Criminal

What a lie you carve
and try to sell as art,
making every mistake over
and painting it red, black, and grey.

It's the only shade you see,
but you talk yourself down
and up and over and in
side and side to side.

Stolen images as criminal
as each stolen word
you swipe
from the next small thing.

Out of garages and basements
and ribcages and veins
spill ethereal thuths
onto brick color streets.

A vocabulary more real
than any I can comprehend;
it's my personal lacking
and it's starting to show.

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"I think I'm gonna make the same mistake twice..." Elliott Smith Punch And Judy