songs and stories

by neil

[neilkirkpatrick-blog]

Subway

Sitting on a train

alone with the shadow

of the future i traded for 

grime and disgust.

a blind man stares

into something

out of nothing.

I wanted everything

but who cares what you want.

thank you, lord.

[neilkirkpatrick-blog]

Sarah

Come inside, Sarah Step back into the light Your face is cracking, spilling down upon your thighs Love You’re wicked Your long steel nails They slip right Inside me You’re dancing In starlight Waiting for us To follow You I Can't hide My Sarah She’s here Inside Oh my My Sarah I tried Mercury’s spilling from her ears and her eyes Her butterfly wings flutter Like a seizure in July So I hold Sarah In my arms, beloved bride Goodnight now, Sarah Goodnight, and goodbye. Our Reflection A violet bonfire That we’re Becoming–Nothing A silence That we Fracture into (Again)

[neilkirkpatrick-blog]

Stranger

I woke up at a station in the sun alone except for one the woman dressed in black a soft gentle wind crept across my face in that long forgotten place I knew i’d seen before the woman comes my way with shiny white eyes i don't know what to say with her voice inside my mind now i wanna go back home i wanna be alone alone inside a new childhood to roam  somethin wicked’s comin to take me back home I woke up in a desert in the sun the woman hung my gun between her skinny legs she laughed and said with tender grace that long forgotten place was the place where I was born her hands upon my neck and slipped along my waist her finger lifts my chin to meet her deathly gaze her breath inside my ear her nails drawing near now all i see is my death up in the sky the last train’s comin' it’s reflected in my eye

[neilkirkpatrick-blog]

Black House

Under heavy midwestern clouds in the murky fog and the rain My lover's words hang cruel in the air she’s singing out my name.

Rainwater scrapes at the highway lanes as the fires loom. I walk alone, along the road searching still for you. the long highway turns to mud the path slants sharply up into the blurry, fiery lights comin from above. I found the blackened house burning on top of a hill your voice is ringing shrill through the halls it's ringing still. the front doors hangin open and I stumble through the smoke I slide my hands along the walls to the place where we last spoke. I find her last written letter lying at the end of the hall I don’t need to read it don’t need to read it at all. last words and smoke in the lungs hold it as long as you can I won’t need to breathe anyway I’m a tired, weary man. Somewhere under the endless sky and the sharp, relentless rain the devil’s out there singing her hymns calling out my name.

[neilkirkpatrick-blog]

My Old Friend

my dear old friend can't come back again to me he was a kind gentle man

he left for the sun my old friend forgot to tell me the secret to living is wondering

My old friend was a mystery he once told me God is right here this conversation with you is holy in death you will find me dancing on a star please come back again to me

[neilkirkpatrick-blog]

The Braille of Evenings Is Written In Poem - Ben Mirov

I stare out of my window with a flashlight behind each eye. I do not know what I am looking for. The bushes barely quiver in the wind. A few people get into a mauve truck. I return to my couch. Darkness creeps into the corners of the microwave. A river disappears into a plastic coffee cup. I pet a moth as big as a baby. The desert approaches inch by ecstatic inch. What did the lamp say? Permission to drink ink from the sink? I feel a vineyard growing inside me. No need to be alarmed. Shut the door. Glass of wine. Try to sleep. My eucalyptus grove can hardly breathe. Memories of pagoda duck-pond relief. Diode, diode, nomenclature. Nocturne for Susie. The people return to the apartment complex. Their suits and ties are torn to shreds. Their cars are barely audible songs. A grizzly bear snags a salmon made of dreams. I remove the duct tape from my naked body. If the sun comes up I won’t be a different person.

[neilkirkpatrick-blog]

Once More

I do not know why l’ve been this way to you. I am sorry. I am a fool.

I held myself above you– testament to my arrogance.

I went looking for warmer arms, found harlots, sirens, and whores they stole me from yours.

You’ve had some practice. You loved great artists and poets. I’m practicing now.

I return head bowed knees bloody. I deliver myself with joy. I will clean the room. I will make the bed. My woman, my heart. I’ve come back home once more for you to tear me apart

[neilkirkpatrick-blog]

Spider Song

babe you think i’m here you’re calling out to me there’s webs beneath your teeth and I can’t hear a thing your spiders come crawling out with every little evil thing you say to me.

warm red running down my chin and through my teeth I’m biting down on my tongue to hush the hissing underneath your spiders come crawling out wish you could somehow see what they do to me.

and I know that you're hurting but would you comfort me? hey, we're trying you're crying, crying out to sea.

Now I know you’re here you're calling out to me I've peeled back both my eyes so I can finally see your love that's there, deep inside past your throat and in your being.

and I know that you're hurting but would you comfort me? hey, we're trying

you're crying, crying out to sea.

[neilkirkpatrick-blog]

Goodnight Annie v1

i saw a snake lose her skin saw a new life begin i watched my lover change and my life rearrange

goodnight annie maybe i'll see you again one day annie when i've become a different man

the sun’s asleep in the ground tired of fighting the sky the moon is asking me why his words I failed to apply

i tried to hold you the night before i left around your trembling shoulders while you whimpered into the bed

goodnight annie maybe i'll see you again one day annie when i've become a different man

i imagine you think of me at night what a selfish assumption you'd even give me the time

I told you not to worry everything would be okay it's all i had to offer it’s all i could think of to say

goodnight annie maybe i'll see you again one day annie when i've become a different man

[neilkirkpatrick-blog]

Minor Song by Federico García Lorca

December 1918 (Granada) Dewdrops on nightingale’s wings, clear droplets of moon shaped by illusion. On the fountain’s marble the waterspout’s kiss, dream of humble stars. The girls in the gardens all bid me farewell as I pass. Bells too bid me farewell and trees kiss in the half-light. I go down the street weeping, grotesque, no answers, sad as Cyrano* sad as Don Quixote,* redeeming impossible infinites with the rhythm of clocks. I see irises dry touched by my voice bloodstained by light, and in my lyric song I wear the costume of a grease-painted clown. Beautiful marvellous love hides under a spider. The sun like another spider hides me beneath its golden legs. I shan’t find happiness, I’m like Love whose arrows are tears, whose quiver the heart. I’ll give everything to others and weep my passion like the child abandoned in a story crossed out.

[neilkirkpatrick-blog]

Claws

Surrender, dear Show us your claws Give yourself up To the night’s gaping jaws Oh love, I’ve waited for you

Your nails and your teeth sharpened with time give me my stay from those long wretched spines do you see they were made just for you? I fell out of you but now I’m coming for an old vow and now I'm savoring these moments with your fresh sharpened claws

Look what they’ve done holding my son I tore myself open inside of me, none. Deeper in me Deeper and longed for I wrote this alone on a basement floor As you fell out of me.

The regret, it falls soft fragile sounds from my glass jaw splintering down into the middle of me I made you a dress of red and of black I sank in the night loved under attack wont you look see what we've done?

I let myself fall to fate and to chance I left your arms During our dance I should have followed you

Surrender, dear Show us your claws Give yourself up To the night’s gaping jaws Oh love, I’ve waited for you

[neilkirkpatrick-blog]

Gone To New York

Without you broken-winged hawk severed I am

so much more than you think wandering nothing head your eyes have fallen my skewered white whale.

Oh, darling. You’re in for it now.

[neilkirkpatrick-blog]

Going To New York

I used to dream of you and I.

[neilkirkpatrick-blog]

Suzanne by Leonard Cohen

Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river You can hear the boats go by You can spend the night beside her And you know that she's half crazy But that's why you want to be there And she feeds you tea and oranges That come all the way from China And just when you mean to tell her That you have no love to give her Then she gets you on her wavelength And she lets the river answer That you've always been her lover And you want to travel with her And you want to travel blind And you know that she will trust you For you've touched her perfect body with your mind.

[neilkirkpatrick-blog]

Love Poem by Dorothea Lasky

The rain whistled. A taxi brought me to your apartment building And there I stood. I had dreamed a dream Of us in a bedroom. The light shining upon us in white sheets. You were singing me a song of your sailing days And in the dream I reached deep in you and pulled out a cardinal Which in bright red Flew out the window. Sometimes when we talk On the phone, I think to myself That the deep perfect of your soul Is what draws me to you. But still what soul is perfect? All souls are misshapen and off-colored. Morning comes within a soul And makes it obey another law In which all souls are snowflakes. Once at a funeral, a man had died And with the prayers said, his soul flew up in a hurry Like it had been let out of something awful. It was strangely colored, that soul. And it was a funny shape and a funny temperature. As it blew away, all of us looking felt the cold.

[neilkirkpatrick-blog]

on new yorkers being rude

new yorkers have this stereotype about being rude. isn't everyone in new york a jerk? i don't see that at all. in fact, I actually see how passive aggressive and fake my hometown is. beautiful portland, oregon. it's not that new yorkers are rude. they just seem rude to you because they don't give a shit about your feelings or your dreams. i find this quite refreshing. no one ever cared anyway. i mean, yeah. your parents and best friend do. sure. maybe you're just used to people seeming like they care. even if its fake. but here, you know where everyone stands. it saves time.

[neilkirkpatrick-blog]

love is not enough

I can’t wait to show you the the heart of the city. how it murmurs. how its beat slips sickness into its children. flays the old to clothe the meek. how the King of Brooklyn hangs by his hair in the rafters of the old piano factory. his death rattle laugh shaking the beams and pipes to quarter tones as he knights his newborns with a syringe. it will be perfect for us. you’ll see.