1983

This is the first time I've mourned the loss of a part of me. Oh god, I can't feel them anymore. I used to be able to take it all in, and now it's just blowing over me, stinging like a desert wind.

Well, that's a blow to the carapace/thorax/gut if ever there was one.

-

Are you experienced, Gypsy Eyes?
Your house is burning down
Aflame of the midnight lamp
The telephone screams
The traffic lights explode
On long hot summer nights

I'm standing tall as mountain
Reach right in and take some sugar
I'm standing up to the mountain
And making an island of it
Just for me
The smug bastard from the past
The smug bastard ain't going to last

Set fire to the strings
Oh, priest, oh, cenobite of psychedelia
And let the country know
It'll shake to the roots when you sing

Seraphim.

Reference.

Angels rushed out
To help the dying
The sick
The poor
The children crying
The ragged and the meek
And then
They presumed to be done
And ascended again

But the meek continued to whimper
And the dying continued to die
And the poor starved to death while we weren't looking
I can hear the children cry
And they scream harsher
Than any angel can know
To help a child
With such sorrow
How can the divine
Expect to help at all?

The presence of the winged wonder
And the wheels in wheels
And the burning feathers drive you mad
This only hurts the mortal form
An angel cannot feel
Misguided at best
Are the holy and blessed

The babies cry
The fearful hush
That is why God abandoned us

.

Business ventures
Tend to be more
Well orchestrated than this
But on the fly is the way we'll go
And maybe one day we will know

Bookshelves.

Books you haven't read
I'll get around to them
Some day
But the shelf is so inviting
And padded for their pleasure
I'll get around to them one day
Read them all in equal measure
The books I plan to read
Often fall right off the shelf
Becoming ones I planned to read
And never did

I've found that when I sit down
And have designs to read
I can never sit quite comfortably
I can never really breathe

The books recoil at my analogy
My metaphor and simile
Whether it's not good enough
Or far too much for them
Well, that's a little hard to tell

I want to read so many books
That want too to be read
I'll never get around to them
And one day I'll be dead

Blanket Tactics.

There never was
Any freedom
Or none so pure as that
Which is drifting off
Now
Into the ether
Evergreen
We must remain
If we're to weather
This refrain
Time is not ours for the spending

Patches of red
In my eyes
And my lungs
And my head
And, oh dear
It seems I've been stung
By insects and bugs
All manner and kinds
They've never tasted a flesh
Quite so sweet as mine

Blips and beeps
Find me a place
A refuge
Of sorts
To cover my face
With an idiot smile
Cleverly wrought
But easily broken
For those that have sought

Brain in overdrive. Send help.

Am I overly intellectually stimulated? Am I delirious with fatigue? This is three in one day. I'll admit that this and the first were short, but the point remains: three in one day. I've rarely had the mental fortitude to manage one every two, and now It's all pouring out of me like sand from a punctured golem. There, look back a few and remember what that metaphor meant. Oh god most of them were actually more than just empty words. And they're pretty-ish to boot. Much prettier than when they were just empty words. Maybe I just think they're better because they're not banal.

That's new. There's been actual reflection and critical thought going into these.

Actually, that's a little scary.

-

The seasons change
But I am stone
Is this how it goes: alone?

The leaves will join
That great big wheel
And what is left for me to feel?

They shift while rooted
In the ground
And beasts and men change all around

I think that's how it's best to be
Like the shifting leaves on the rooted tree

Give yourself an anchor
Give yourself a home
And should the world defeat you
It's okay to go back
To the place you call your own

But only for a time

Mega.

This youthful eidolon
He is conjured by my will
Or has he conjured me?

In truth I wished for his company

But that word that flies
And shows me the dead
Is still far off
I can't even touch it
Let alone understand what it said

Skin-fold wings from the past
Raise the quiet dead
Sonorous
Within my aching head

And another of divergent path
Who comes from fire
Who comes from ice
Good God!
It's crafted in me
Another damnèd vice

The mysterious foreigners have come
And I can only hope to catch a glimpse

Before the strings have settled
The cogs have made their move
Red lights beckon me to bed
The temptress, tempter
Tempting me to bed

And I really should go

But look! Across the plains!
Another like the ravens
That will pick at my alabaster skull
And a hell raiser sleeps
Off this sickness
So that she may rise again
In time

The space colours now
Are all I see
Or hear, rather
Swirling like the night
But with an eldritch purpose
Swirling, not unlike the light
That gives me pause to look
And strain my fragile eyes
To recognise
My even weaker hands

Falling through crowds of angels
And crows
And mighty antelope
I retire from despondency
Sometimes I wonder how I cope

First Prize!

A prize cannot be given freely
If the prize yet lives.
If the given prize yet lives, there'll be
No prize yet left to give.
And if a prize, it does decide
To up and run away;
The prize to be given
Will thus be riven
But we'll find another prize some day.

...

I shot them all
And let God sort them out
And now they're rising
From their graves
Nice to know that God
Has a sense of humour

..

Mistaken chords, and a banshee
Howls, to me?
I'm feeling a little far
Off, see?
This is a Greek tragedy
Played on crystal glasses
Half-filled with cold coffee

.

Vibrating on glass
Here I am, and plastic buds
Butcher my old loves
And it starts falling out of me
Like sand

Inside Out.

I'll take maggots and coal
To replace my skin
In my fingertips' steads
You'll find scorpions' stings
From black char lungs
Come the red desert's winds
Now I've Hell on the outside
As well as the in

I've Hell on the inside
As well as the out
Atrophied organs
Of rot and of gout
Dropping chunks of dead flesh
Like a cursed apple tree
As well as outside
I've got Hell within me

A whole packet of kettle chips.

I'm quite drunk. I said to myself 'I'm going to finish that bottle of duty-free gin tonight', but that was before I checked how much gin was left. I've made my bed, leave me to lie.

I've had a bit of time to think
(And really quite a lot to drink)
And I've decided
I've confided
In myself
It would be best if you left
Other me
I don't care if you came before

Shake and shiver
And cry and quiver
Why don't you just fuck off?
You can recoil
All you want
It won't amount to a minute's worth
Of toil
On that front

You're a child
And must be purged
And must be purged
Get out, get out
You pile of rot
Within
Without

The Way They Should.

It's a fox in with the hens
Ink pouring out from a pen
The senate, boy I've seen it
Cut it, I bleed
Dripping through the diamond lens
Things don't go the way they're supposed to here
Don't you know

A dotted line, that ain't China White, boy
The houseplants having heartattacks
A gambler, rambler, Phillipino man
With all the right attachments
God-fearin', God-hearin'
Spic-span man
With all the wrong indictments

I'm talking
Foreign polymaths
With the All-Americans
And I know nothing goes the way it should
Don't you know

And, boy, I don't go the way I should
And this scotch don't go down smooth
Like it should

Oxymoron suffocation
Oxygen conversations
Anti-climatic invocations
And glamorous provocations
You better believe
They don't go the way they should

Don't you know
I"m suffocating too
In the oxygen
In the air
I'm feeling so damn tiny
Out in the open air

But I'm bigger on the inside
I'm bigger than the fucking world
And it hurts like hell
Don't you know

Boom.

Boom

Did you hear that?
I think it was the door
There's a smokey vapour coming in
Right up through the floorboards
And in through the windows
The banners of the hordes
The stripes and steel longswords
Boom
Did you hear that?
They're headed for this room
I don't wonder what's in store

Free peoples don't amass as such
Free men choose not to fight as much
They're still vicious to a fault

Boom

Alright
I'll go first
You'll probably hear me scream
But that won't be the worst of it

No way out now

I Hate The Night.

Trite love songs yeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

Capo 2

Fig1. C | E | F | E

I hate the night
I hate it's selfish starlight
And I hate it's cold
And I hate how it's old
And blocks my sight

I hate the moon
And how it comes back around so soon
Casting shadows on the street
Hardly worth it to meet
In the cold of the moon

Fig2. C | Em | F | Em E

I hate your eyes
But only in the night
I'd love to watch them shine and sparkle
In the right light

Fig1.

I hate the sun
I'm sure it's a lot of fun
But it makes me close my eyes
And it brings out the flies
And it's never done

I hate the wind
And how it blows and burns my skin
It's no substitute for
How you laugh, it's worth more
Than all of the winds

I hate the rain
It just comes and comes again
It messes up our hair
And puts a nip in the air
I hate the rain

Fig2.

I hate your touch
Right after it rains
Cold just like the moon
That's why I hate the rain

Fig3. F | C | E | G

I hate it all, and I hate you
I hate the way the little things you do
Escape my sight, it's not as if
They're not important too

[F] Nothing is good enough for me since [C] I laid eyes on you- [E] I hate it all
And I think I hate you-

Fig1.

I hate your eyes
And you skin and your smile
I'd not even walk a mile
If the sun was in my eyes

It wouldn't be complete
If I couldn't see your eyes
When we meet

I Confess.

Roy Orbison and K.D. Lang mess with my braaaaaaiiiiiiiiiin. This isn't about the Devil or angels or perdition or anything. Fuck.

I confess
I'm done, and sadly
I need it all
Love me madly

Time was once
We had it all, too soon
Time was done
That we set our sights
On the moon
I've had all
The moonlight I could take
I'll confess
I'm still not quite awake

I repent
For this indignity
I need to take in it all
The sea, the city

The writhing sands
Coiling up, the moonlit walk
A tryst or twist
Or smile and idle talk
That's all fine
But what about my bones
The aching limbs
And flesh
I'm hardly stone

I confess
I'm dying over here

Allfather.

This was a song but I forget how it went so I turned it into verse. Shit, I wish I could remember it.

Waking from a sleep
My legs are stiff like
The tree they're bound to
Arms twisting up branches
I hang from a tree
I do it all for you
The father
That is me

My blood beats
On the hardened frost and snow
Twisting down the roots
I wonder where those roots will go
Nine roots bound in snow

Nine blackbird wings
From the nine black worlds
To Hel and the great hall
To the runes and Ragnarok we fall
Down the well my eye fell
Vani(r)shed down the well
Mimir murmurs
Eats my eye
And with my lasting one I spy

My blood beating down
To the wolves of the plains
Soaking down
The roots

With my remaining eye
I spy
The eighteen runes
Written
In my eye
I throw them up into the sky
And the World Ash releases me
And I
Am wise in the nine black worlds

Please Breathe.

Am - Em - Bsus - Em

Today
We'll fly
Finally
We'll open up the sky
Yesterday
Will haunt us no more
Please
Breathe

Today
We'll know
After all
We'll make it through the snow
And tomorrow
Is scary still, it's true
Please
Breathe

Please breathe
It's the only way they'll know we're here

Tomorrow
We'll escape
Only when
Our plans finally take shape
After that
We'll have to run away
Please
Breathe

Tomorrow
The prison bars will fall
And when they do
We'll sound out our proud call
And then
They might have to take us away
Please breathe

Please breathe

Today
We die
Finally
We'll soar into the sky
Yesterday
Is of little use for us
Don't
Breathe

Tom Waits for no man.

Some of our words are stolen directly from Tom Waits songs. Try to guess which ones. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

He came home from the war with a party in his head
With a nail sized hole cut in his knee
Went home and found his wife with another man instead
And his mistress ran away to Tripoli
Ain't no broken bottle's there, but a fire in his mouth
And an eyeglass made of lead over his face
Legs like choking fish he lead a march down to the South
The inspector's keeping close after his case

He came home from the war with a party on his bed
And a penchant for casino games and dice
Shuffled up to Baltimore 'cause of what a gypsy said
You know he's crazy 'cause he always says it's nice
Little fairies made of tin, they know how to be his friend
But good luck to those who want to be his wife
Some say there ain't no pattern to the messages he sends
Some say he'll keep sending them all his life

He came home from the war to party 'till he's dead
He brought fireworks along just for the fun
They went off in his face, and across his garden shed
Like a bullet from a pretty blue gun
He came home from the war, but some call that fraudulent
But he answers right away and doesn't stall
It's a special kind of crazy that doesn't happen by accident
Some doubt that he was ever there at all