Well Mannered Thieves

Paul's meandering thought stream.

[wellmanneredthieves]

Image

glass pane centerfolds small boxes of beauty youth as a possession  inside leaking maple

fleeting at best but we exist infinitely in these ageless seconds, stuck between a locket and two closed fingers

to be the object or the craving neither being human two sides of the same coin worn smooth by decades of back-alley purchases

humanity as a commodity conscious uncertainty as a billboard-cigarette image confusing purpose the mirror as a canvas as a distraction as art 

[wellmanneredthieves]

g

the garment was gaudy and the guy gyrated grossly

great gaffes from the growth  of garbage genetics give up on good for guns and genitals grasping at low grapes under the guise of gratitude gluttonous grandeur and a god-complex gifted in gibberish gesturing like a gentleman

[wellmanneredthieves]

f

i am filled with flippant fissures  feral, in their frenzied futility i forget how fragile are my fortress frames, feeling like fodder for flaming foliage

i flaunt my infrequent felicity from fear that friends may forsake a faint and foggy fellow

the way i figure: better to feign than to falter and fail

faceless fucking and fading fast

[wellmanneredthieves]

e

enduring echoes emphasize the end of an era you egress eons earlier escaping with ease now the event has exhausted and i examine your existence the evidence everywhere so the enigma expects to endure

eclectic earrings and entangled effects evoke and extort emotions the ego erodes

the empathy emancipates

you endear 

[wellmanneredthieves]

d

dolls in doorways drumming on deep-set decks dancing with death downstairs the dark devotion is departmental  in devouring your dialect damned and degraded don’t dream, darling dying daylight is a doubtful duress drop dependence and drift to darkness 

[wellmanneredthieves]

c

clip the cages the children create chaos chide cynically, careful cadences candies and chocolate causing conflicts, countering cessation continue cracking control coaxing canes: a cheap, counterproductive con the children cling to chaos

[wellmanneredthieves]

b

brave but bare bones break beneath a bulky being burls like braille on blue bodies black blisters and bulletin boards blonde blue bird, babe began with bullets bottomed with a barrage of barbed blockades better butterfly bigger breed

[wellmanneredthieves]

a

animals all around our alkaline artists arguing and augmenting angels into aggravating assumptions all anybody asked for was an apple Adam’s accomplice acquiesced and audibly arranged for alcohol and animosity  

all the animals asked for was an apple

[wellmanneredthieves]

Little Love

little love, you’re a cannibal you ate my heart, and you ate my soul you’re a new kind of beautiful it’s hard to breathe little love, you are dark and smooth coffee black and machine gun blue and i can’t take just one or two if you know what i mean little love, she was painted red lip stick burns on his collar said he would rather stay home instead but she wanted to dance little love, if you knew the truth tide is low, but it’s overdue like a gin shaken with vermouth it will swallow you

[wellmanneredthieves]

some place far from here

i fell into a doorway like an inept gratitude faltering clumsily towards an exit trying not to be rude

but in my haste to finish the story i forgot to close the loop now i’m tying all my loose ends into a hangmans noose

if i can escape myself for a fraction of a second i’ll be in much better health and i might understand the lesson

but it seems easier to drag my tail between my knees run off to the promise land and do as i please

[wellmanneredthieves]

you are winding you are twisted and graceful like tumbling water flowing down from the table but you are patient and you are never wasted subtle fingers and bad conversation

[wellmanneredthieves]

bracing for the massive impact but the collision never came so I just stood there                                     like an asshole waiting for the train

[wellmanneredthieves]

all the earth for a cup of coffee

[wellmanneredthieves]

They were elegant flowers All the lovers, made of pretty colours Tacked on to window sills  Like beautiful jumpers.

[wellmanneredthieves]

You are winding Twist around my center Like fading white lines Shifting under the weather

[wellmanneredthieves]

Maybe it should be simpler.

[wellmanneredthieves]

For Wilf and his House

When young the Christians told me how we pinned Jesus like a lovely butterfly against the wood, and I wept beside paintings of Calvary at velvet wounds and delicate twisted feet. But he could not hang softly long, your fighters so proud with bugles, bending flowers with their silver stain, and when I faced the Ark for counting, trembling under the burning oil, the meadow of running flesh turned sour and I kissed away my gentle teachers, warned my younger brothers. Among the young and turning-great of the large nations, innocent of the spiked wish and the bright crusade, there I could sing my heathen tears between the summersaults and chestnut battles, love the distant saint who fed his arm to flies, mourn the crushed ant and despise the reason of the heel. Raging and weeping are left on the early road. Now each in his holy hill the glittering and hurting days are almost done. Then let us compare mythologies. I have learned my elaborate lie of soaring crosses and poisoned thorns and how my fathers nailed him like a bat against a barn to greet the autumn and late hungry ravens as a hollow yellow sign. - - Leonard Cohen

My new favourite Cohen poem. I would love to hear peoples interpretations of this one.