slipping into all the styles of the vagrants in the backstreets
can of fire haunts me, learning all these equilibriums without heat

the poverty of fear animates me like a boy so beaten by his parents that he screams
“don’t hate me”
tangled up in all the trappings of a christmas dinner now rotting in the deep freeze

i’d rather face the threat of death than live a life suspended in the spring breeze
suburban ticky-tack coffins in a row all asking "how much plastic does a man need?”
get me out of here, i never wanted to be living in a day dream
i’d rather cower in a night mare
at least these evening terrors keep me warm like my can of fire and its blank stare

staring down into my soul inaninimation stirs my heart I am another piece of
god

always moving never moved I am a piece of

god?

fear is not impoverished because it does not have a power
did your castle help protect from the trampled flower?
a labor'r said the poor the weak the lame
they are the salt that keeps the earth from going sour
i’ll forward out my can of fire like a corporate memo:

my life did not begin until i heard the bell toll, the eleventh hour.