"now tell it again"

"now tell it again"
written after another doubtful weekend by jake kilroy.

was this whole theater built with the planks we didn't walk?
it's likely, but we'll tell everyone a different story:
they're the hundred thousand crosses christ was nailed to
over the centuries by all who dared charge the mountain.
grief and pity is all anyone here remembers eating.
self-sacrifices slur out with whiplash tongues
at the dinner party too white for comfort.
brain-damaged on the dance floor,
we all cup the body parts
that shouldn't be in public
just to slander our spouses,
so we have something to talk about on the way home.

where do you hail from, all?
what basement lounges? what temple bars?
what cemeteries where you shot photos for school?
it feels like all we do is wake up.
i can't remember the last time i went to bed satisfied.
i can't remember the last time i drummed my knuckles
out of boredom instead of this brutal nervous tick
i scooped up from my grandparents,
once they saw the world for what it was:
ending.

come tomorrow, this will be the same conversation.
it's day in and day out of too many people repeating themselves.
yes, we know you've been trying to eat healthy.
yes, we know you're making time for yourself.
yes, we know that your marriage is working for the time being.
we've seen the pictures. we've heard the fights.
the only true thing we know is that we'll hear it again.

we're like lapdogs suddenly bursting into flames.
get the best painter you know so we can document in portraits
and nail real-world observations to this furiously drunk forum
before we lose our terrible awful nerves in the next round of fits.

god, there's a woman i miss too much on this earth,
and the best i can do is sell myself short on the weekends,
as i stomp around my neighborhood coming up with errands,
just to wait until i can dive head-first into any party
that will have me as good and true as she once did.

that ain't the half of it, and i don't know what is.
i'm barely able to figure out a budget, let alone solve poetic math.
i'm only a writer, i tell myself. we're supposed to be bad at life.
yet every man knows the tortured artist bit is good for teenagers,
but it's just a madhouse excuse that goes unchecked otherwise.

so pull it together, poets.
we've got truths to sell to the highest bidder.
hell, it's the only way we'll ever make a living,
by telling everyone what they already know
and don't want to hear again.

"the heavy king"

"the heavy king"

after a long lunch by jake kilroy.

with too many lovers, not enough money,

and no excuses, a man finally considered l.a.

it had been in his nerves the whole time,

mugging classical music,

caroling street graffiti,

making waste of youth.

it cracked sharp teeth

and bled light to attract

the dreamers and the bingers,

offering a home away from home

when all they needed was a map and a blessing.

what good is the pulse
if it stumbles, a bent clock
with hands flagging down anything resembling a passing christ?

jesus, why did we retell all these stories
if they were to mutate into idioms?

is that how it happens?
is that how we all become the patron saints of the afterlife?

yeah, yeah, carve up a grave in reincarnation bulk weight

and tell yourself you'll avoid the madness and kill the cancer next time.

surely, these hands were constructed
by Mother Nature or Lord Supernatural

for more than holding prayer beads
and patting the backs of local desperate monks.

i was wild once!

i was the battering ram of night.

i was the only blanket in a lover's house.

i was clothes on the floor, drugs in the system, blood unsure of source.

and now i'm the last king of land so barren you couldn't plant a foot.

every merchant elsewhere, all churches gone, nobody home but crows.

but here we are waiting to buy into anything that resembles the past.