Crumple

yeah, like i threw myself in.
because it was easy
i had so many creases and folds from before
that i crumpled up like it was nothing
didn't even have to put any rage into it
it just happened
i just gave in all the right places

and i was light
so i went far
i threw myself in
all the way in
so fast i swear i heard some asshole's ears pop
my wake changed the arrangement of a girl's hair
or two, maybe two

but i went so far
so fast and so far away
it was hard to find me when it was over

and i had crumpled so easily
that i had crumpled so tight that
it was hard to recognize me when i opened up again
when it was over

not sure i ever quite got totally smoothed out
but
i'll probably never throw myself that far again

probably never crumple that much
and throw myself all the way in.
not after that shit, probably.


...
i'm sure it's pretty easy to decipher what this one - and the one before it, for that matter - is about. right?
-andy

Finally Heaved That Corpse or Stink & Forgiveness

finally heaved that corpse up and out of the bed
got sick of it hogging the fuzzy blanket
and the cool sides of all the pillows

got sick of it fucking my shit up
got sick of the goddamn smell
like somebody left their religion out
long after it soured and turned brown
got sick
and sicker

finally hacked its limbs from it
had to saw through bone and snap em off
had to break the whole thing down
into pieces that didn't look at me so crooked
pieces that sneered in a way i could laugh at

i'll say it was a holy, bloody mess
and it made me even sicker for a minute
and i had to open the forsaken windows
and strike twelve matchbooks down to nothin
had to let the neighbors see and
get a few major lungfuls of all the crap
in all that smoke
pouring out of the scene
bright by over nine-hundred candles
smudging the walls perfect again

but i didn't burn the body
i didn't want to choke or vomit
i just threw it in a couple black garbage bags
and tossed it in the dumpster
while the landlady's family gawked
their eyes welling up with stink
and forgiveness

i finally heaved that corpse up and out of the bed
feel better now
i can get some decent sleep
maybe have some lucid dreams
just gotta be careful and
not let anything else crawl under the covers
and die there.

Viking Standard

lots to do
up and away from this
this puzzling scene: a funeral mound
of pillows gathered
from too many houses
the pyre pile of paperbacks
and magazines
and newspapers nobody'll ever read
looking at me like, "hey buddy
where's the torch?
we were promised a torch."
but all my matchbooks are under other things
like some maybe abandoned poems
short stories
and there's too much to do

and all of it isn't here
it's all up and away
maybe out the door
it should be out the door, but
the hollow cardboard
the eaten shoes
the blue jeans with the crotches bit out
and all the junk
all the junk it all just crowds around
this bed
this puzzling scene
and it hollers and it all wails
and it makes bullshit demands

what a mob!
what a truly unruly collection of spoiled
maladjusted little bastards!
all bullying their way into the day's schemes
like suits and ties and bad attitudes
spitting on authorship
running around Hollywoodland in farty little cars
all parking and sneering at the valet
what a mob!
i can't find any of their keys and
they won't stop yelling at the borders of my bed
won't stop spitting on authorship.

if i could find those matchbooks i'd send the whole place
up to some kind of Viking standard
i'd make it all like Darth Vader under the fireworks
and the Ewok song
but all that sulfurous potential is hiding
all that flame is smothered by other things
probably in weird places
near the empty cans
and emptier glasses, stacked like Russian Dolls
who are all the same size and fighting for a place
near the coffee mugs full of pens & markers.

nah. the fire's all gone, man.
it's hiding and it doesn't want to be found.

and that's fine, really
that's okay
because there's so much to do
and it's all up and away
out of here.
i gotta get to it
gotta throw off the junk mob and their crowding
and their honking
just push past the piles and climb over the pillows
and forget about the buried fire and all the
murder and suicide and orphans
and get to the lots to do
just get to it
gotta get out of here
gotta get up and away.
there's so much to do
and i gotta get to it.