Now I've got fingers slipping through
the concrete blocks outside
that wall my memories in again
and metal boat-wheels worn so thin
the blood beneath my skin‘s begun to leak begins to leak
I heard my mother's thoughts today out in the wind again, again
like drying clothes and ice tea warming in a shiny jar oh no
she's rattling pans again and asking where I been so long
and in the din there comes to mind again
a battered tin all scratched inside and filled with men
and smiles and eyes and everyone's got missing limbs
I nod hello and with a nail in my nose I stoop to hoe a rusty row
and what I'm trying to say
what I'm trying to say I don't know
I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know
Why words come in and then come out
and everything sticks in my mouth
oh I sometimes swear I sometimes pray
and why oh god my favorite uncle died today
the only one in a family large and loud and proud
who had the poverty and pain
live close enough to keep him sane
and one small joke away from tears
and one cheap gag away
from all the lies the rest of us keep living
the rest of us keep living by
Or why I thought all day about
the way my other uncle found him
laying there and never had a chance to win
or lose their year-long argument
about some moldy cheese
and pink flamingos bullshit grown so ripe up round
like thorny bushes full of unbloomed roses in their brains
and suddenly I'm a continent away a thousand miles,
miles, miles now, and I'm crying like a little child
Or why I smoke so much these days
but feel so god-damned healthy
every way and every time I light a match I think of how
my friend says pretty death each time he sees a--
each time he sees a cigarette
What I'm trying to say is
that I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know
Why I live in the most beautiful place I've ever seen
with a woman who I think might really be a tiger queen and everything
she touches blooms and bursts with song and colors here we are now
surrounded by the rising concrete
castles and cockroaches
and no refrigerator and no tv
yes I'm bragging now I'm sad
but I'm in love of course
So why I can't stop thinking of my hometown friend and enemy?
I loved you and I also envied you so honestly
when you jumped in front of a train last year
or fell or just as likely you were pushed there
no one knows and fewer care
and when we heard the news
on April 1st of course we all thought
you were pulling off some shitty prank
and still I think maybe you were
and in this case it was the boldest
and the humblest joke you ever told
and left us with ourselves
to hear the punchline growing cold
Oh and all I know for sure is you were an arrogant ass
but I loved you much more than I ever hated you
and I'll always know it was a grave mistake to not attend
your funeral however in my own defense I wanted so badly
to believe that you'd show up again like some old manic
Tom Sawyer and we could laugh for years about it
after we beat you senseless
Or why a friend... or why a friend felt God?
I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know
Why a friend felt drawn by God knows what today
to kindly tell me that I hated Jesus and the USA
and all white people but before I had a chance
to say you lie or maybe to agree a young man next to me
ram rode his knee completely through a thick glass window pane
oh my God to protest--his blood!--
the recent schoolroom lunch code
and of course we all knew that
he thrust his limb through a glass door
for something on the other side
something deep something wide
something on the other side much heavier
than a plate of god-damned pasta
Or why this past week it's been raining
every day and hotter than my coffee
and I'm always sweating
trying to catch my breath
and I don't want to hear any more shit
about God and love from you right now
or how nice your new batch of soap turned out
or why you think the family members
of murdered Black men are just trying to get attention
and further division and strife
and god bless the fucking police and I'm sorry
but all god's lives matter
and Indians aren't even real Indians anymore
they just want to take land
from hard-working people
and make an entire generation
feel guilty for being white
but hey I never got it easy
my boots are always muddy
and god bless my guns and penis
and Jesus Muhammud murder lies banks
you know life is blah blah tough for all of us
ha ha l o l r o f l
and these lazy people only make it harder
you know what I'm saying?
and I have decided
I have decided to follow shitty empire
speak Jeevus Christus I'm angry
that you don't tell me
I'm doing such a good job
please tell me that I'm doing a good job
don't you know I'm doing the best I can?
I'm angry that you don't tell me
that I'm doing a good job
please go away!
Oh why my god, my god, I love you god! I really do!
and every time I try to tell or hear the simplest story
of someone doing something kind I start to cry
I start to cry, oh I am tired and sad and wonder how it is
that we can smile and speak and laugh so well when all we know
we all know that we feel so bad