There Are No Punk Rock Ballads

"Steel on the skyline
Sky made of glass
Made for a real world
All things must pass

Waiting for something
Looking for someone
Is there no reason?
Have I stared too long?"

-David Bowie, "Heathen"

For example: When I was
younger, a teenager, I took

things that didn't belong
to me or maybe anyone

change on coffee tables
or road signs covered

in vines, holiday decorations,
bicycles. I stopped

for no righteous reason, I
simply grew away from it. Well,

One night I fell for a bell
shaped compulsive liar in

an attic bedroom. Her
complexion absorbed light

passing through the skylight. Her
stories don't make sense and the

people may have never existed, but
understanding was not a part

of our love. Sometimes I would
catch her slipping into fiction, and,

obviously concerned, she would leap
to kiss me, springing from her hands,

the same hands that slipped my
possessions into her purse. A

forty-five, a wooden pipe, vintage
clothes and shot glasses. Two years

later and I'm not sure if she
took anything with her.

Death and Texas

The moon swings like a dull scythe loosely held
by fleshless fingers on a summer night
and scarce can anyone this evening say
that it is anything less than a glimpse
into the mind of death itself, to know
who sees the sun for one more day and those
who fall like dying flowers in the cold.
So when we few fearful men came to ask
if the sorrow of death (and mine the same)
should make us take some pity on ourselves
we came to understand, without sadness,
that the sun surely brings us the day. But

Death will rest, as sure, and wake with the moon
to deliver us from summer too soon.