Hatred is a dead body
handcuffed to my wrist.
I drag it behind me,
uphill and down.
The face which smears
over rocks and concrete
is the same as the one
I see in the mirror.
The fingers which cut
grooves into the soil
bear my fingerprints;
leave their traces.
The wake I trail behind me
slowly ceases to be red.
The passenger sheds his skin.
I grow still more hollow.
Blank features pass away
as my face grows ever harder.
My back curves from the weight;
the spine is bleached by sun.
By the time the bones remaining
detach and fall away,
there will be nothing left;
nothing left to save;
but an empty shell
dragging empty handcuffs
behind.
First published as lyrics for Cindervoice’s Before the Turn LP (2010). / Republished as lyrics for Matthew S. Rosin’s Singing Is Contagious EP (2020).
Do not speak falsely.
Brutal honesty:
far better a crime
than your silence denies.
Your tongue presses
the bottom of your mouth.
Words wait.
Tongues are cut out.
Tongues rise high;
lash the ground.
Place your tongue atop
the screaming mound.
Published as lyrics for GODHEADSCOPE’s Patience EP, 2011.
Muscles quiver under paper
in a fiber grave.
Arms, interlocking,
press into the day.
Balance finds its gravity
only through points of three.
This is our only saving grace.
The weight of paper is piling up.
I cannot find another face.
Beneath the weight of paper,
we will build a home, with
walls that hold fast to the sound of
words we cannot know.
Column A and Column B:
never what they claim to be.
This is our moment's saving grace.
The weight of paper is piling up.
I cannot find another face.
Published as lyrics for GODHEADSCOPE’s A City Out Of Sight LP, 2007.
Open up
your ruined house.
Fear not for God.
The poem is my pocket.
The fiber fragment,
folded tight:
tucked into a secret,
always moving.
Behind the seam,
this inner lining,
I smuggle hope
beyond debris.
My fingers pinch
the promise firm.
I press tomorrow:
shelter in your palm.
We read aloud,
breathe into rubble.
We read aloud,
Our ruin now
a temple.
Published as lyrics for GODHEADSCOPE’s Patience EP, 2011. Spurred by Czesław Miłosz’s essay “Ruins and Poetry.”
