your face your face

your amazing grace

under fire

to the barricades

leaving accolades

in a pile of requited desire

your face your face

between ire

and sweet candidates

for songs and knowing

how awful we allow this

world to be

your face your face

on those dawn morning raids

when you give me the time

when you give me the space

to fan unseen fire

simmer catastrophe

make a song

cool the lava

rake an angry tongue

with saliva undone

you guess where I’m going

nearly always wrong

you pack my bag

like I had a star ship

you are the captain

of my murderous lisp

chin out

fuck the pundits

those gnarly keepers of

what they think they knew

I am yours you are mine

your face your face

is my dangerous mine

here’s the gold

in my hand

here’s the diamond still banned

no children were harmed in

our rainbow romance

no animals slaughtered

to get at the answer

you live like the gentle answer you are

I give the confusion

a name to the star

your face your face

your amazing grace

make it last

make it real

with rainbow potential

I love you

and then some

diabolic eventual

I love you

I love you

make some sense

of this won’t you?

IN BETWEEN

in between the in and the out
in between the stop and the go
the whisper the shout
a shoulder-forced entry
while eyeing the exit
reason seek solace
the migrant regrets it
in between the in and the out
I’m dancing like somebody’s
drunken reminder
my past or their future
such flypaper traps
keeps me hovered above
I don’t know what matters
I do know what loves
in perfect blood-splattered
space and time and anger and mold
rats and betrayal and centerfolds
those who beg mercy
those who are old
are the same are the game
of the lessons foretold
we don’t ever learn
it’s a useless road
we don’t beg mercy we don’t share the load
rats and betrayal and centerfolds
sniff the lost, look for the found
beyond the cheese smile and the
deathly confound
when we know that the worst
is within our grasp
then we know that deliverance
is a panic a curse
in between can be planning
a way out of the cask
red wine should flow freely
like blood from a gasp
I will never beg mercy
I will always ask
how to find the in-between
that safe place before
it all goes mean
shoulders are rolled
head thrown back
finding my way out of yearning
finding my to the ask

For Swannie

staring at a blank page
wearing that blue rage
for the occasion
what’s to be done with the detritus
how do we sort through
what unites us
and what tears us apart
and after the party
laundry hangs stiff and frozen
the winter of our vast unspokens
jails us in the now and then
wait until the summer softens
tap the keys
take the pen
make amends for all of these
brutal runs in  bloodless endurance
gotta write true or not at all
gotta rip through rage and disease
the title’s a start on a messy dance floor

gotta get up and finally ask for more