1.Mermaid
So I said, “Men, pull her out of the water.
And then lay on hands,
and bind back her flippers and tail
until international waters. And there we'll feel
what's human inside of her.”
So she's chilly and slick
on her hips where the scales
meet with skin. With a sickening
flick of her tail, circling,
her gills fill with cold, salty water. She thrashes
and twirls, her freezing fins fluttering.
And she's pretty, I think,
with her hair dark as ink, and her belly bone-white.
And her lips, of a slight, sea-shell pink, slightly part
as she's tonguing the tub's rusty rim,
as the saltwater flows out and in.
All farewells to the land we knew well
we'd never be touching again.
To the fields where we rambled and ran.
Farewell to our wives and children.
Let's stand on the deck and let's watch
them all disappearing.
And the days all float by
in a daze, over waves, under sky.
And the weeks slowly leak into years.
The last islands are all left behind as we silently sail.
Until late some dark night, a wild wind starts to wail.
And our map blows away.
And our compasses fail.
And it's out on the lost boiling black water
where I see her float out.
And she's so thin and so pale. I see her rise up.
And she's so fast and so fair. My hands meet,
and they press to a point in the air,
but my mouth fills with more panic than prayer.
And my skull fills with more color than care.
And my heart fills with love, with too much love to bear.
And I know that I'll stay, and that she'll always be there,
my hands sunk in cold sand,
sea-weed strung through her hair.
2.Walked Out On A Line
From the back of my brain,
The confetti burst came
And it blew through the balls of my eyes.
In the midnight, as loud
As a cloud of cocaine
And horrendously swollen in size
Saw the pen press the text
Through the flesh of your neck,
And the first line twas writ there was Christ's.
I spun silver machine on a high wall of white,
Waving cream that sends streams from his side.
'Cause he's out on the rays of light.
And dark, dirty streams
That out came from our dreams
Leaves a black trail of grease through the snow.
And is there a hotel there or is there a hole
Where our bodies all aching and aging can go？
Oh, I lept from the mountain and mid-falling down,
Ran my trembling hands down your spine.
'Cause you have been curtly holding a mean
Will hopefully always be mine.
And 'cause you're out on the rays of light.
In the storm's scream and swirl's
Where I spotted my girl;
I was pinning her straight to my side.
When the devil all dinged up and dragonfly wing
Dropped his head in my lap and he cried,
'Now we're right out on that line.'
Once I spotted my man
Sweeping over the sand,
And the ambulance lamps in his eyes,
And the smell of black blood on the backs of his hands;
I could tell that his world can't be mine.
When he says,
'The eye seems to spin just fine.
All through space;
All through bladeless night;
All on the plain over rays of light.
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