When It Mattered So thirty came but the record deals didn't. Scrambling for a Plan B, frantic before you retire from the MTV demographic. So we assigned ourselves new titles of self-importance to get laid. Rock star became... Singer slash songwriter. Literary sensation became... Quirky cult poet. Downtown 91's next Basquait ended up with a felony criminal damage record. Plan B didn't quite work out as planned either because the drugs weren't good enough to overdose on and you haven't built up enough of an audience yet to be eligible for profitable eulogies. The younger, newer artists moved into our old studios while we worked quietly out of the kitchens of our apartments and while the newer artists can't afford the lack of credibility ghetto living gives them we can't afford a credible life outside of the ghetto. And so on now... With the self-produced the self-published the independent releases completely independent of distribution, promotion, and attention. So we drink liquor in the coffeehouses while the sun is still up leering at the girls we know we would've been fucking had they been there then. "Where were you in '92?" We form an insular liars club telling each other how brilliant we all were or still are. "Where were you in 2002? Huh?" Shit... Where were you when this mattered?

West Ashley Crosstown I take the Crosstown to West Ashley... I just wish she would talk to me. Charleston, South Carolina, she sees the 843 prefix on the phone, she won't answer my calls. Reduced to fluid soaked voicemails on the pay phone by the bar. Drunk and on a dare I tell her I went surfing, there were no waves to speak of and I was worried about sharks until someone finally told me that I wasn't in the ocean to begin with. I picked up a two pack-a-day habit among the casuals, the usuals, the used. I picked up the rather handy talent of not speaking a word through the first few pints. Charleston, South Carolina, man... this place is paradise... All Spanish moss… iron gas light. They sell beer down here, iced and by the bucket, Southern Comfort kamikazes all lined up on top of the bar and awaiting their cheers. They sell phone cards down by the station but she won't answer my calls. I want to call her, tell her that it ain't so bad no more, that the constant need seems to have finally subsided and washed itself clean with the tides. I want to call her and tell her that I met a red-headed girl, that I met a young girl, I met a girl from Michigan with Southern lips and a very complicated girl that has her eyes. I want to call her and tell her that I am finally happy, so happy I could puke, but she won't answer my calls. So I take the Crosstown from downtown, all the way home to West Ashley. I just wish she'd talk to me. New blues in the Old South, a new word in her young mouth, it's not even a question of quality anymore... just give me quantity.

The Less Girls You Know (with a nod to R. Pettibone) She's sitting sulking on the barstool, made up in make-up, a persona painted on for the pink of a good time. She craves the attention one would usually reserve a good novel, the problem is that she reads more like a fortune cookie, one simple stanza for the stars she seeks so sincerely. Intoxication for the sake of a conversation, do you think she even sounds sincere? A cat with human teeth, a smile stained red from wine. So far she has managed to keep up appearances, that in itself is impressive, I suppose. Girls are never as good as you hope they'll be, drinks are usually better than you think they'll be. The less girls you know, the better they're apt to be, and the more time you devote to drinkin' the less time you have for girls. And it works if you work it. And even when you don't work it, sometimes it works well enough anyway. Sometimes well enough is enough. You can tell by the way she punctuates his every line with a little laugh, she won't be going home alone tonight. You can tell by the way she avoids your gaze in the back bar mirror, she won't be going home with you tonight. Bewildered, and tilted at the tipping point, somewhere between heartbroke and still hopeful. Perched precariously on the edge of her barstool and teetering and teetering before coming finally to the only logical conclusion.

Southern Streets You Golgotha, you ghetto, you're killing me, can't you see that? Haven't you yet noticed my horns you mad matador? Briskly shaking crimson flags in my face, taunting me with a red wealth then pulling away... You jest, I'm through, fuck you, Sugar. Sing your sweet reprise no more you Moloch, you whore, you frail marrowed martyr. What do you think you're dying for this week? Shorter lines at the food stamp distribution window, cheaper drinks at happy hours, free delousing, food and showers? What a mockery you have made of our condition you shiggity Shyster, you saggedy lackster, you buster of luster... Oh baby, where am I now that mania knows my name? I am the long gone song of the terminally rotten, I am the glassy-eyed gaze of the easily forgotten. Oh baby, I need my sleep to come easy, I need these southern streets to release me. The gutters fill with discarded mar, the rain beads down her face, her mascara paints a clown there. Pinches her ass and makes her a joke standing outside of that old Kentucky bar waiting for a car which never came. Left her only wet in the breaking light of day. It started raining, she started walking when she swore she heard the pigeons talking, making jokes of her dismay. Baby's come a long way as she pulls a slim cigarette from her pocketbook and strikes a dampened match. The street lamps go out and leave her in the gray, a damp dawn so far from reckoning, so voluptuous in its pain, her hair now marred, now matting in the rain. Cursing over her shoulder the car which never came. Oh baby, where am I now that insomnia knows my name? I am the long gone song of the terminally rotten, I am the glassy-eyed gaze of the easily forgotten. Oh Lord, I seek my retreat from these blighted southern streets.

Fried Chicken O, you got a junky smooth like razor burn and that laugh was broken glass with all of the shards still stuck up in there. Up there, where the only nightmare is not knowing the name of your own demise, what color it might come in, what shadows it has dealt, or who it had in last night's bed. GOD DAMN, MAN, I mean... I stuck it in the same place for months, I didn't think that vein would ever collapse but eventually the bastard did, I had to move down and start hitting myself in the wrist. Do you really think that it was a most uninvited violation and not this mix of egg and flour? My sweetest invocation. My biggest mistake to date was not noticing this desolation as I tip-toe-tapped into the neon lit chicken joint across the street and stood in gaping awe of the menu offered before me. OKAY... THERE ARE REAL, HONEST-TO-GOD, PAINTED BY THE HAND OF LEONARDO FUCKIN' DA VINCI ANGELS OUT THERE MAN... LAID OUT ON THEIR BACKS, LEGS SPREAD APART WITH A COO & A SIGH AND TRADING SEXUAL FAVORS JUST TO GET A TASTE OF THIS SHIT, MAN! So, this chicken is that good, huh? You bet. Yeah, you got your junky shuffle down pat, smash your piggy bank daily to achieve PURE POETIC NARCOTIC. That highly enlightened state where you ain't got to say a word, the absence of your pupils says it all kid, and even after five years clean I'm still stuck up in this shit and we both still walk up to Seventh Street every day to score. You, for Morphine. Me... Fried chicken. And Colonel Sanders came down from Mount Sinai holding two stone tablets depicting his thirteen different spices and flavors and gave forth to the peoples of Israel a wax paper bucket of chicken and said, -Lo... Change not my recipe, nor abbreviate my name to KFC for I AM Kentucky Fried! And ye shall not create any brazen images before me! O, you got your junky smooth, so smooth like spreading mayonnaise on wheat toast, borrowing your blues from a lone saxophone. You find a vein. You call that art. Junkies like to eat their eggs over easy or over quickly, whichever. I like my chicken fried spicy hot pop rock melody. And Israel loved its chicken as America loved its heroin. Learned to accept its rape. Learned to count its loss like so many pennies tossed into a well, and eventually there lied a copper fortune of spent wishes. One thousand used syringes piling up in the gutters. One thousand more chicken bones picked clean and thrown to trash cans. You spent your dreams, spent your money, spent your whole God damned life. Now I sit in Kentucky eating chicken which is not "Kentucky Fried," although it was fried in Kentucky, because the Colonel took his patent with him to franchise the River Jordan. And Israel exiled me like I exiled myself from junky-forced bulimia. Colonel Sanders learned to accept his fate and quietly obliged his barren cross in NEON ICON EFFIGY. Heroin is still cheaper than chicken, recipe is still a potent gospel. But, hey man, hey man, I'm chewing on her thighs, I'm biting into her breasts, and my fried angel HAS REAL, HONEST-TO-GOD, PAINTED BY THE HAND OF LEONARDO FUCKIN' DA VINCI wings. Man.

Dead Letter Office Just another note for the dead letter office I'm drunk again, talking while you're hanging up the phone This is a theme I visit over and again the one where you're not there yet it's just as effective to explain to the dial tone why I'm in love with you Every message every letter every poem eventually ends up here in my dead letter office This is what I meant when I said that I'm not finished This is what I should have said when I didn't say anything at all When I let you run to snap that deadbolt locked behind me and I receded slowly down your hall An accumulated library of personal loss this drawer overstuffed with the muck that I scribbled down on paper for you when your voicemail couldn't record the urgent sentiment I had tried to convey Eleven letters nine poems two people one thing I count these down on my fingers until there are none left RETURN TO SENDER Left to ripen unread and unopened In this deep and overstuffed drawer gathering dust Here lies the remnants of us I'm not a writer just a typist Just another voice on the verge or one more jumper on the ledge I pirouette over the sharp edges and mister, I can tell you that's the only time I ever dance Not a poem just a jammed up scramble of misinterpreted metaphor A stripper for a blind man a dollar for your time, thanks Words get wet and beget their meanings they get drunk and never listen Mother warned of men with misaffection but Mama, I am I am that man Never again at least not in a metaphor Sent words scrambling across the page while my pen comes down like a bird of prey

One for Buddy Holly Buddy Holly, he holy, his tremolo go blue style Negro. Buddy, but he was barely twenty, and he knew how to speak that true tone honey tongue with every chord strummed and sung in perfect tough-as-Texas tenor. Affecting asphyxiated tremolo, I tremble when him baritone so low. BUT HE HOLY. Buddy, barely twenty, the patron saint of Lubbock crowned with laurels of hollies in my heart. In my rock roll heart. Buddy Holly, he holy, in arid landscapes as vast and as vapid as East Texas in my heart. In my rock roll heart.

Wallflower Among Women All of my go go girls... went. Left me alone to face the ashtray gray of a newly breaking dawn, liquor sick and lingering on the chorus of some sad song. The remnants of her fragrance settled over the pillow like a fine dust, a completely new crisis for my olfactory circuitry. -O you girls -O you girls always so clever, so cute. You come over and you drink with me. You unzip me because I'm easy like that but you never bother to zip me back. -O you women -O you women with your wonderful names, your spectacular outfits, your boring ex-boyfriends and your always intriguing pain. No one can create or destroy a man quite as well as a woman can and I've been bondoed and duct taped, moon-faced and heart raped. I've howled at the moon until it began baying back, stood stone tongued through her rejoinders and drove the hurt like a Cadillac. She... cashes out at the end of her shift, demanding restitution. Didn't know that serving tables would be tip prostitution. You know, you don't seem world weary when you're hitting on your waitress, you just look tanked and kind of stupid. You know, it's funny, she said, I took this gig for the money but I've never felt more cheap in all my life. You know, it's funny, she said, how your eyes quickly undress me right here in front of your wife. It's funny, she said, you're so certain, you're sure that I'll sleep with you if you just tip a little more. Walking dazed around the dining room tied to twenty tables, he drops hints when she drops his check. These hours aren't so happy and it seems like eternity to me, they either come on too strong or they don't come on at all. He reaches out to grab my ass as I walk past his table. He says he's got a tip for me. He says he's got some tips for me. The pratfalls of this industry, cartoon wolves gawk sheepishly with their tongues all rolling out towards me. When we're drunk on whiskey wilting like wall flowers, writing our phone numbers on guest checks, we don't seem cool or mysterious hitting on our waitresses, we just seem lonely and desperate. Hey, we should get used to it, predatorial desperate. Hey, we should get used to it, boring sort of dangerous. Hey, this ain't so glamorous, drunk and over amorous. Hey, this don't enamor us. -O you girls -O you girls always so cute, so coy. You walk past provoking heart attacks, my eyes burned out like cataracts, like what Mick Jagger sang in "Paint it Black."

American Skeleton I walk these streets a yellowed skeleton, all alone, so American. She pulls at her skirt, she shows a petty peek at pure pathos, a scant hint of the grandiose. To be driven to drink or worse, to remain a solitary skeleton. So star spangled, so American. She calls for her lover but her lover ain't home, now she wants to make bed posts out of your bones. She gets you alone yet lonely you'll stay. Stark reminders to her glass-eyed gaze. You were created in her wanton image, a product in progress never to be finished. She takes them home and hollows them out, sells them as forlorn skeletons. All alone, so American. All you crave is a separate peace, now she wants to carve jewelry out of your teeth. You imagined it was your idea. It'd be so nice just to see her. Maybe fill the blankness of your stark white page. You're only there to fill the void in her gaze. A prayer to parry, seal it with a kiss. No, Joan of Arc never burned like this. In Victorian squalor, drunk as a lord or a gilded skeleton. All alone, so American. Emaciated with pain until the feast begins, now she's going to make hosiery out of your skin. A drunkard's craft to stack dry words like bones, now she's trying to make pussies out of your poems. Piled like kindle wood a maudlin skeleton, all alone, so American.

Secret Meaning of a Girl Down on the bottom of a dead end drunk. Didn't you hear the rumor that I was dead? Or dying? Heroin in my heart and I lost another girl, scratched her initials out of my arm with a linoleum knife. Heard I got drunk and hit by a truck last week, none of the girls looked depressed down at the bar. I heard the latest one was even kind of smiling... About a mile up from the river, right past the Bay Horse where the old men drink Pabst Blue Ribbon from aluminum cans on a cold and soulless Ohio morning. Down at the dead end of a bottomless drunk. I had a pocket full of Klonapins, couldn't even remember the first half of the week (I think I'll buy a motorcycle and just keep riding until the road ends). I spilt Captain Morgan's down the front of my reputation while the girl I used to love tried to make a joke about me. I just ordered another drink, man. She will never make me feel anything ever again. A beer, a shot, an immaculate heart, six Vicodins in a box of matches, a sackful of sarcasm, a pewter plug from a filling that fell out. A beer, a shot, a long goodbye, no goodnight kiss, no best wishes, no cards in the mail for birthdays or Christmas. An aching bone stuffed with rancid marrow, a dull thud, a weak palpitation. Red lipstick on a cigarette butt, a ring of condensation from your glass, a beer, a shot. A bar napkin with a phone number, two twenty dollar bills and seventeen cents, a good intention, a skewed interpretation. An idiot's laughter, an empty book of matches, a couple arguing at the corner table, a telephone ringing, a choice, but not an option. A gutter filled with rain water and oil, a watch that keeps ticking, a reason. A beer, a shot, the flight of a frantic housefly, the sound of human lives. An ordinary Wednesday, accidental Feng Shui. The scent of basil, the feel of sweat on your forehead. Outside the passing sirens, inside the passing out. A love song on the radio through the static of bad reception, a glance from a stranger, a vague desire. A first date or an anniversary? The last in a package of cigarettes, the first in a long string of explanations. A beer, a shot, the burn of bourbon, a changing season, the indifference of pigeons. A constant yearning, an awkward flirting. A kiss that tastes of her cigarettes, a familiar flaw, it's just the sound of her leaving. Forgive the repetition, someday I might just get this right but how many songs on the radio are going to make me sick today? Outside it's raining and the sidewalk never stops to wonder why it's drenched. It would as soon stay wet just to annoy me. Love, with its bindle on its back, just stepped out of my doorway, again. How many times is this not going to work before I finally get the point? Sometimes I can't so I just stopped trying and she just stopped calling and I can't get it lit because of the rain on my matches. It's one last time I descend this staircase, scared of the dark in her heart, knowing damned well I'll take whatever it is she hands me. I don't wish to press the issue, I worry about overkill but how much do I have to take before I start to get ill? Just one more time on the linoleum floor, one more time out by the dumpster, one more plunge into the binge, one last message on my voicemail, just one last time... After one last taste I swear I won't even try, I'll keep my eyes on the sidewalk averting every crack which wishes me back to my level. My intentions turned to perversions which fail. A loss that all metaphors pale. I will slide my jeans back on, button up my shirt. I will concede to this hold you have over me and flee from your bedside, no longer trying to sell you this mess that you could barely afford. My mistakes fill a box of old photographs that stack for miles, spilling out over the edges like evidence left from a futile binge of the heart. The next time I tell you that I love you, remind me I'm drunk. Hang up the phone.