I’m not even from here, thank god.
I’m pretty sure I would’ve dived down to the stones
Lining the bottom of the east river,
To retrieve a little bit of a previous home
That I sat upon some years in the valley,
As I pushed a weeping man up a hill.
It was written that a boulder became him.
But that would’ve made me propping up a shill.

And I can’t believe a comrade would have me
Do so many things that they won’t.
Their passion is awake from the lightning
That is drifting through the clouds that float above his home.

And I am sure that every person’s a person.
But I’m also pretty sure that I’m too.
And I’m in so little focus without my glasses on
That you wouldn’t recognize me if I offered you my shoes.

Those shoes that stand for a weakness
To simply hold up your socks on your shins
Like the toes beneath are uneven.
I am sure that after a few days,
They’d smell as bad as him.

And I mean him, that guy I helped to the old man
Who seems always seated on the peak of a mountain.
I was thrilled when we arrived and he was laying there dead-
I tried to revive him, but his lips were dry
And his tongue went wagged and his dick went limp.
So I backed up my self and asked the old man…
No, not that old man. I mean my old man-
If the other old man could have even helped us at all.
And my old man, he looked at me and smiled, and said to go and look it up.

Like the answer to the questions of the present
Are a faith in what’s become of the past.
I’m still grappling with figuring out why he lied
About giving me a brother who’s only half on my side.
And what woman who I’ve never even seen couldn’t be so bad.
I mean, I know a few devils and I think I knew my dad-
And he certainly never lived like he knew
What evil was false and which evil was true.
Because divinity is washed up on pavement
That was lain upon the grasses that I only want my toes
To sink into if the soil is wet.

I said “I love you dad.”
And I think he thought, ‘Yea, I bet.’

And yet while I laid there listening to him die
With the air from his lungs lifting up like a vine
Rising high up above us as I dreamt by his side
Til my mom woke me up to say he’d gone…
If I had been awake, would I have heard him go?
Or would I have edited it out
Like so many things?
Like the streets of the suburb we lived in once.
Before I turned seven and before I ever rode a school bus.
Before I learned how guitars strum.
Before I received a small set of drums.
Before I kept leaving school drunk
On mental illness.
Before I hammered away at the idea of love,
And tore apart girls who were only looking for a great big hug.

And so was I but so was she and so was she and so was she.
I went from having no one, see
To having, literally, like thirteen.
And how unlucky certain summers have made me.
Thirteen years later, and you could have a thirteen-year old baby.

Fuck, what an animal turn.
To speak ill of the dead and wretch about burns
Given back and forth
Every five years.
I grapple with everything like the seasons residing deep in bowels.
Like a rat, I can’t hide it.
I feed in the subways
Like I slept in the streets…
Neither, really.
Just always traveling around
From some point A’s to some point B’s;
Trying to ignore the sound of trains screeching to a halt.
And the people screaming “Please!
Please! My god, can you please help me!”

I remember it all too famished:
Preaching to the ether that all the land is promised.
Portland, a city of trees
That some people hear
And some people see.
And now here in a brand new old city
With some people listening to me
Telling my story of bringing an old man with me
To ask a dead man some questions.
And those questions?
Who?
What?
Why?
When?
And can you forgive me for bothering you.