Butcher - End of the World Graffiti

End of the World Graffiti-Revisited Poems and songs 1986-1996 Raegan Butcher End of the World Graffiti-Revisited Poems and songs 1986-1996 Raegan Butcher Copyright 1991, 2008, 2013 Cover art by Joe Newton All Rights Reserved Foreword You hold in your hands my earliest collection of poems, written between 1986 and 1991. Some of the songs were written as late as 2001 but are included here for the first time because, well, I just felt like including them. I think the first poetry that I ever admired was that of Edgar Allan Poe, when I was in the seventh grade. Then someone gave me a copy of A Coney Island of the Mind by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and I really liked it. Poetry, hmmm. Seemed kind of neat, playing with words.

I started writing songs (some of which are included here) when I was fourteen but it wasnt until I was seventeen and Patty Schemel introduced me to the poems of Leonard Cohen that the poetry bug really bit me. These days I no longer concern myself with rhyming but I think these old poems and songs arent too shabby. What do you think? let me introduce myself i am an idiot and a fool i have no mind just a series of clicks i live in an attic near the bay i dont speak i dont eat i dont bathe i sit and stare all day with the spiders while i listen to the seagulls and trains it wasnt always this way i used to have a chance but that was a long time ago now i cannot bear the touch of the sun or the sight of a smile i am in solitary confinement i am in exile i eat the hearts of girls and puke slugs and snails when i am alone i wish i could phone all of the girls whove made me have orgasms so i could thank them and tell them i forgive them for making other boys have orgasms when they were supposed to be with me i dont really forgive them but i want to fortune cookie i was in a Chinese restaurant i dont remember the name i ate my dinner in peace then the fortune cookies came You lover will never wish to leave you, it said i sighed and shook my head the cookie lied when it said that sunday drive & all is well out along the highway people are being crucified tied to huge wooden crosses with wet leather bindings that tighten in the sunlight vultures come to feast no one takes notice they just drive on by turning up their radios witness i am not writing a poem i am sitting in a dusty attic communing with insects they tell me they are almost ready they are going to have an uprising ants and spiders and beetles and flies and fleas and bees and ticks and termites in every house attacking reclaiming their territory (which is the world) i know that my time is almost up for they have told me honestly straightforwardly almost regretfully that i will not be spared and i wonder if i care night the night is a beast that comes crawling blinking its billion eyes wrapping around us like a snake like a wet blanket like skin holding us like a pebble in a fist in the darkness we are like hooked fish lament here i am five foot ten just bones and skin unchanged still bothered by the same things a voice a word a name a face a date a past a place a lump in my throat a strangers gaze stole away my hope i closed my eyes and saw you making love biography i am a young man i am hiding near the ocean i cant give you the address for obvious reasons it rains all of the time there are train noises and seagulls crying i hear them at night i hear them during the day my shades are always down not much happens airplanes fall from the sky like stricken birds armies march and die politicians keep lying janitors write poetry killers talk on TV before walking to the electric chair and everywhere children make a furious empty searching kind of love among the atomic bombs this is my face this is my face i find no comfort in mirrors the indescribable condition of my soul will bring forth no tears i am closing my eyes as love arrives too late soiled by over-anxious hands there is no love there is no joy if people really understood this they would rip the stars from the sky and slice their wrists upon the horizon but i am only closing my eyes i am closing my eyes my wonderful life i sit in my friends apartment he is working right now his girlfriend is here a beautiful thing she would like to sleep with me and i would so very much like to sleep with her but this has never been openly acknowledged we desist, i for the sake of my friend, she for the same reason, yet still, i get the feeling it would be awesome if we ever did, but there is this strange web: these promises, responsibilities, entanglements, they join some and keep others apart ill just sit here and watch the cat another day, same story im far away thinking about suicide and a new world order in the city i stand at a glass counter waiting for my cheese steak sandwich a pimp next to me a man who sells women i ask myself, how can this be? womens bodies on sale like consumer goods human values the size of a flea burns i wish i could remember how i got those scratches on my face when i was standing next to the light trying to look like James Dean i am going to drive into the sun and come back to tell you about it i am going to show you my most painful burns read them like tarot cards hostage you are my lover my hostage i will not let you go i will not let you grow gardens of doubt in my head i will bind your arms with my embrace and smother you with a kiss i will steal away your precious breath i will love you until there is nothing left you are my lover my hostage a perfect view a ringing in my ears soft but insistent distant yet demanding urging me to murder my victims a trio of houseflies dispatched quickly if not quite painlessly hairy black legs pumping wildly wings buzzing belly up dying i have a perfect view of their convulsions on the windowsill they are dancing with death they cant catch their breath audience drinking molten metal ignoring the pain he sat in the theater waiting for the show it was surprisingly realistic the shadows whispered prayers they bled what looked like blood but when he touched them he felt he was touching wax instead of flesh and he wept someone told him this was his life and he refused to believe it pessimists bible dont get up stay in bed the world will get the best of you one way or another dont go out dont do anything dont say anything if possible dont even think try not to think there is nothing you can do the deck is stacked against you the odds are not in your favor catalog the horrors become familiar with tragedy study misery like a slide under a microscope make a friend of misfortune dead born children betrayed lovers suicides of friends the futility of revenge dont get up stay in bed what men call laziness is clarity the ability to see that there is nothing to be done no clear course of action dont get up stay in bed sad face at the bottom of a glass the girl who loved me left the cage through some miraculous way i dont fall in love a thousand times a day a beautiful girl is worth a million drunks who sit in bars and kill themselves fable i know a girl who lives down the lane she has a garden full of growing pains she shares them with me she does this for free even though they drive me insane she nurses the flowers takes great care they feed off blood but she is not aware her body is bare i will not look i do not care she tills the soil oblivious of my despair revisionist history i know im not the first to love you or make love to you and i know i wont be the last they lied when they said the past cant hurt you history is murder my flesh screams as we move together who can i murder to make me feel better? i know theyve used your body i know a couple of the men by name but this knowledge brings me no comfort there is no one for me to blame no one feels disturbed or anything except me, of course, i am in pain and if pressed for a reason there is no way i could explain trip the night slipping silently dripping black hair and forms and bells and birds and bellies breathing beating useless wings sliding unheeding water stinging your eyes pale skin inhale uncertain why are you crying fifty seconds from yesterday drinking coffee at five in the morning cant sleep not after that dream i was with my old girlfriend on the couch making out making love we did it several times it was really nice just like it used to be and in the middle of it i wondered where is my new girlfriend and that jolted me awake and i was on the bed beside her my latest and i suddenly felt very guilty sad and confused drinking coffee at five in the morning wondering what am i doing where am i going it creeps up on us there is something moving toward you all the time calling through mirrors walking through windows making a mockery of bolts and locks and high-minded talk designed to console it is subtle and patient a damnation a life sentence ending in extinction a curse with no escape clause unmerciful inexorable it creeps up on us inch by inch day by day revealing itself in strands of grey hair combed hurriedly while worry lines form around frowning mouths it creeps up on us like an infinite number of ticking clocks it makes its way toward us dionysus cut to pieces it is a strange feeling to be sitting in this old hotel this could be the twilight zone or it could be hell this early hour of the morning the sound of some thing gathering strength outside in the darkness i am waiting for my door to explode i am waiting for a fire to rush inward screaming like a living thing i am waiting for my eyes to shrivel and burn white and clean i am waiting for a girl in a cadillac made of spider webs to arrive and give me a lobotomy while kissing me carefully plucking away my troubled thoughts with a gleaming ice-pick could this be hell? fingernails bloodstained and slick tingle my scalp comb out my concussion and smile yellow bugs i am haunted by certain kinds of cars Volkswagens yellow Volkswagens i remember driving in yellow bugs with girls who said they were in love with me i dont remember arriving or departing, just driving that was a long time ago now i see these cars, these yellow bugs all over the place i dont know what happened to the girls who said they were in love with me when i look inside those yellow bugs i dont see a single familiar face theyve all been driven away, i guess, by me alcohol insanity boredom probably theyve sold their yellow bugs or traded them in for husbands who dont drink dont write dont think and sleep just fine i cant blame them drunk sleepless so-called poets are probably a pain in the ass but i see these yellow Volkswagens everywhere i go and i remember scarecrow battered and bleeding Christ hung up to die what can he be thinking? pinned hand and foot against the wood his mortal remains curling up like a plastic cup in orange fire his wounds are fresh and deep he was mistaken about the meek they have inherited nothing a battered and bleeding scarecrow frightening the birds with his bloody brow and crown of thorns what must he be thinking perched in the silent evening with his head bowed mowing the lawn the woman who lives in the trailer across from me has two kids boys, very young they are too young to be left alone they are alone they are watching me mow the lawn one of them stands about three feet from me oblivious of the roaring machine he is fucked up: a cut on his chin dripping blood onto his little naked pot-belly with an open (dazed-chimp) mouth adding saliva he is covered head to toe in dirt and his diapers are full of shit his little brother, too young to walk is eating the dogs food out of the filthy dog bowl i go inside my place and shut the door wondering why people have children if they arent going to take care of them i peek out the window and see both of them sitting in the dirt near the dog house two doomed babies the problem i am the same have been for some time now i am frozen stuck in my present physical surroundings madness is just around the corner and poverty like a bully come to punch me senseless all day long i kneel before nothing and white walls a crucifix mounted on a paper skeleton i cant even finish this poem 22 nd birthday wake up shake off sleep with a cup of coffee the certainty of war sitting on the couch touching your forehead poison gas burning oil refineries cutting your toenails the end of the world looking out the window at the space needle Seattle, Washington happy birthday 22 years stuffed inside your hollow frame walking around in your clothes and feeling strange taking me under do you think that you know me i am feeling so lonely i wish you would hold me with something like hunger i am loving you only youre taking me under wish sometimes you bring out the best in me sometimes you bring out the worst i wish you knew what to do with the rest of me all of the parts that hurt kiss me goodbye you dig my grave with a smile i see it at night in your eyes be sure to wear black to my funeral and give me a big wet kiss goodbye busy man i am sorry i was explaining myself to the natives establishing my myth, as it were and i neglected for just a second to pay you the attention you command or deserve (im still not sure which) excuse me, i was bargaining for souls at the old well and i forgot to tell you about the struggle for control going on in lamp-lit living rooms and filthy basements filled with screams people too awful to believe are giving birth to bloody philosophies and meat-mangling machinery im doing what i can to foil their evil plans but its not easy because im a very busy man i apologize, i was stating my case intently intoning the Truth to a jury composed of creeps and i forgot momentarily about the late phantom touch of your perfume on my pillow when you were free and i couldnt sleep forgive me, i was relocating myself away from the lynch-mobs they are armed with good intentions but have the wildest aim and i failed to see your frozen fake eyelashes shatter on the mirror but contrary to what the greedy and impatient say i have not forgotten that you are here, my dear i am doing what i can, doing what i can but you must remember i am a very busy man not far to go now not far to go now, my love not far to go we are making good time, my love not far to go down by the riverside thats where were going the river, my love the river so cold it knows no remorse it will swallow you whole not far to go now, my love not far to go the river, my love let it swallow us whole a plateful of skin (song) youve just returned from the Barbie Doll Wars with a plateful of skin and a face full of sores on your nightly visit to the liquor store you ask, how much the clerk says, more youve already swallowed your poison its just a matter of taste dwindle away your hours make love to your mistakes your machines are out of order your checkbook is filled with murder there are courtesy clerks in the army your pets eat good but the neighbors are starving pretty pretty (song) you are pretty pretty walking down the street you are pretty pretty not missing a beat you are pretty pretty and i am pretty pissed i took my best shot and i missed you are pretty pretty but you are not very nice you are pretty pretty are you made of ice you are pretty pretty makes your world go around bone yard (song) blackness begins to fade night time turns to day we are on our way to the bone yard shovels and dirt green grasses fade wind blown leaves the trees sway we will bury another one here today at the bone yard everyones madness is hidden someplace mine is just coiled behind this smiling face outta my head (song) i got kicked out of school and i lost my job my room is a mess i am a terminal slob little blue pills they are good for the pain i cant see the storm through all of the rain walking around going outta my head been this way all day since i got up out of bed disco of the damned (song) dance all night have no fear dance all night the end is near dance all night theyve dropped the bomb trendy discos your last stand disco of the damned the doorman looks nervously at the cannibals outside no he says and shakes his head we do not serve your kind hit the dance floor and dont get up do the funky chicken and dont get up people dance on broken bones ring the doorbell no one is home looks like well have to dance alone looks like well have to dance alone dance all night have no fear dance all night the end is near dance all night youve got the plague trendy discos your last stand disco of the damned do you want fries with that? (song) ive slopped a mop and ive pushed a broom spent half my life in rented rooms ive bagged groceries and ive washed dishes ive shoveled shit and i've dug ditches janitor, busboy, its all the same welcome to the world of minimum wage wanna go for the gold, the pie in the sky but im always falling flat and now there is this burning question im just dying to ask, do you want fries with that? i wont get fooled again thats what i always say but here i am still slaving away for minimum wage living on food stamps i aint getting fat im stranded on an island in an ocean of crap with my name tag, my hairnet and my funny hat and theres this burning question im just dying to ask do you want fries with that? storage space (song) i got kicked out of another place so i keep my stuff in a storage space until i can find a better job my storage space is so damn small i can reach out and touch both walls when im standing in the middle of the room tonight ill wear my broken heart like its a crown as the room spins around and around i was mr. smarty pants, i dropped out of college it was my last chance and then i ended up living in my car my parents called me crazy, said i was stoned and lazy and they wouldnt let me move back in with them no they wouldnt let me move back home again tonight ill chant her name like its a prayer because i could use a savior but the walls are screaming shes gone, gone, gone! she stood up and slapped my face and tossed me out of our new place she said i was a no good worthless slob now my Bukowski books and all my tapes are crammed into my storage space and i still havent found that better job no, i never seem to find that better job White Bread (song) Suburban Kid Dont know what to do You had your cake And you ate it too You are White Bread Cant get away On your last leg You got all you wanted Didnt even have to beg Middle of the road On the right track Heading nowhere But at least going fast You got no worries But how long will that last You are White Bread When it all comes down What will you do You made your own bed Now sleep in it too You cant think for yourself You dont know what is true Theyve got you believing Everything they say and do So here is some advice kids Just listen to me And dont shit Where you eat Coos Bay (song) I came home the other day and found an empty place All her things were gone It was just empty space and a note on the fridge stuck with duct tape that said shed gone to Coos Bay She ran away but didnt say why She didnt even say goodbye I jumped in my Chevy Nova and left right away When I got to Coos Bay I saw a crowd of people gathered around and it smelled really bad Oh yeah, it smelled like something had died Then I saw a dead whale on the beach flopped over on its side It had been there for weeks and it was starting to stink oh yeah, it really did reek Then I heard a loud noise that rattled the window panes There was a great big boom that made the ground shake Then it started to rain At least I thought it was rain Because you see They packed that dead whale with dynamite and tried to blow it away That was their plan but it was totally lame Because they used way too much dynamite and they just blew that whale up So now Im standing in the rotten blubber rain As my love life swirls down the drain And the dead whale stink will not go away It will always remain I will always be horny I will never get laid The Devil Knows Youre Dead (song) When you feel as if youre nailed Hand and foot to the bloody cross When you look with eyes of love And see only misery and loss When you wake up screaming Soaked in sweat in your midnight bed Its because the devil knows youre dead When you run for comfort In a bottle or a needle When you look for the silver lining And find only suffering and evil When the agents of control Crush the spirits of honest men Its because the devil knows youre dead When you feel like you were born With ten thumbs and two left feet When you ache for something cool to drink And the cup is just out of reach When all you need is shade But all you feel is burning heat The devil laughs because he knows youre dead When you can no longer see Beyond the dark side of the spoon When you look into the mirror And see reflections of the tomb Your body is an instrument And it is always out of tune The devil laughs because he knows youre dead When there is no amount of money For which you wouldnt sign your soul away Even though you know you will be cheated And there will be hell to pay When you know that its your blood And not red ink inside that pen The devil laughs because he knows youre dead When you know the pilot lied And the plane is going to crash When you try to hide your eyes Because the wings just snapped in half When you know the end is coming And god damn is it coming fast! The devil sure as hell knows youre dead In-Flight (song) I did not create this world that I am in I just got here right before the end And it feels like I got onto a fast moving bus Feels like I got on to something thats in-flight Is it your job to force me to see the light? Your job to tell me whats wrong and whats right Zombiesthats what you want me to feel like Zombiesthats what I feel like Zombiesits not unreal Zombiesthats how I feel Tell me is it common to feel this way? Or have I just gone crazy? Does everything seem weird to you? What is it that sounds unclear to you? People say to me You think too much Well, what the hell am I supposed to do? Turn off your mind, dont ask no questions Things have been this way since long before you were born I did not create this world that I am in I just got here right before the end state of the union right now as you are reading this people just outside your line of vision are spitting and cursing and smiling and getting married and committing murder and popping zits and preparing dinner right now in hospitals with shiny white floors people are shitting away their last breath into cold bedpans and waiting for an organ to be removed waiting to be healed waiting to be cured watching soap operas and waiting to be visited by loved ones right now in suburbs with box-like houses child molesters fester behind solitude and pulled shades while outside baseballs are tossed and Barbie dolls dressed right now in jails with brown stucco walls people rot behind bars and smoke cigarettes and masturbate and imagine starving to death in a suddenly empty world right now in the daylight business district people rot behind mahogany desks and complicated telephones in pursuit of nothing and more right now in high schools attended by apes students daydream about sex and right now on the streets drunks crash their cars into lamp posts and guard rails and groups of small children waiting for the bus right now pay TV preachers rape cheerleaders and the CIA smuggles drugs into the country and the lives of saints are documented and autograph seekers stalk their prey and architects weep and judges judge and some people get the death penalty and some people get the life penalty and suddenly it gets dark like an eyelid closing and those who can sleep will and those who cant wont and in the morning everything will be the same except that during the convoluted course of the night some people will have departed from this mortal coil and some will have just arrived About the Author Poet and underground cult figure Raegan Butcher began writing in his mid-teens. His first collection of poetry, End of the World Graffiti , appeared in 1991. Five years later, he was convicted of armed robbery and spent seven years in prison.