Yeah I ducked behind a trashcan
when I saw you coming,
I didn't have the words and I knew I couldn't stomach
the way your eyes gather shape in mine
without the words that I needed to say to you.
What you're looking for you won't find in me,
There's no sense of love
or human poetry,
Just a blackened fist of ashes in the corner of a trashcan
that I'm ducking behind.
I'm always saying something stupid,
like "I'm not John Berryman, I'm stupid"
or "I'm not Solzhenitsyn, I am stupid,"
and it's a waste of time.
Because it's stupid
to fetch for something fake but fairly striking
the world cut out their eyes
replaced with dollar signs,
sizer than sizeway lines,
and we're mired in slant rhymes.
And so we say
that there's nothing to say.
All the silence and the horror sidle up along the boredom
with their stupid rhymes.
Why can't we say
what we're meaning to say?
Oh, I swamp with potential
and I know I'll find the words I need to say to you.
Yeah I swamp with potential
but I'm always just singing these stupid fucking rhymes.