Times New Roman

In times new Roman through Detroit reds
With Geppetto’s lathe and my sawdust friends
Myself and the other marionettes go dancing

It’s a thousand hours and one hour
Our last chance to deflower
The night as she comes
Weeping through our radio
But this crutch just can’t hold our weight,
Another dead ringer in an Amherst grave.

Our soma turns to topaz
In a portmanteau for No-man
Nowhere reckless,
Dead Romancing.

This anecdotal life,
Half asleep at the knife
As her vermillion echoes
Reconciles our anger.
But this stone
Just won’t whet our blade,
Another dead ringer in an Amherst grave.

The clowns crowd Caniff
With their superfluous gifts
And the hand-me-down stooges
Keep the guitars jangling.

Your pseudo self’s in trouble
Sensitive as a soap bubble,
In perfect poise
Atop Penelope’s needle.
But this pain
Hasn’t kept us sane,
Another dead ringer in an Amherst grave.

It’s hopped-scotch and hangovers
Capricious cowards and barstool poets
With the Byzantine blues
Their best at undertaking,

These cobweb conquests,
In amorous unrest
“Lash me to the Mast”
The siren’s song is worth listening.
But the sailor’s lime,
Just can’t keep me safe,
Another dead ringer in an Amherst.

Corn Palace Heirs

She was a dead happy tart,
In Crypt casual blue.
Sappho’s half sister
With a fire escape view
When we met in a cow-punk cantina
Just off Route 49
Blood shot full of bourbon
That burned like turpentine

She waltzed barefoot with the jukebox,
As I wept in my beer
Her hips they held emotions
That the local women feared.
She had never met a butcher, but
She liked the way it sounds
I offered her my matches and
Ordered us a round.

It seems she just left Kansas City
With a tattoo parlors son,
In a gumball engagement
That baffled everyone.
They’d been to Denver to see a doctor
With a hanger and a glove
She said everything she’d done
She’d done it out of Love

Then a Smith’s song made her smile
And her dimples made me wink
Glad she was to meet someone,
Not to care what the others think.

When I asked about her suitor
She didn’t seem to mind,
He’s sleeping at the motel
And she’d probably leave him behind.

Then the waitress flashed the houselights
And the bouncer flashed his gun.
The west looked like an ink stain.
The east a rising sun.

We waited out a hailstorm
Beneath a bridge on Tennessee
By a fire made of coupons
And slept underneath.

She said suburban like a curse word
As we drove those Lego streets
Working when I had to
As a man shanking meat

Finally settled in Tuscaloosa
And worked the county fair,
Told everyone we met,
We were the Corn Palace heirs.

Then she left me at a truck stop
In August Baton Rouge,
Like a fable told by Aesop,
About a butcher fool
And I know now, there was nothing
I could do
And I quit beating up myself
There are those that you hold onto
And the rest are just something else.

Jacquelyn

A cold shower with Tchaikovsky
Wash the last of our guilt off me.
Remind myself just who I am,
Missing.
Jacquelyn, Jacquelyn, Jacquelyn.

You’ll always be jaded
And I’ll always be broke
I don’t mind
If you don’t.

Red Crayon roses
And illicit prose
Let us both pretend
That we’re all pretend.

Jacquelyn, Jacquelyn, Jacquelyn.

Dollhouse, Missouri

Wasn’t she supposed to be good looking?
Wasn’t he supposed to bring her luck?
In a Dollhouse, Missouri,
With their arcane, junkyard love.

He bought her a brand new piano.
Then he told her which gospels she could sing.
He kept a fair-haired mistress in the congregation shadows
That he brought pretty, shiny things.

They said, “She should have been happy.
With her Wurlitzer and her toys.”
But the sirens tell the story
Of Alleluia boy.

You should never cross an apothecary’s daughter.
Especially one with a bird caged, maniac lust,
Still on the hook for the indentured sins of the father,
And the son in the bottle as the weathervane dream begins to rust.

Alleluia Boy
Alleluia Boy
Alleluia Boy
Alleluia Boy
Alleluia Boy
Alleluia Boy

They found his ring finger behind the Winn Dixie.
His heart still beat in a paper cup.
She fed the dogs both of his kidneys.
His liver had long given up.

Pollyanna, she left the money.
She left the family and she left the jewels.
And her dollhouse in Missouri
To be a big city girl, a big city girl.

And that ain’t enough. It just ain’t enough.

They said, “She should have been happy.
With her Underwood and her boys.”
But the sirens tell the story
Of young alleluia boy.

Alleluia Boy
Alleluia Boy
Alleluia Boy
Alleluia Boy
Alleluia Boy
Alleluia Boy
Alleluia Boy
Alleluia Boy

Byzantine Blues

I have
The Byzantine blues.
I found trouble, trouble
And it’s more than I can use.
It’s more than I can use.

All I want
Is all you need
And all you’ll get
Is all you stole from me.

Byzantine Blues.
Byzantine Blues.

The Byzantine blues.
I found trouble, trouble
And it’s more than I can use.
It’s more than I can use.

All I want
Is all you need
And all you’ll get
Is all you stole from me.

Take the horseman’s whip, his carriage, and his cross.
Lay me down. Lay me down.

Love is in the loss and the cost is in the kiss.
Lay me down. Lay me down.

We augured the hope for bliss when we wished.
Lay me down. Lay me down.

By the blood, the steel, the heart, and the fist.
Lay me down. Lay me down.

I can’t requite the love that we missed.
Lay me down. Lay me down.

You let me down. You let me down.
Lay me down. Lay me down.

Byzantine Blues.
Byzantine Blues.
Byzantine Blues.

I found trouble, trouble
And it’s more than I can use.
Yes, it’s more than I can use.
More than we can use.

It’s all I want.
It’s all I need from you.

Lay me down.
Lay me down.

Henry the Black

Terrible things,
That we’ve let in.
The rogue-befallen stone
Now a contented, penny-eyed drone.

Terrible deeds,
Those oft misspoken needs.
The Tantric face
Of a hard luck grace
Both criminal and sane.

Terrible people,
Our Pilot’s equal.
And their Eunuch shrill
Sold as a harmony
Is just a bitter, frigid plead.

Henry the Black,
Henry the Black,
What do want from me?
Henry the Black,
Henry the Black,
What do you need from me?

Terrible myths,
Holy counterfeits.
Good god Gilgamesh
Where’s the anthem of the gun,
Now that they’ve stolen every one?

Henry the Black,
Henry the Black,
What do you want from me?
Henry the Black,
Henry the Black,
What do you need from me?
Henry the Black
Henry the Black,
What do you need from me?

Lora Lynn

Baby, take off your little black dress
I don’t care who you came to impress
We both have our worlds to confess
And it’s best if we just take it slow,
It’ll be alright by morning,
If you just don’t go.

I’ll pour us some Scylla on the rocks,
Take out my old 45’s,
Put on some Gladys and the pips
And we can dance until that
Record skips,
It’ll be alright by morning,
If you just remember all that we’ve missed.

Maybe, we move back to Boston
Like love’s found soldiers of fortune.
I remember how much you loved the ocean,
And there ain’t any reason why we couldn’t go.
It will be alright by morning,
If you just don’t go.
It will be alright by morning,
If you just don’t go.

I see that your eyes are getting heavy,
Just like that time in back of my old blue Chevy.
You forgot all about my body,
And darling just held my bones.
It will be alright by morning,
If you just don’t go.

The Tin Whistle

I got a denim job
In cold factory boots,
Working the nightmare shift.
Hung myself from the big 3 noose.
Just what’s the use in trying?

It’s a cold wash of rooster
With the ghost shift crew.
We chase melodramatic waitresses
And shoot snake-eyed pool.

Denial is just something that we don’t talk about
Because every word is not meant for every mouth.
We were at our best when we were doing wrong,
Now we’re lonely, lost, and gone.

Old friends they come and they go.
Bricks put up for shooting crow,
And the tin whistle is just a place we all used to go.

Its new scabs for the same old wounds
And new voices for the same sad tunes
Learning to live, learning to love, learning to be without you,

We were at our best when we were young.
Now we’re lonely, lost, and gone.

I saw you walking out of Hannibal’s liquor store
Looking like you just stepped out of Lily’s back in 94’.
You still paint up your face like a Monet,
I always thought you’d sing yourself out of Detroit someday.

But there are bills to feed
And mouths to pay
In this discordant
Symphony.
Hope is just a word.
You remember once having heard.
When you were at your best, when you were strong,
Now you’re lonely, lost, and gone.

Old friends they come and they go,
Bricks put up for shooting crow,
The tin whistle is just a place where we all used to go.

Its new scabs, for the same old wounds
New voices for the same sad tunes,
Learning to live, learning to love, learning to be without you

We were at our best when we were young,
Now we’re lonely, lost, and gone.
We we’re at our best when we were doing wrong,
Now we’re lonely lost and gone.

Arrogant World

A rustbelt witness
In her sentimental rouge,
With her fish-lipped sadness,
And cotton candy curls,
Taunts the hangnail junkie
And the fire-hydrant freaks,
With her art school flunkies
And Guggenheim geeks.

It’s an arrogant world,
An arrogant world
I’ve seen.

The Tao chants Fortuna,
As machines forge the wheel.
In a terse, bare knuckled tango,
With their alchemist’s zeal.
And the by gone vaudeville chartreuse,
In her chamosal and pearls
Trades her hemlock wedded abuse
For a peacock fettered urn.

In an arrogant world
It’s an arrogant world
I’m told.

The yeomen wield stilettos,
But the Brazen head is mute
And the anger it foreshadows
Is wasted in our youth.
Drum the killjoys to their caveat
The politic to their shroud
When the peal rings out desperate
The tillers run aground.

In an Arrogant World
It’s an arrogant World
I’ve seen.

You’ll never have permission,
Derision is the gift,
Derision is all that we have left.
It’s a shylock proposition,
Or an automated death,
For your borrowed pound of flesh.

And you know they’ll never listen
Because everything’s been said.
Everything’s been said.