Vagabond man, O vagabond man
Won’t you come outside and play?
.
Vagabond man, with shoes full o’ sand
Come over tonight, you’ve no place to stay
.
A vagabond man can’t make his plans
But can make life fun with a pretty face
.
Vagabond man, I said, ‘Vagabond man?!’
Give me more since you only take
.
Vagabond man, sweet vagabond man
Tonight you’ll have peace, in the morning grace
.
Vagabond man, you can barely stand!
Now you’re nothing but a place
.
Vagabond man, young vagabond man
We’ll give you love but only a taste

Call me when your sad, broken, manic. Call me whenever. Pour shouldered thunder across my beaten back, and hey, call me in the morning if you’re still feeling bad.
.
For the world knows I could handle it, for you know I might even enjoy it, for I know any chance to be important is a chance I’ll take.
.
And you’ll sing me songbirds and sweet icing after I get you to breathe. And you’ll tell me anytime I have a problem I can call. And though I know you’re drunk, off tears or alcohol, I’ll pretend it’s true.
.
And I can make a fool of myself, like I always do, but at least for that one night I can feel like someone’s there. And the silence of my life will caress rooster hair deep into the night.
.
An open-minded psychologist on call. A lover who can’t stop loving. A masochist who enjoys blue skies and sleepy stars. A martyr who knows nothing good will happen to himself.
.
And when my face quakes, when my lips quiver, when my legs go to sea, I’ll call you and converse with guttural dial tones. I’ll try to walk it off, even as my heart kicks and screams.
.
And I’ll write poems and sweet things to myself, cry for a second, and then realize no ears exist for me. Not even my own. And my brain beats my skull from the inside, and I’ll try calling someone, but hey, I’m just a hump reminding you to drive safely.
.
And then I’ll see some flowers and make myself into a bouquet.

It’s all a game; Fuck Hemingway

A picture my pop pop drew of my mom to a Robert Frost poem

Tantrum fits
Faded hips
Hit the ceiling
Crash back quick
.
Once a soldier
Laughing boulders
Felt a feeling
Lost in loiter
.
Came back home
Battling prose
Softly peeling
Away what shone
.
Then some clowns
Clowning around
Did some seeking
And sought me out
.
Ten years later
Rain’s ma savior
No more stealing
No more later
.
But later came
Drifting blame
Came for healing
Left unchanged

Holy heels smack soft callous as shadows skip down the road in Baltimore suburbs. Original abstracts hanging high at night, and in the morning low. Using psychological tactics and the unconscious urge for truth to get wherever they’re going.

.

Textile products of insurance plans and rattled mothers. Spectacles of light and destruction. Screaming through birthdays and popping champagne in bathroom stalls.

.

We let ourselves get lost in the woods. We let ourselves be lab rats in our own race for peace.

.

And on quiet summer days our heads quake with backtracked luster. And we walk. Down the street, past the corner, through the field, and back to painfully familiar structure. Planning ahead for future distraction, just hoping, hoping it’ll end in enlightenment.

.

But there’s always plans, and we’re always busy. So I find the night, and it’s lit up with neon. And hey, I was only looking for night, and now the bright lights are making me dizzy, and I walk home through guttered alleyways off shitty-side-street. Then I feel hungry, but stand content with that. At least it’s solvable

.

And you look forward to that one thing that has almost no chance of happening right before you fall asleep in a drunk haze. And what a mistake you just made. Now you dream about the things that haunt you awake.

.

Fill your time with things to make your Pap’s proud, and maybe one day you’ll be proud, but for now you’re just sending shitty-shit to Poetry Shit LTD, wishing you had something stronger then coffee. And face it kid, there’s no ‘we,’ ‘our,’ or ‘them’ when it’s only you.

My bones are sappy night

yelping at another decade

gone by. Rigorously

supporting muscles

without much support.

.

Yes,

networks of wires and cables

spark the muddy system

that might be me.

.

Carelessly tossing one leg

in front of the other,

repeat-repeat-repeat,

for some instinctual reason

or another.

.

And it’s not always like this.

.

No, every now n’ again

I’ll let my emotions drown out

to the sound of clashing seas

and shiny forces.

.

Weeping to find center,

to overshadow a system

crippling excuses with

machine gun torrent.

.

And when I shake

myself still

I begin to feel whole again.

.

Aspiration drifts,

wonders,

and collides unto itself

Forcing fresh air

stale, forcing all the time.

.

I, Too, Know What I Am Not, Bob Kaufman

B’more Reppin’

A bunch O’ lions
Prowling around
With slicked manes
And the awful stench
Of aftershave
.
Waving their dicks
To the neighbors
Fighting for food,
Dominance, and that
Hotspot on the grassland
With the one shady spot
.
Clawing familial eyes
To imprint big cocks
In history’s gallant hall of fame
.
The fucking building-blocks
Of legends
…or testosterone high
.
Survival, Survival, Survival,
And not much else
.
Welcome to the jungle
.
Lets write a rock n’ roll
Song ‘bout it