More.

He found beauty and peace in places overlooked:
Beer and cold air; cigarettes and mint tea;
High scores and stripper poles reflecting
light, spinning around a cock-eyed room.
He would sing and sing and wait for that
definite surge through his body to come, as it always did.

Inspiration keeps no schedules, he knew it.
No belief in muses, here.
He had, but not anymore. Too many feelings
involved. He had done away with sappy lines
scribbled in fear of losing a feeling, being 
left with nothing.

It was when the nothing came that 
the pen became a sword.

(And another one)

Scylla's Breath


I'm in France at this place
where the naked ladies dance, and
this man is telling me, Brother, the only way to win is to not turn it on at all.
I ask what he means by this, and, in way of response, he lifts a glass of fire and
drains it in one, consuming himself as he drinks.

I turn back to the Boom and the Swagger on the stage,and soon become 
hypnotized by hips and ankles, lost in a sea of beauty, gone slightly to seed.
I can smell their persistence and the smell is the taste is the smell, 
all menthols and talc and fear. I nod to the beat of the band in the
corner of the club, and as I do I begin to Nod in earnest, 
my own rhythm moving me to a ship, now, caught in some 
massive whirlpool, worthy of Homer and Odysseus.

Have I angered the Sea God? If so, what have I done to
set loose this wrath? But then I see a hand in the heart of the maelstrom,
one finger crooked and beckoning, and I steer the 
ship towards it, unafraid, because what lies at the bottom has to be safer 
than my choices up here: I can smell Scyllas' breath and 
on it I smell talc again, no chance there, no life at all.

Then, everything goes blank; I can't see or hear a thing.
It feels like 1998, in Albany, Oregon.
Yeah, boy, the end is certainly fucking nigh, and our collapse
is fueled by the sharp insanity of crushed Ritalin and vanilla.