Rough versions of parts 5-8 from 'prayer rugs'
5-
Was it hard on a fellow?
Dam sho
I walked in the night
skipping stones and
Cursing old dynasties
I sat in the movie theater
without a snack
One day
I punched a toddler
who was riding I
beanflipped him
And stole his tricycle
Rode for miles
Stopped and sat
Beneath the linden
Dam sho I did
trace tombstones in
Spaghetti Sauce
I sang my father’s songs
And drove a truck
Into an
ATM
I saw my father in the dirt
Like a head rolling in the desert
I heard him say
“well that’s that
sorry I had to
leave you so soon”
I looked at the old pictures I wore my father’s boots I
Didn’t vote either way
come election time
well I voted for
The cliffs
The wine
The chimes
I walked all over town and into the woods
And the whole time everybody crying out
Woe! Woe!
Ya’ look like death Jamie you look like a
Stork of the setting sun why don’t ya
Take yaself home now son heres a
Gown of mourning sorry bout ya pops
and they draped me in this black dress
lookin thing
I failed all the classes brooding and
Was always wearing that stupid dress and
The hood came over my face like
The reaper’s does all you can hear is
White noise like on the radio
And I didn’t even have a car I didn’t
Have shit I quit everything
My three souls drifted my
Seven souls departed
6-
I walked to the hardware store
Wearing my mourning gown
To buy a crowbar cuz a good
Crowbar or a cats paw is always good
Just to have around it’s a good thing but
On my way out I bumped shoulders
With a guy who was comin in while I
Was goin out we bumped one another
And he turned around and cast me
With the cruelest gaze and said
Fuck Your Soul
I’s like, ‘scuse me?'
but my voice was like
someone talking to themselves
in the frozen foods aisle
and that guy ran away and vanished
I was left standing there with
Spilt bag of nails
Fallen crowbar
Stolen snickers bar
Then I thought, “That’s right, fuck my soul
Fuck it to green and eternal infernos
Fuck it to whimpering hogs
Fuck it on out of here
I don’t need that thing
I took my soul out and lobbed it up like
A whiffleball found in the weeds and I
Smacked my soul on out of the park I
Saw it sail away and vanished in the sky a few
People looked up and saw it twinkling one of them clapped but
The rest just shook their heads and I thought I could hear them thinking about it in their one thousands voices in their one thousands minds like
'O that boy just ousted his soul
I remembered old days
Did I smoke then?
No I only drove
Like I was just
Asleep in the car,
He hit it right on out of here
Where do those things go anyway?'
Then they all went on their way
I stood outside the hardware store like
the wooden Indian but
I had no drum to beat and no heart to listen its like
I go out the door and through the woods and find
A world that cant talk anymore its covered in frost
Waiting outside the store I was when I was
Visited by the first of the angels that I know
And it was noisy it was a big harley rolled
Up into the lot
a man in houndstooth pants who appeared
And he said to unto me, “Hey buddy you lookin sorry”
So I saw fit to explain
“well sir this guy just said Fuck Your Soul
To me just because I bumped into him and at first
I was like what the hell man shut up I don’t even know u
but then I thought what the
Hey yeah hes right fuck my soul its causin me more
Trouble than the damn thing is worth I don’t want it
I am mad and blue I have but one mission and that
Is to kill my Uncle Bob the Bad Horseman
but
You would not know him he grazes in burning pastures
And scorns the gaze of men unless they’re bringing him
Take-out psh sir you don’t want to know this dude
And the houndstooth pants man had hisself a hearty
Fucking laugh and said unto me
“fuck ya soul?”
ho
ha
“Hey sonny if thats whats got you so mopey
you aint gonna make it too far in this world its
not a thing worth feathering up your wings bout
Just a thing Bulgarian people say sort of like how
We say ‘fack you ya cahksucka’
Don’t take it to heart, mmm young buddy you”
the man in the houndstooth pants I
asked him his name and he said son
I am Wino Willie I run with the
Boozefighter Mountain Gang
I know it is a stupid
Name but I don’t give a flying shit if
You think its stupid why don’t you
Sit on this
And he brandished
A fist
Then he went in the store
Theres no telling what he bought
He might not even have
Bought anything at all
I looked at his motorcycle in the lot
Damn
That hog
like death on a bicycle
like cat in dog pajamas
That hog like jesus h Christ
And it made me feel much better just
To gaze at the hog resting in the lot
I walked on and ate
my snickers bar and thought bout what
the man with the houndstooths said,
"Ha ha hey hey that’s right
That other man didn’t mean
nothin
Hes just a Bulgarian with customs and such
Its just like
this old world
This old world that didn’t mean to make my life
Like a shoe that is stepping in dog shit
Every durn step it goes and
This old world didn’t mean to give me such
A raking over those coals it knows not what it does
This durn old world with its ponds and echoes eh
So hey why don’t I forgive it I’ll go get an ice cream
Haha fudge Sunday day of the lord day of resurrection
I am essentially an ice cream cone today right out the freezer
"
I was merry then I was jocund I was a lord at that time
It didn’t last too long
for I was
A lad whose only faith was in nebulas
Floating out of reach,
indefinite space rock
Yes that’s right, a volunteer in the empty field
a died in the wool straw-hat man of woe I left home
feeling like i'd said it all too many times but
Before I left for good
I went up to ma who smoked in the easy chair and said hey
‘Ma I don’t feel at home in this world never have
never will goodbye fare the well bon voyage ma mama”
my little sister was dirty in the back yard while the
trees were starting to lose their leaves I was
taking my leave
7-
Then I went down the road
Gone behind the 7-11
to cut my hand deep
And light a candle for my vow;
My sad heart wrote in the sky with a pencil
my heart wrote
“Florida, Uncle Bob,
by all saints of shit and terror,
I will get you I swear it”
-Signed Jamie”
I felt my hand pumping out blood
I watched my oath vanish in the stars
Didn’t feel much better but I
Walked to the freight yard
I waited under the bridge
And hummed like a kazoo
And waited like there was no
Time at all or like I was at war
Like desert storm war is only
Waiting and fucking with time
Because when the shit goes down
Time feels just as fucked up as
When you’re sitting in the desert
Knapsack and nannies under bridge,
The supplies and the lonesome
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When the time came I
Jumped in the box car
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Late in the night I saw
The light of venus and
The sky like sharp coral
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dangled my feet ho ho
But riding trains is boring
When you don’t have a head
For scenery and I’ll tell ya
At that point in the game
Nature just pissed me off
I looked at it going by and
The first thing I wanted to
Do is go wooow then I say
Ya right cant I think of
Something better to say
About that mountain no
No I cant so I hate that shit
I just turn my head away
And write my diary on the walls:
“Headin to Selkirk that’s
A big ass yard I hear but
I aint scared of the bulls
They aint got dogs
Maybe mirrors and
Guns but no dogs”
dangled my feet
“Massachusetts is much
Swampier than most people imagine”
I watch it go by like an old dog
Running out of bones to chew
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ran out of cigs;
seriously the pits
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
got tired of hiding
dangled my feet
Didn’t give a damn who saw
I’m riding the freight and
Bobbing like a cork and
here is what I knew then:
It is miserable to be poor
It is miserable to be rich
It is miserable to be middle class
To stay in one place,
To have a family
To have a life might
As well watch the virago
In the nursing home so
I’m journeying deep,
Guardian of the clouds
I have a mandate to kill
And I have the mandate
To hate everything the
Mountain will bow to me
Ill tie up the lakes and give em
The concrete shoes I’ll toss em
In the ocean laughing at midnight
then I’ll shoot myself in the face
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Somebody called the cops
around Deerfield
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Shit on my soul I didn’t
Even make New York state line
durn
cops pulled me right off my ride
swarmed me like the bible oops
I sat in the squadcar I dirtied it up
Curse you fuzz I was
Moses Going down but my
People will have to wait
You’re the pharaohs
And ya got me you ratshit
The cops said boy
We aint pharaoh
We got kids we
Carry loaves home
And look to the sky
Just same as you
And besides what
Gives you the right
To say you get to
Go down like Moses
Psh I said stop asking
Questions you already know
Whatever the fuck I say is
Heavier on the scales than the truth and I spit on you
I’ll deflower your graves one day you nightstick jerkies
Then I showed them my fist and cried ‘woe’
The cops looked at each other like I was sassin
They just laughed windless laughs like
hhhaaa…
I hate the back seat
Of cop cars they feel
Like a tonka truck
Plastic and weird and only suitable for a kid
who doesn’t know what the hell is going on
I said fuck you you
Are pharaoh and they
Said well hhhhaaaaa
Then go down moses
I said I WAS BOUT ‘TA
But you fucked it all up
Damn you police I am a
Wingnut and I can show
You heads and shoulders
But not one on top of
The other
8-
The cops threw me in the cooler
It was freezing it was me and a
Spanish guy who never stopped
Crying he prayed to the lord above
He smashed his head on the floor
I imagined his mother I said
Brother it’ll be alright you
Just done yourself a little sin
You will be forgiven you will
Live to leave the cooler and
See the light of the venus star
The colorful shawls and the
Kids riding on in the yard
He didn’t listen to me
So we sat in he wept
I thought to myself
hell fuck your soul you
Weeping Spaniard
At least you give a shit
Enough to cry while you
Locked up, as for me I
Sit like a piece of corkwood
Even the maggots have ditched me
I am dried up on the beach
Give me fluorescent or
Give me black I don’t give a shit
I could wait in jail
Forever I should pull a
Shenanigan of crimes
So that I can stay forever
Orange is my color dam sho
And if it werent for the Uncle Bob
That it is my directive to slay I
Would stay in here forever because
Its just scenery that matches my mind
Dude didn’t say nothing to that
I waited and chewed a toothpick
The weeping Spaniard I used
As an ottoman
I thought of the letters I would write
I considered freezing temperatures and
Planes where the sun comes down like iron,
All those places a fellow goes
The Cop said through the bars to me
“Wheres your family live at”
I said Florida
The cop said alright well we
Cant have you sittin in here
Eatin up our food
Usin our tax dollars
After all you are a
Small fry criminal
We might have to
Sent you down there
~~~~~~~~
Greyhound
~~~~~~~~
HAHAHAHAHA I said now you
Fuckers you give me a free
Ride right on down to where
I’m headin to that I can
X some O’s
Spill some blood
Dot some Is
Kill Uncle Bob
I was ready to kill rubbing
My hands together and shit like
In the cell I dreamed about all
The different types of people
That I hated
I said fuck you yuppy
Fuck you redneck
Fuck you business guy
Fuck you sassy lady
Fuck you concerned dad then I sobbed and the Spaniard echoed my sob
Fuck you wholesome girl I aint goin to no Sarah Lawrence
Fuck you hippy no I hate you the most
Fuck you new york dude I broke your smart phone
Fuck you new age wiener I lit your wife on fire with that candle
Fuck you bluegrass guy you’re a fake
Fuck you boring folk whatever
Fuck you punks you’re 30 years late
Fuck you cops fuck you fuck you fuck you
Fuck you lawyers everyone knows you’re evil
Fuck you protesters you’re all idiots and lazy
Fuck you junkies get a job
Fuck you linguists get a life
Fuck you workers get an education
Fuck you mafia let me in
Fuck you MS 13 gangs are for jail only
Fuck you mothers save it for the womb
Fuck you blue bloods nobody gives a shit about you anymore
Fuck you outraged citizens just give it a rest
There were many more but I thought i
Would move on to other business so
I crossed my legs and began a push up
I waltzed with the blues and the blacks
I pooped in the toilet while the Spaniard
Watched me and kept on with his crying
I scratched a graffiti
Wait a minute
God dammit this sucks I
Hate the cooler
I never gonna find religion or
Read an abridged book and
Change my name to X
The cop came in and said
Well guess what young moses
You got yourself a visitor and
I should have been pleased but
I knew it was pretty much just
Gonna suck