Because We Ain't Simple And Love Ain't Simple

TWO FREAKS IN A MEAN GOD'S SWEATY FIST

next morning over grits and aspirin

i remembered          jack oh shit honey

i can't believe i fuckin did that

convulsive recall cut through whiskey obscurity

like the knife

my knife in my hand and jack grinnin it off       just us

friday night drunk again except i was pitbull furied

about a blank spot

i was holdin' up steel to my lover

i was serious

what do you mean he asked me at the table

so i had to say before god and my coffee

i threatened to cut you last night didn't i man

more sorries and panicky lovetalk started runnin out of me

until the grin came back        he said oh

that's right    i'd forgotten all about it      he held that little smile

so long i wanted to scream motherfucker but  i started cryin

instead

he'd been as loaded as me        didn't know what issue

brought together me and him and the knife and something mad

enough to shank eight years of us

somethin that backed down when he just said

you know sparrow if i felt like it

i could get really pissed of about this            the movie stopped

there for both of us

he was holdin me while i came apart again

me and him know each other clear

to the marrowbones and black mirrors by now

me and him go on anyway

eight years or twenty thousand

sparrow and jack is the road we're goin down

without a simple love poem in sight

because we ain't simple and

love ain't simple

love has vicious motherfucker midnights curled up waitin in it

like when we were naked makin war words

about how if

ordinary common people are shit and i hate everyone

i must hate him too

right then i did but he was the one

who said i hate you first and got up to leave

i gave him my back like the finger      told him thanks

for tellin me one piece of truth tonight anyway

and i would have said more but he kicked me off the bed

before i could and if love was somethin simple

it would have busted like a wine bottle right there

it took us two days to cry about it together

but that man has hands that make me forget sometimes

how much i hate my body

that man can keep tellin' me after the first thousand

times i told him that was a

goddamn lie

that man is as smart as me and too weird to ever be boring

with his head full of politics and priestcraft and philosophical

terrors

he can tell me about because i've got em too

me and him know each other all right

it's our damnation to

it's our damnation to know that hate walks beside love

like a shadow that has teeth

it's our damnation each to live in the other's

valley of flames

because our demons are crazy drunk

on love for each other

the same way we are

two freaks in a mean god's sweaty fist

it's our damnation practiced to perfection

we've done it for years

we've done it for lifetimes and some of 'em ended like this

could have

but we keep comin' back

we've got stuff that ruins us for anyone else

we need each other's weirdness and rage like dope

it ain't simple           it's got thorns

it's got roots that wrap around bones and boulders

all the way to the heart of the earth

sparrow and jack is the road we're goin' down

together in this poem

this car with the back seat full of monsters

that were always driving drunk

the hit of murder keeps us awake for the ride

sparrow and jack it the road that starts and ends

in the worlds we have where the other one is the only man alive

and those are worlds

big enough for all the pain we throw around

because we're men and we can't help it

all we can do is wrap our arms around love

even and especially when it smells like shit and looks like

the black sponge soaked in blood at

the center of trust's shattered bones

and around each other after the storms die down



—Sparrow 13 Laughingwand

from Hell Soup: The Collected Writings [ Manic D ]

*Please note: some line breaks "auto-corrected" by WordPress.

[ Apologies, Apologies ]