song of myself

Lyrics for song of myself

When the police arrive factories coughing up all my relatives Taillights glowing Weaving gambling medicine bags and tobacco offerings Marigold round vocabulary News reports from the altars of the ancestors Smiling, borrowing, scorching under the heart rate of progress Okay In the furnace of feelings Each morning I swallow the commodification Of my story and bleed into a cup of tea My shadow band There's power in the unseen We're divided by our values I threw the baby out with the bathwater Veil of blues blood flower rusted panty liner Wax of poetics on paper The flesh can sing too Okay One by one I bow to past selves And let them be wrong about me The coastline gibbering about names we did not declare at the border The honest home of bathroom mirrors You are as virtuous as your ear Sonorous stanzas Forgive me I do not follow my own advice I survey for answers I already know And question friends who do not know me I am with time Languishing in the laundry room My dresses Cobbling in the dryer feeds my body to dance Refresh the page Take inventory of self I lose faith Okay And sometimes I wonder my purpose Sometimes I participate in my demise I attend the funeral Walk the chalk line Sometimes I slam my hands I drink until I do not remember Yelling down and left alone I throw back bitter shots of life to the living lecture in my head Pity the fool On a soapbox With a mouthful of soap suds Okay Okay Okay And let them be wrong about me Okay Okay Okay