Black Leather Required

The World Is Big Enough Without You

2010-09-07T11:29:00.000-07:00

Fireworks for the dead
It's time to put yourself to bed
In the hospital,
The friends you stole
Surround you

Did the devil sign your check
When they pulled you from the wreck
There was nothing left to recognize
About you

Let it in
Let it go
When they life you up,
There's something you should know
What you find,
It might astound you
Because the world,
My friend,
Is big enough
Without you

I Don't Wanna Kill the President

2010-09-07T11:27:00.000-07:00

I don't wanna kill the president
Break up house and state

I don't wanna live in your soap-star graveyard
Bring our leader's fate

I don't wanna die in your cold-war hell
Perhaps it's much too late

The president's dead

Open Your Eyes, America

2010-09-07T11:19:00.000-07:00

Down the devil's highway
Like the grapes of wrath
Weaving through the rocky mounts
Stop and do the math:

The poor and needy stop to see
Their friends and family on TV
Fighting in the Iraq War
From the window of a TV store

They're heading for the sweatshops
Making shirts and gum drops
Rubber toys, Gameboys
Hershey Bars, Almond Joys

Popping in the drive thru
Buy a Happy Meal or two
Put a smile on a few
While others waste away

Roll the dice, melt some ice
Losing jobs, overprice
Turn the tables of today
Call it the American way

Another spill along the Gulf
The U.S. pays the toll
They're asking what our motives were
We say it's how we roll

Crash into Afghanistan
Start the Iraq War again
Lost and naked in the dark
Haunted by a nuclear dart

Turn off the Turks, rewind
Send the troops to Palestine
While we watch the U.S. sing
We make a mess of everything

Flatliners

2010-09-05T17:55:00.000-07:00

Don't flatline
Breathe
Don't flatline

Don't rain
Don't rain on my...
Don't
Rain on my...

Back and forth
On the decision to stay put or leave
On a dime
How quickly life seems to change for us
For us

Don't flatline
Breathe
Don't flatline

The choice is mine to live my life
Don't flatline
Breathe
Don't flatline
If I leave now
There's so much more that I could find
Don't flatline
Breathe
Don't flatline

Won't waste my time
Made my mind
Just like that I'm making the hardest decision
That I'll ever have to make

PULL THE PLUG!

Better Run

2010-09-04T16:53:00.001-07:00

Run.
You better make your face up in
Your favorite disguise
With your button down lips
And your
Roller blind eyes.
Your empty smile, your
Hungry heart.
Feel the bile rise
From a blood-stained past.
Nerves in tatters
As the cockleshell shatters
And the hammer batters
Down the door.
You better run.
Run
All day
Run
All night
Keep your dirty feelings
Deep inside.
And if you're taking your girlfriend
Out tonight.
Park the car
Well out of sight.
If they catch you in the back seat
Picking her locks,
Expect to see your mother
In a cardboard box.
You better run.

The Mask

2010-08-21T11:40:00.000-07:00

Once a year he wears a mask.
Walks the streets and drinks his flask.
Man of shadows, thinks in clay.
Dream trapped thoughts of suffocation day.
He sits on the curb and stifles cries.
With plastic sweat out of chiseled slits for eyes.
In the cemetery he changes form.
Face melts back to norm.
Stupid eyes, wet with tears.
Blackened soul wracked with fears.
The transformation is invested.
With the mysterious and the shameful.
While he thinks he has become something else.
Part character part sensation.
Etc., etc., etc....

Romance

2010-08-20T14:05:00.000-07:00

Take
Take my hand
Take to the highway
Take the ammo
I'd die in a hail of bullets
With you

Try
Try to let you know
How much you mean
To me

Drive
Drive to the end
Another liquor store
Nothing left
But we keep running
Hand in hand

Never
Never thought it'd be this way
Me and you
Here alone
A thousand bodies piled up
Cheeks rosy
With blood

Lead rains
Phantoms of past
Scarecrows fueling flame
Burning forever

Together
Together we fall
In this pool of blood
Touching hands
Falling down
Pool of blood
Eyes meet
Love you
Forever

Blood and Altars

2010-08-20T13:40:00.000-07:00

The sun goes down into the ground--
If they get me when the sun goes down--
Take this spike and--
Put this spike in my heart.

Putrid flesh still alive--
Still holds its charm--
Consumed by rot--
Beautiful!

And if the sun comes up--
Will it tear the skin off my bones--
As my razor sharp teeth--
Rip out throats of my victims.

My doctor--
My priest--
Pump this venom--
From this gaping hole.

To feed again--
On blood and altars--
To leach in living death--
Those who pass by take my advice.

Hurry home before sunset.

My doctor--
My priest--
My roses--
My church!

Hanging out with corpses--
I'm the driver of this hearse--
Someone save my soul tonight--
Someone.

Those who pass take my advice.
Hurry home before sunset.

Famous Monsters

2010-08-19T11:29:00.000-07:00

So many lights to cast a shadow.
It is hard understanding I'm complete.
Life is so demanding.
Love is so demanding.
Look at your life.
Look at the ones you've left behind.
Look at your eyes, haunted black circles.

Because you're a famous monster.
Do whatever they offer.

See my eyes shining bright.
I'm out here on the other side.
Jet black hotel mirror.
So weak...
Understanding I'm incomplete.
Look at your mind, strength never found.
Look at the signs; they stop and stare.

(Watching you die, when you're gone it's like you weren't even there.)

You're a famous monster.
Do whatever they offer.
Tie the noose and throw yourself over.

Father

2010-08-18T12:20:00.000-07:00

The sun is shining in the sky
There isn't a cloud in sight
It's stopped raining
Everybody's playing
And don't you know
It's a beautiful day

The parade's a-marching
The crowd's a-cheering
The man in front tips me a salute
And my father smiles

Running down the avenue
See how the sun shines
Brightly on the city streets
Where once was pity

Father
Is living here today

Father
please tell me why
You had to hide away for so long
Where did we go wrong?

Hey
You with the pretty face
Welcome to the human race
A celebration
Father's up there waiting
And today is the day we've waited for

Now his hand is on my shoulder
Never mind
I'll remember you this
I'll remember you this way
Father!

The conductor swings his baton
The drummer beats his drum
The trumpets flare
And the orchestra swells
Like fire

Father!
I'm so pleased to be with you
Look around
See what you do, everybody smiles at you

And life is just great
Great...
And I feel
I can carry on again

The End

2010-08-16T14:55:00.000-07:00

Pushing through the haze
My father sobbing and sighing
News just come over
I had five hours left to cry in
Doctor wept and told me
I was really dying
Cried so much his face was wet
Then I knew he wasn't lying

I heard telephones, opera house, favorite melodies
Saw boys, toys, electronic irons and TVs
My brain hurt like a warehouse
It had no room to spare
I had to cram so many things in store
Everything in there
And all the fat-skinny people
And all the tall-short people
And all the nobody people
And all the somebody people
I never thought I'd need so many people

Bring me my daisies
Bring me my wine
Bring me my coffin
My funeral shrine

And it was cold and it rained
So I felt like an actor
And I thought of Ma
And wanted to get back there
Your face, your race, the way that you talk
I kiss you, you're beautiful, I want you to walk

I got four hours, stuck on my eyes
I got three hours, what a surprise
I got two hours, my brain hurts a lot
I got one hour, that's all I've got

THE END

Desert Song

2010-08-15T15:14:00.000-07:00

We're holding out hearts,
The sword and the faith.
Swelled up from the rain
Clouds move like a wraith.
Well after all, will I live another day.
And through it all, will I find another way
To carry on through dust and weed.
Did you come to stare or bleed?
Rock and wind, heated breath
Of mother desert calling
All her children home.
Spend the rest of your days rocking out
Before you die in the mother's arms.
Did we all fall down?
From the lights to the pavement.
From the van to the floor.
From backstage to the doctor.
From the Earth to the morgue.
Spend the rest of your days rocking out
Before you die in the mother's arms.
Well after all...
We all fall...
Down.

Early Sunsets Over Monroeville

2010-08-13T13:12:00.000-07:00

Late dawns and early sunsets
Over a thousand dying screams
That echo through the theater
Off the twelve-foot movie screen.

Baby, can you dig your man?
Can you tell he ain't forgiving?
Just another body down
It doesn't matter if it's living.

Up and down escalators,
Pennies and colder fountains,
Elevators and half-price sales
Trapped by all these mountains.

A scratch, a nibble, and a bite.
I think I'll be all right.
Just wrap the bandage tight.
I'll make it through the night.

Till tomorrow. Chopper blades,
Cutting air. Soaring. Overhead.
Above. Beyond. Below.
The dead.

Before I pull this trigger,
Your eyes vacant and stained...
In saying you loved me,
Made things harder at best,
And these words changing nothing
As your body remains,
And there's no room in this hell,
There's no room in the next,
And our memories defeat us,
And I'll end this direst.

Baby, can you dig your man?
He's bleeding on the spread.
Baby, can you dig your man?
The corpse in this bed?

The Appointment

2010-08-02T16:32:00.000-07:00

BOY: I saw him
(Death)
today.
Downtown.
He beckoned me.
I ran.
Give me your truck.
I'll go to the city.
He'll never find me there.

* * *

MAN: Why did you frighten my grandson that way?
He's only sixteen.
He's too young to die.

DEATH: I'm sorry about that.
I did not mean to beckon him.
But I was surprised to see him here.
You see, I have an appointment with him this afternoon
--in the city.

The Game

2010-08-02T15:01:00.000-07:00

So now you know, friends!
Now you know...
Why there is a ballgame
being played
in the moonlight
at midnight
in the deserted central
CI-
TY
BA-
LL
PA-
RK

Look closely.
see this strange
baseball game!

See the long strings
of pulpy
intestines that mark
the base lines.

See the two lungs
and the liver
that indicate the bases...

The heart
that is
home-
plate...

See the batter
coming to the plate
swinging the legs,
the arms,
then throwing all but one
away
and standing in the

BOX

waiting for
the pitcher
to hurl
the
head.

Scream

2010-07-27T14:13:00.000-07:00

Vast dunes of sweet lies
Starry sky of endless night
Cracked sidewalk of broken dreams
On my bicycle of slumber
On a dreamquest of unknown kadath

The moon opens its mouth
And sings the world to sleep
As Neil Armstrong
Walks across its face
The first man in the moon

And the rushing currents of thought
Move through the river of mind
And Yggdrasil, the world tree
Sinks its roots in the soil of love

Out of sight
Out of mind
Out of space
Out of time
Drifting off to the land of nod
Further than heaven
Higher than god

The wreckage of a nuclear blast
Death weeps tears of remorse
And I walk across the endless bridge
Of sad reality

They wait on the other side
Low men in black coats

In the sky
Run traces of orange
Ash from the phoenix
Reborn from ashes
Lit by fire

They call my name

A scream arises