More Shit From The Bogus Captain (2004)

forgot the milk. 

i forgot the milk but i picked up this cool rock in the parking lot when i came out i'm not sure why i stopped.  it occurred to me that there's a time and a place where we could joke about astrology punctuation marks and we could wander into water without caring how deep with our hands in our pockets and breathing life into the company we keep.  i still can't find the car but i met this old movie star he's living down the street from us he hasn't worked in quite a while.  he's been living in between the man he was and hasn't seen he owns a couple acres and he hasn't even been there maybe we could be his friends or maybe even his kids and when he dies a couple years from now he'll leave us everything that was his.  it's the same thing i told you about yesterday it's not what i would do if i was smart but every time that a wall falls down there's one less thing to attach it to.  and it goes on and on and on.  i forgot the milk but i picked up this cool rock in the parking lot when i came out i'm not sure why i stopped.
 

alligator hearts.

barbecuing alligator hearts on the roti alligator grinning from a far place so sly spitting on the fire fan the coals with an overcoat alligator chained to a stake by the rowboat.  barbecuing alligator hearts on the roti fly little birdie fly fly little birdie fly soaking up the juices with an old piece of moldy bread cut into the alligator 'fore the alligator's dead.  sneaking down the river in a cardboard raft keeping close to the banks and the weeds when the way gets narrow start to picking up shadows as they shimmy down the mangrove trees.  walk on the beach sleep in the shade cook by the light of the moon heading to the pit with a twenty-foot spit that we buried in the side of a dune and then we're barbecuing alligator hearts...cutting through the park before the barbecue starts checking on the old recipe atticus sparks well he's got the first part tattooed to the back of his knee.  good lord save old godfrey mays ever since his grandma died.  well he's got part two she's the only one who knew he had to scrape it off the backs of her eyes and then we're barbecuing alligator hearts...burning up doors and the wood from the floors that we stole out of the old hotel sawyer's packing meat for the mean parakeet that he keeps in the bottom of his well.  and the hearts they sizzle in a dark wooden haze and the night doesn't want to go home and they howl and they scream and they swallow their rings and they beat the gator with his own bones and then we're barbecuing alligator hearts.

this never happened to clyde.

every minute of the day every body buried away every ransom every fine every dash across state lines every dollar into the bag all of the chloroform in the rag did you see that it meant everything to me because i know it's true it never meant a thing to you.  every new life that we led every stocking over the head every blister every lock every cue ball in the sock every roll of dimes in the fist every possible target list did you see that it meant everything to me because i know it's true it never meant a thing to you.  every secret every smile every mugshot in the file every rest stop every bank every gallon into the tank every lock you ever picked every safety pin you licked did you see that it meant everything to me because i know it's true it never meant a thing to you.

mistaken front porch disease.

don't you go mistaking friendship for disease.  five-and-dimers on the front porch there to take you out -- at the knees.  and don't you go pretending you're not one of these, gluing the best of all your postcards to the walls in places you can't even see.  when you moved to maine and took up with the redhead with the chocolate lab i thought for sure you'd gone to stay.  and the plastic dishes that you left behind just sat there naked in a pile with mine and we all got together and we talked to them sometimes.  there's a bone to pick and there's fat to chew there's the things we understood and there's the things we knew and the gap that's in between it just grew and grew and you can never understand the things that we went through every morning when we opened up the rolling stone and read that the world hadn't ended and he still wasn't dead and i can't recall all the things that we said but we talked a lot about you.

kane, pa.

the telephone book ain't as thick as it used to be the taylors moved out and tore down the christmas tree lot by the junkyard where crystal and me learned to kiss.  and i always thought that i would grow up to drink in the same corner bar my dad used to sleep in when mom kicked him out because his gambling was bleeding us dry.  everything's slower when people are leaving the chainsaws and mowers don't saw up the evening and i can go walking and nobody's seeing me sigh.  i got this place to live nowhere to call home two bucks for a hotdog ten cents for a snowcone and the man at the bank keeps a jar full of bones for the dogs.  none of the words mean what they used to mean ribbons on trees the sound of a cash machine someone must empty the meters but i don't know who.  and the people you see in their cars in the telephone booths outside bars none of them can remember who they are.  my folks came over from sweden so long ago i can't remember their names.  there's a box in the basement that's full of their letters their pictures and scarves and their stains.  they walked on the water and branded their daughters and cut down the trees on the land.  most of the things that they've done have been forgotten but the things that they built still stand.  some of the things that they built still stand.  but none of the things that they built still stand.

oeo bleus.

used to be an easy way to ignore the fact that everything behind the fence had dried up used to be a gold star on my forehead used to be a hand-me-down like a man-made lake where the little wooden boats don't float used to mean i had to wear a winter coat.  now it's just so typical and classic beating up on the hopeless roman holiday.  used to be that a map on a wall didn't make me think about a wall where the map once hung used to be i thought that i might need one used to be a monkey on the back of a little white kid growing up in a dim-lit town used to be a one-man show but that burned down.  now it's just a cracker with a shotgun saying "hey maude come on and check it out i got one."  geography is fucking with me again.  used to be a way to escape from a stripmall sub and have a brand new job lined up used to be there wasn't anything to escape from used to be that it didn't much matter where the rain came from or why my neighbors used to read my mail used to be a set of old clubs at a yardsale.  used to be such a failsafe and now i just hallucinate.  geography is fucking with me again.

busted a custom.

i think i've grown accustomed to this ridiculous insane place do you think that might be bad?  waiting for a weakness and swooping down with grace and force year after year what do you think about that?  and it's the same thing every time you close your eyes i can see your faces in between the cards in the missiles and the violins and the cars out on the lawn it's a tipsy waiter it's the hall of fame it's an alligator unfamiliar with the rules of the game.  i think i've grown accustomed to that disapproving thing you do with your face do you think that's just a little bit sad?  it's not the same as when you get to throwing really heavy things at my head it's not the same as when you're mad.  and it's the same thing every time you turn your back when the dice get thrown i swear i hear you sigh in the television advertisements we won't ever see it's a late arrival it's a broken stone it's an alligator who's forgotten all the ways to get home.  i think i've grown accustomed to the way the walls are caving in on this place but it's still the best we'll ever have.  all filled up and emptied out and hanging on by a tiny thread cracking up and rusted just a tad.  and it's the same thing every time i step outside all the fonts are just too difficult to read heavy-natured indecisive blurry to the bone it's a rolling under it's a nine-to-five it's an alligator always cool enough to give us a ride.

omigodwereallgonnadie(a love song)

i saw the devil today in the checkout line i couldn't help thinking that it's only a matter of time we're going down and we're going down fast there's no need to be so complicated.  the dogs are out again and the lawn's overgrown if we rein them in soon we can probably claim them back as our own the end's upon us nothing's going to change that we might as well wear our funny hats.  twenty days or twenty years a big caboose is headed here we might as well be singing on the tracks because breathing really deep it isn't going to bring anything back.  i guess it's pretty good you didn't end up dead but it would be a lie to say that this is what we expected of you we tried so hard just to keep our heads above water and you showed such promise.  you can lecture on and on until you're blue in the face make excuses and apologize until there's nothing left to say it wasn't funny but you're right when you said that in the end it all falls away.  twenty years or twenty days a big caboose is headed this way we might as well be hanging downtown because breathing in your pocket isn't going to slow anything down.  it's weird i'm not sure how i can explain it to you but the part of me you like is the part that i like too it doesn't dance it can't afford to buy food but that's completely inconsequential.  you're tangled in a ring but we can break that rule we'll stay up late at night and wash it off in the swimming pool let the moon dry us out and wait for the sun to come up together.  twenty days or twenty years a big caboose is heading here we might as well be singing on the tracks because breathing in your pocket isn't going to bring anything back.

needle in the fire.

holy shit it's another god gets all the bad guys in the end flick, you can't make me go but i still went.  and incidentally it does not bother me that you never heard a word i said, none of it was true none of it was true i wish i wasn't dead.  and i know you were nodding off before the last song i could hear you coughing were you dreaming of a cigarette?  good sweet god did you not think it was odd when you were living in a painting on my wall, you were so cute you were so flat you were so small.  i can see delivery of anything you want to be to any place that you end up.  things are going to be kinda different things are going to be tough.  and i know you were nodding off before the last scene i could hear you coughing were you dreaming of a cigarette?  i remember you in between the outstretched arms and the magazines the running around the freaking out the things that we could steal from your cousin's house the setting loose and the breaking free the things that you wouldn't lie about with me in an empty room with a dusty chair and a sundust broom at the old school new world's fair.  holy shit it's another god gets all the bad guys in the end flick.

rooms we wouldn't leave.

all the time that we spent laughing drinking beer out in the sun all the planning and ideas promises we will be that way again.  all the places that we've been to all the things that we have seen all the words that we've stuffed deep into our pockets we will be those things again.  all the friends that we have been with all the people that we've been all the things that we have wished we could become we will be them all again.  all the secrets and venetian blinds and dusty sun that crept into those rooms we wouldn't leave.  there is nothing left to keep us separated from those things.  all the time that we spent laughing drinking beer out in the sun all the planning and ideas promises we will be that way again.