You don’t have to hit me to make me cry,
But I would beg for it just once;
Your hand down on my cheek to make my eye explode
And I would know that something was there-
Beneath of all of your nothing

In the static, someone speaks in code-
Old messages languish without feeling-
The imprint of words empty, floating in a tide-
Time progressed, and no one was receiving.
The meaning, a pulsing shadow of
Words that kept repeating-
Achtung, listen:
If I were dying who would know-
Far off into nowhere, into breathless and
Expansive space
Words repeating;
Achtung, listen while I speak-
Not to you.
The language is devised, disassembled before
Being learned and disowned-
Long after the speaker is gone, no one can decode
A sound heard over the radio
Dial, in the static, to someone not seen
Not heard, not known.
(Achtung, mayday)
Notes ping in an echo,
The sound of a ghost.

I’m an intellectual for just a pause
Beneath the breeze of a ceiling fan,
To my drink on the bar, and a companion on my side,
Although I’d like to kick his memory away-
The words could have come from Gandhiji,
They revolve in my memory through a gramophone,
And crackle with each crack snagging the needle-
It’s safer to have a drink than anything else tonight-
Like I knew you were, like I was saying before
Being interrupted at the end of the song-
I was drunk, I was high, and I don’t remember anything,
So stop taking this nothing so seriously-
And so what do you say?
Your head is all a great mystery; it’s a book
I’ll be leaving on the shelf cause I’m not one
To read. Nothing is as interesting as
The cubes in my glass dissolving
And making my gin turn into a frown.
Before we do something to make me wish I could kick your memory away
And shake it off like beads of rain from my sleeve-
Drunken nothing never meant anything
Except weave stories of regret
To sing next time at another bar, to another boy
Plying drinks on me.