To be breathed
air has first to go through you,
and we breathe it slowly,

as if to smudge the kittens
eating half the yard
without piano accompaniment,

without which we're so tired,
without which the fire and our mouths
are so tired and so damned, orange
and open early, lipsticked,
rabbit-suited, pathetic

in the morning light,
swung on wood from wood.

And the arms in the dry leaves
and the leaves under the arms like stars
should be in a harmlessness
of worlds, sorry for the bundled faggots
quickly broken down,

during the same four and a half a.m.
when I was perfectly
willing on a swing-set to kill
bad law enforcements for you
and your sexual counterparts,
burnt kitten
and protected kitten.

For those of you who don't know--most of you, probably--I am involved in a musical act called the Skeleton Leaves, comprised at times of myself and Olivia Kennett, at other times of myself and Steve Casey, and and other times of myself, Steve Casey and Olivia Kennett. And at times only of my own damned lonely self. These are the lyrics to two of the tracks I penned for our latest album, PAPERANGELSONFIRE.

DEAD BLUEJAYS IN SNOW

dead bluejays
in snow
under a telephone pole
coated in ice

black beaks
indecipherable eyes
hurting with taut velvet
holding a mica hatchet
in the hot rain glued
in place
of their frozen tears
on comicbooks and tar
under the sky-tarp

TO HEAL YOU FIRST

you're stunned,
you're stunned

mouth full of horsehair
and men's legs
and men's legs

you're stunned you're stunned
and your manner is an icepick
in a wedding cake

turn the lights off
in the banquet hall
little bird, little bird
wrapped in a nightgown
shoulderblades fluttering
to let me past your ghosts