check in, check out
day-to-day to bear much clout
this whiskey wagon won't let me out

shield-grown moss; deep rooted fever
cure-all cabins mulched far to near
pennliess from toe to head
burned out one soul per daily bread

I hope to buy myself home soon
sold seashell's worth sand on every dune
doomed beaches' surgeons' catacombs
slate-shim rattles into iron bones

still'd by wary strangers and the drink
grow'n hangmen, pistols, and the whicked think
spurred onward, sloughing skin to fuel a fire
unquenched parch of hell's desire

and though the boiler room runs fine
on debt-bound legs, nightly we've dined
infect the stamped out world with me
your work unborn with newborn's glee

O, Oasis, how you always fall
held crystal high on crystal ways
untouched as a chandelier
the higher I looked, the closer you'd feel

letters written in haste, desperate measure and abandon
your gaze, reign, and raze and clones' command in
all but one you felled and planted, row by row
the glue-bakced man named me
what finally told you: 'NO!' 

to spite your shuddering touch taste and spin,
my sex you stole, my heart you'd win
but my gaze a thousand years away
you'd never mistress my madness days

bought in moonlight, soldier's bets
amputees, the combat-vexed
build together to stand alone
god deafen'd you by blackpowder gun

you'll take all my form, but mine is the debt
of notches I've not paid back yet
though your brow is jealous, and lips curl'd and peel'd
you cannot keep, steal, nor break
all I am that's been steel'd