front porch green
Let me hear your echo show
And let me light your way with torches
Gallop past the gate in molten June
And feel the breath of hell radiate
And see if you don’t faint on the way
At the doorway of the house in the end