CHANGES

I mean, what's goin' on?
I'm gainin' about a pound a day
like I'm this big bug
that gets bigger by breathin'.

I usta sleep on a cot
now it's the floor,
takes me hours to roll over.
And when I gotta go, forget it.
I need me a pit
cept I don't crap no more.
It's not like I don't eat
but there's all this stuff inside
buildin' up. It keeps on growin'.
Some day it's gonna explode
and you don't wanna be around.

It's somethin' they done in the hospital
or in the bar, or somewhere. I dunno.
No matter, I just know now
I ain't what I usta be.

---

CLEVER DEVILS

Sometimes at night I get the shakes.
It's like some dark angel
gets a solid grip on my shoulders
and bounces me out of sleep.

I'm soaked with sweat or spit or piss,
shiverin' there in the dark.
Maybe I don't know where I am.
Maybe I just wish I don't.
I reach out and turn on the lamp real quick
and the clever devil's gone.

I don't wanna look
but open my eyes anyway.
It's just like before,
like it always was.
Nothin' but me.

---

TAKIN' A BEAD ON GOD, HIS ANGELS, AND HIS SAINTS

We usta have these parades
when I was a kid, Memorial Day parades,
where you took these crepe paper streamers
and stuck em between the spokes of your bike
an’ in the rubber handle grips.
And all them old men marchin'
with them heavy old rifles
with funny white leather on their shoes.
The big boom of the big drums
and whistles and sirens everywhere.
And us kids ridin' our bikes in the streetcar tracks,
dashin' through the soldiers
an’ police cars an’ fire trucks.

Everybody movin' to the cemetery
where the parade comes to a stop.
Drum rolls and them heavy guns
pointed up to clouds to sky to God
our Father and all His angels and saints.

Boom! Boom! Boom! all at once
the crypts would shake and we'd
grab our ears for the ache.