1. |
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Skip Along the Footpath of a Wounded God
Bereft of any standard
or a single thread of faith.
Sweet the benefactor’s plate
and life in blank disgrace.
Animals are gathered,
you can sound your mating call.
Gates are polished stainless,
but there’s shit smeared on the walls.
Disemboweled women
clamber seasons for to shift.
Rugged faggot sailors
cling to clippers long adrift.
You’ve been sucking in your entrails,
He’s not been sparing the rod.
There’s a footpath up the rectum
of a hairy, wounded god.
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2. |
Rachel's Garden
03:30
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Rachel's Garden
Winter gave you,
warm breath and a wandering gaze.
Winter claimed you,
punch drunk, cold and craven days.
It's a bit like the myth
I fashioned to tell and repeat
to break and delete
places where they've seen me standing.
There's a hole beneath the vines
at the end of every guise.
The seeds will come alive
in Rachel's Garden.
Summer slayed you,
blossoms torn in heaves of thought.
Summer made you
one with others tied in knots.
No quarter in mind
for any trace of space or time.
Your verdict divine,
your tail in shreds from all the dragging.
To open the vines
don’t take any sides.
Ten worlds will collide
in Rachel’s Garden.
Rachel, can you smell the smoke?
It’s all coming down,
just like you said it would.
Rachel, can you hear me choke?
Will you turn around?
Please, help me if you could.
To open the vines
don’t take any sides.
Let these worlds collide
and light up your garden.
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3. |
Mass Production
03:33
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Mass Production
With the crew assembled on the deck,
weave a rope to string him by the neck.
Point the floodlights down to ease the blow.
Come next spring you'll neuter all your young.
Passion plays of all that you've become.
Nail by nail enactment of the
railings you've come
to bend undone.
Teeth grind bone crumbs.
Mass production begun.
Make them walk the plank so they will know.
A million sharks are circling below.
Bouts of feeding frenzy steal the show.
Heed the hum of survival machines.
Go deaf by the minute hearing screams
of those confined to asking why the
erring checksum
bent rails undone.
Teeth grind bone crumbs.
Mass production begun.
With your mercurial smile,
will you hold that thought a while?
Never leave this heated hive.
It's imperative you survive.
Survive
with railings no one
will bend undone.
Teeth grind bone crumbs.
Mass production.
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4. |
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Car Wrecks and Castration
“Take my hand,” she said,
so I did and followed,
and she showed me where she lived:
“Nothing much survives here,
and they've passed castration
over my dead body too,
and I wished you'd been there.”
Where pterodactyls circle the air,
dogs get fixed within their pairs.
Nothing there but nothing there, my friend.
My friend.
Papers read
it was touch and go,
and I crossed my fingers and I laughed:
“Yes, I'd like to hold you,
while they climb out of their
car wrecks gasping for their breath,
and they all die trying.”
Tired of birds dropping in mid-air
and ghosts of parents beyond repair
and nothing there but nothing there, my friend.
My friend.
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5. |
Resolve
04:36
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Resolve
I asked you about carnal knowledge
and how to strip flesh from the bone.
You took me to the place
where the bell tower meets the river.
I peered into the tunnels of your skull,
visited graveyards,
and steadied myself
for another shark attack.
Because I will come home,
I will drop bombs,
I’ll carry on your good name
and all your tight resolve.
“Regarding carnal knowledge,”
you said and pointed to my neck,
“whatever it is, it involves draining
every precious crimson drop.”
“Return here, and relay
how you've been mended.
Apply what you've learned
when another shark attacks.”
But still I come home,
still I drop bombs,
I still carry on your good name
and all your tight resolve.
“As solitude abides,” you said,
“just keep it all inside,
and keep steadfast, my stationary friend.”
“It's a lesson worth repeating;
someone has to take the beating,
and keep the candle burning at both ends.”
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6. |
The Rope
04:22
|
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The Rope
There's a shaft of light
crawling through the door,
dreary, vacant-eyed
dweller on the floor.
What of grave-pale hides,
dressed in Sunday best?
Lips sewn, no reply,
we've laid our backs to rest.
Regardless of what you may think of me,
this tailor-made disaster's not too easy on our feet.
We can walk the haunted mile and keep the lion fast asleep,
but I won't be denied the rope.
Tie down, hold the line,
lay your burden bare.
Comfort found in sunshine
will disperse in evening air.
Say goodbye, winking eyes, stay in focus.
Boundaries have all been met, still you’re blinking.
Course work hammered into fists
enameled tight because of this.
Slinging mud into my face are you.
Nails tear into hands
pressed against your ears.
Shut your windows tight,
you might survive another year.
It's pointless and it's burrowing too deep.
This tailor-made disaster’s dropping boulders on our feet.
We could go and kill the lion while he still lies fast asleep,
but you won’t let go of the rope.
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7. |
Waterworks
03:31
|
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Waterworks
While you lay there waiting for the other shoe to drop,
your bed felt deadly thinking how you used to be on top.
While you choose your weapons and your methods of return,
I’ll rifle through your drawers for some idols I can burn.
While you lay there waiting for your lights to sputter out,
your bed felt deadly thinking of the things you’d go without.
While you stick to counting and repeating my mistakes,
I’ll peer into your closet for some toys that I can break.
In the shadow of the waterworks,
I got there first.
Is it to have and hold,
or is it have them for dessert?
While you lay there waiting for your heart to simmer down,
your bed felt deadly thinking if I’d ever come around.
While you prick yourself with needles just to get some sleep,
I’ll burgle your apartment for some secrets I can keep.
The night I was with her,
she couldn’t hold her liquor,
she screamed and threw up in her purse.
Didn’t care for my songs,
but death turned her on,
so she turned on her own waterworks.
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8. |
We Live Underground
03:26
|
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We Live Underground
Paid in blood, conceived in worry,
sealed our fate and sad our story,
making friends with rage and fury,
we live underground.
Sullied as a stapled navel,
we eat our bread off moldy tables,
keep our knives down by the river,
we live underground.
We hang our hats on power lines,
we hold our piss till late at night,
we feed and fuck by candlelight.
We live underground.
Bleeding simple hearts we are reborn.
Rotting meat envelops all our bones.
No evil tenet does promote
the knife that slits all of our throats.
As sure to board this sinking boat as we live underground.
We shovel deep and far and wide.
Our Bible stack, our domicile
will never fall into decline.
We live underground.
One who birthed us, we forgive her,
burn our lungs and drown our livers,
but by reason we’re delivered.
We live underground.
But I can stick three fingers into my lapels as I am dragged off kicking, screaming, eating sticks, cut back from greeting God, his Son and Spirit, beat and bled I’m wrenching the machine for weaving time and blood and space, profaned in names of every living serpent squirming, murder, thievery we’re learning. We live underground.
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9. |
We Rend
05:49
|
|||
We Rend
Empty phial staring at me,
dried-up maypole never crowned.
While above me, botching one more job
on the filthy edge of town,
stands a long-forgotten witness.
Gaping sores line her mouth.
With a burst eyeball and your lens stained, blackened,
you always knew this had to end.
Now your every hope has been punctured, flattened,
to what terror does this all extend?
We rend.
In the briers we will marry
scores of edged, gleaming shards,
while attempting to capsize the hull,
borne on bile and disregard.
So administer the poison,
and collapse while I stand guard.
Passing through the open yards of home,
attempt to dam these overflowing arteries alone.
Caught up in the writing set in stone,
solemn, gilded proclamations guarantee the loss of all you own.
How you’ve grown.
Somewhere in these open yards of home
hides a long-forgotten witness bathed in dial tones.
Intervening years did not postpone
the imminent arrival of the guest who hacks at ties you call your own.
Time to go.
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10. |
Sentry
04:25
|
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Sentry
As he lay there grazing,
the sentry was drunk and shoe-gazing,
not breaking a sweat.
At the watchtower burning,
a candle, a bookend was turning.
Gas chamber, well met!
No recourse to miles of wire at yuletide.
He might call it in,
but his eyes still twitch and burn with hindsight.
It won’t be enough.
The embers were fading,
the toothless and empty debating
what evening would bring,
with the gallows a-looming
and silence voracious, consuming
the pestilent wing.
In due course the flow of wire in sunlight
will crack at the knees,
and deflower the sentry waiting stageside,
yelling, “Enough!”
Lo, the shovelful of clay,
bayonet and tourniquet!
Build a pyre, clear the way.
Weep, the sentry died today.
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11. |
Shadow Government
03:49
|
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Shadow Government
To whom it may concern,
to wither or to burn,
I stomp on my allegiance,
and tack the grief to grievance.
Some prying eye may enter here,
some gaping mouth resound in fear,
and I’ll pass judgments so severe
that no one will dare venture near,
or hold their own amid my shifting gears.
See, I just paid a visit to the shadow government,
their vespers and their shrouds.
Broke my teeth on all this drunken merriment,
but the walls are coming down this time.
To whom may it return,
this dirty flag we burn?
We shatter our allegiance,
and list our final grievance.
Your prying eye has entered here,
your mouth is tight-lipped with the fear
of wasting all that you hold dear.
You break off your impatient spear,
and head out from amid my grinding gears.
You have to pay a visit to your shadow government,
their vespers and their shrouds.
Sink your teeth into this sullen betterment,
and make the walls come up on time.
And there they’ll feed you communion wafers
and candy bars.
Quick of wit and slow of temper,
they’ll pull your heartstrings from your heart.
This shadow government
with their vespers and their shrouds
break your teeth on all their drunken merriment,
but the walls will crumble down in time.
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12. |
To the Slaughterhouse
04:12
|
|||
To the Slaughterhouse
Now that you see
the shoes you picked weren’t quite your size,
and the god you had by the balls
rained sulfur on you,
you can never go home.
There’s no prison break big enough for both of us,
and it takes different strokes, it takes different jokes
to paint the fiasco we’ve made of ourselves.
And now it’s on
to the slaughterhouse with you,
my lovely,
where they’re dying for some peace
and dignity.
To the slaughterhouse with you,
so you’ll think about me too.
I confess,
I’d like to be there when you start screaming,
when you start screaming,
when you start screaming.
St. Frank embarked, and he remarked
how great you looked
with a leper or three fastened to your knees.
He never knew how much it took
not to hold your nose when they got too close
– the harlot’s shame when she starts to show!
But here’s some hope to stick up
where your moon chose not to shine.
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13. |
Your Death
04:38
|
|||
Your Death
With all the connections you have made in this place
you could probably build a mausoleum.
Still I know, you'd be happy just to see them
betrayed, with their rotors winding down.
Don't know how far you think I'd go
if I could only stop and say hello.
We'll know when
to breathe is quicker than to swallow.
Till then I'll scrape up mud to wallow in,
clear out some space, a place to crawl away,
and there to write a happy ending:
your death.
And now that your offspring has been killed in the womb,
will the shivers crack your perineum?
Do come up, and you'll be happy not to see him
displayed, with his hairpiece hanging down.
Is this as far as it will go?
If I can keep my ashes blowing low
I’ll know that
to breathe is quicker than to swallow.
Till then I'll scrape up mud to wallow in,
clear out some space, a place to crawl away,
and there to write a happy ending.
To breathe is quicker than to swallow.
No need to scrape up mud to wallow in.
I’ve cleared this space, I crawled the hell away,
and there I wrote a perfect ending.
No, it’s not the world that’s ending,
but oh, what a grand and happy ending:
your death.
You could never do much else but look around, lie down and worry,
but now we've completed all the efforts to conceal our story.
Maybe you'd like to pull out the knife and tell me that you're sorry.
Hats off to the choir, to the judge, the hangman and the jury.
They know – and if they know, I’ll know that …
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14. |
Perfect Ending
02:30
|
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Perfect Ending
– it’s beyond words –
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