1. |
Don't Go Home
04:18
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Don't go home
with her inside your head --
growing, groaning,
taking over.
Don't go home
with her inside your head --
growing, groaning,
taking over.
You'll be seen right through.
You'll be sniffed right out.
There's nothing subtle about the way
you toss your heart around
in somebody else's house.
Don't go home
with her inside your head --
growing, groaning,
taking over.
Don't go home
with her inside your head --
growing, groaning,
taking over.
You're recognizing a new perfume, now.
You follow it in and out
of bars and restaurants,
perverting their significance.
Don't go home
with her inside your head --
growing, groaning,
taking over.
Don't go home
with her inside your head --
growing, groaning,
taking over.
There's no room left for you
in a bed you've carved into
pieces and pieces and pieces
pieces and pieces and pieces
pieces and pieces,
pieces and pieces and pieces
pieces and pieces and pieces
pieces and pieces,
pieces and pieces and pieces
pieces and pieces and pieces
pieces and pieces,
pieces and pieces and pieces
pieces and pieces and pieces
pieces and pieces,
pieces and pieces and pieces
pieces and pieces and pieces
pieces and pieces.
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2. |
Johnny Versus Glorianna
01:47
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What happened to you, Johnny,
and your beautiful bravery?
You used to carry switchblades galore.
Now, you dream of ponies
and you're just limping back home.
Aw, gee, you'll never see your novia no more.
Well, I was in the hallway
when your angel started coughing.
I saw the flurry of hooves
run around your head, around your body.
You were dead, yeah,
and I knew it 'cause you no longer grooved,
and you never stopped dancing before.
Not even on the prison floor.
Not even when you rode into the sun
looking for someone
who wouldn't know your name
or your claim to fame:
Johnny G. Cole,
the Fastest Man to Ever Walk
so Slow.
What happened to you, Gloria?
I heard you changed your name to Anna.
Now, you cannot make up your mind.
You changed it back so many times.
What will I say when you do die?
"I knew her, but not very well.
Her sins belong to no one, now.
She had so many, anyhow,
how could they ever be bequeathed?
I once saw her light a fuse
on every letter that she knew,
shoot them to the sky,
and stand underneath.
They fell back down like acid rain,
the cinders spelling out her name --
a portmanteau of identities
that she seized:
G-L-O-R-I-A-N-N-A,
G-L-O-R-I-A-N-N-A,
G-L-O-R-I-A-N-N-A-A-A-A."
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3. |
Anchor Chain
01:49
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I was underwater (pockets full of stones).
You were drifting over me in a glass-bottom boat,
drumming on the edges (stillness comes in waves),
drifting out forever (never had a way).
And I'll remain sunk here (an anchor by the shore),
hoping you'll come hoist me,
say you're bored enough for more.
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4. |
Anything But Last Night
03:39
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I had to leave the dinner party last night,
'cause you were just too pretty for me to eat last night,
and I drank Tanqueray the whole way to my place last night,
'cause you were just too pretty for me to possibly stay safe last night.
Barely made it through my bedroom door before collapsing last night,
'cause you were just too pretty for me to even stand last night.
But, is it any curiosity to you
why I flew?
I had to go and see a doctor last night,
'cause you were just too pretty for me to feel
alright, alright, alright.
He said he wasn't sure what,
but something was sure palpitating and it wasn't good last night,
and he said to have abandoned you
made of me a madman, too, last night.
I asked him for a prescription or recommendation last night.
He said, "Take two steps back and take a look at what you had
last night."
But, is it any curiosity to you
why I flew?
'Cause it is of curiosity to me
how I can fly and fly and fly and not be free.
But, if I was an architect, I'd make better conversation.
I'd describe structures that I'd designed
to you and your amazement.
Then, I'd never have to, never have to worry 'bout your beauty,
'cause my work would have impressed you enough
to bring you close to me,
bring you close to me,
bring you close to me,
bring you close to me.
But, is it any curiosity to you
why I flew?
'Cause it is of curiosity to me
how I can fly and fly and fly and not be free.
And is it any curiosity to anyone
how, even when I'm with my best friends, nothing's fun?
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5. |
Thank You, HGR
04:10
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We know, tonight, there's music somewhere,
and we just want to be there to hear it.
We've tired our heels out
from trying to stomp and sway ever near it.
But we would dance, we would dance, we would dance
if they'd let us near the light,
but they won't, so when we lift our feet,
it's as much an act of passion as of spite.
And we thank the holy ghost revival:
swinging lizards in red bandanas --
switchblade lipstick on polaroid,
lipstick remnants on sweaty chest --
fucking coked-out demons
right in front us kids.
We never knew what hit us,
but we knew it hit us.
It hit us in the hidden us.
We know that there's a curfew,
but we're gonna push.
We're gonna push.
I, myself, was pulled from the devil's vines
and I will return to dirt.
I must return to mush.
But there's enough night in us still
to tell all the lies we must tell, we must tell until
the drums come alive again
and the pit's maw yawns to draw us in
and we thank the holy ghost revival:
swinging lizards in red bandanas --
switchblade lipstick on polaroid,
lipstick remnants on sweaty chest --
fucking coked-out demons
right in front of us kids.
We never knew what hit us,
but we knew it hit us.
It hit us in the hidden us,
in the hidden us.
It hit us in the hidden us
and we fell to each other's knees.
We fell to each other's knees.
We watched the snake walk into oblivion
and we tried to arrange our beaks
to feed, to feed.
Back then, it was all we would eat.
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6. |
Flag Down
04:37
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I took the flag down
as soon as you were in the ground
and kept it for myself,
but I don't take your slippers off,
though they do slip off a lot --
too much to fill.
And you taught me how to yell
and when not to.
I still can't tell
which I should do right now.
And you taught me to boil water in eggshells
to make the ghost confess:
yes, he was a child,
but it was now so long ago,
and it's impossible to know
what we have witnessed.
And, with a small wood-carving tool,
you taught me more than I learned in school
or anywhere:
how to bore a hole in things,
fill the absence with false dreams,
and let it slowly burn
to smoke a salmon we once caught
(although the meat's begun to rot)
slow and low
and long-since longing for a song.
But you taught me to boil water in eggshells
to make the ghost confess:
yes, he was a child,
but it was now so long ago,
and it's impossible to know
what we have witnessed.
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7. |
Calcium Tablets
04:23
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How could I not burst before your bellows,
between the epilepsy of your lips?
Sustainable expressions
of this loneliness-wrecking
cannot actually exist
when it's easier to give up than to forgive
and my reputation is easier to live up to
than to outlive.
But I'm sorry I smiled when you got sick again,
I just love to see your body fight.
It brings me the sweet sting
of the things you put inside me
every day after every thousand-and-first night.
But I've been chewing calcium tablets
to strengthen my skeleton.
So, if I ever get so cowardly
I lock him in a closet,
he can knock it, door and frame, down again,
even when it's easier to give up than to forgive
and my reputation is easier to live up to
than to outlive.
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8. |
Young Poetry
04:38
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It's not your fault you're sensitive.
It's not my fault I'm not.
We both know those are lies --
I've tried so hard to become this robot.
But, it's easier than anger,
and I think I'm doing good.
It's been a solid week
since I have dreamed
of burning
down my neighborhood.
But, when I was young,
I loved young girls
who loved me
for my perfect poetry.
Now, I am old
and the young girls
don't seem to even want
to know that part
of me,
imperfect as it may now be.
I keep drinking in the evening
in my living room, alone.
It's not sad if I keep laughing
and occasionally check my phone.
I mean, who wants to drive forever
just to run a bar tab up?
Still, if Tacoma keeps on calling me,
some day,
I may pick up.
But, if it's too soon
to be writing you songs,
then it's too soon
to really be wrong.
If it's too soon
to be writing you songs,
then it's too soon.
But, someday, I will lose my teeth
and all that I will eat will be
the thought of you
with seaweed up your legs,
dancing out the slow death
of the day
and walking up the block as I
leer at you like a samurai,
waiting to put some letters
in the pockets of your robe
or in the place where your skin folds
right beneath your little nose
so you can smell out where I go
when I go,
where I go when I go
where I go when I go
where I go where I go
where I go where I go
where I go
when I say I'm going home.
But, when I was young,
I loved young girls
who loved me
for my perfect poetry.
Now, I am old
and the young girls
don't seem to even want
to know that part
of me,
imperfect as it may now be.
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9. |
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I never met nobody
with a heart as dark
as the one that's beating me.
I know my friends think I just say that
because I still dream of being
a gothic teen,
but I break pieces into pieces
when you give them to me.
There is no such thing
as safe-keeping
in these hands.
I am the ghost of
the smoke of
a flash in a cold pan.
But I like living
in the city's deep east,
where people's best dreams
are still grey
and I know I won't
see anybody tomorrow.
I didn't see anybody today,
but I'll push pieces of my friendships
through my skin like brittle pins.
It isn't penance. It is a privilege
to be the ghost of
the smoke of
a man
burning his own image.
And I wonder if you wonder
what truth's lying under
every stomach ache.
And I wonder if you wonder
what truth's lying under
every time I sing
and my voice breaks
just like I break pieces into pieces
when you give them to me.
There is no such thing
as safe-keeping
in these hands.
I am the ghost of
the smoke of
a flash in a cold pan.
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10. |
Antoinette
02:16
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Does she still lie with her neck
through the rails of the deck
like Marie Antoinette,
but with even fewer worries
about the bourgeoisie,
saying, "We've all got our own cake to eat?"
And, does she let you,
like she let me,
lick her teeth clean?
Does she still dangle her legs
through a hole in the floor --
an alabaster vine to climb
to circumvent the locked door --
and, when, after much struggle,
you get to her,
does she only say, "Oh,
so you're my suitor?
I think I could do better?"
No, I know I could do better.
And does she still ride round in cars
with her head flung too far
out the window
and into opposing traffic,
irresistibly manic,
begging the driver,
"Quick, before it's too late,
accelerate?"
Do you lay awake at night,
giving yourself a fright
at the thought that your life
might be better off without her,
but uncertain how to shout her down
from the ledge
while narrowly escaping her bed?
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11. |
Blind Burying the Blind
04:36
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Blind beggar boys burying the abalone brooches
that I bought for her once upon a time,
and now she casts aside
like so many crumbs to so many roaches.
She doesn't care.
She tells them where to bury them.
She draws misleading maps,
she drops them on my lap,
saying, "Dig 'em up
if love is what you meant."
I have to think about it --
whether these decorations
were declarations of intent
or imitations that ferment
and stain her neck and chest with brine,
and was it what I had in mind
when I gifted them?
She doesn't care.
She tells them where to bury them.
She draws misleading maps.
She drops them in my lap,
saying, "Dig 'em up
if love is what you meant."
But, honestly, to doubt me's not so crazy.
I'm intellectually lazy;
I've only ready synopses of
the books I say I love.
But, if I'm gonna act like I want my heart to grow,
even the greenest gardener knows
it's better to start below
than assume that you're above.
But, if it's not enough for me to think,
"Yeah, maybe I could love her,"
sometimes when I go to sleep,
then she's just gonna keep waking up
next to a guy that she won't even want
to try to want to keep.
But she doesn't care.
She's thinking about where
to bury me,
and how, even with a map,
no matter how accurate,
nobody is going to go searching.
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12. |
If You Have to Go Out
03:41
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If you have to go out,
do you have to go out
wearing that?
I'm not trying to control you.
I am not
that big an idiot,
but have a modicum of decency.
I have overcome just recently
your shapes and smells and sounds,
and then you reappear --
like hot sugar, dear --
to burn the little words out of my mouth.
But, it's okay.
I didn't plan not to drink
this bottle up, anyway.
So, just keep on dancing like that,
and don't forget to tell me about it
when you get back.
'Cause I will be here.
You know that.
I know you know
I know you know that.
But, have a modicum of decency.
I have overcome just recently
your shapes and smells and sounds,
and then you reappear --
like hot honey, dear --
to burn this little tongue
out of my mouth.
But, that's okay.
I didn't plan not to drink
these bottles up, anyway.
So, just keep on laughing with him,
and don't forget to tell me how funny he is
when you get back in.
'Cause I will be here.
I'll be here.
I know you know
I know you know it.
I'll be here.
I'll be here.
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13. |
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14. |
Exploded Picture
02:17
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I explode your picture,
search for sadness in your eyes
to authenticate
my sympathetic pain.
I wait for you
to go to work,
then dig into
the drawer your finger
always lingers on
when you shut, shut, shut it.
I demand to find
the spectres of your childhood --
to kiss their whispers,
grey and terrible.
I spend all night
writing little fibs
and memorizing them,
hoping you'll provoke me,
knowing I can nail the performance.
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Homunculust Portland, Oregon
Busted love.
Booty love.
Possible monsters.
Actual monsters.
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