A shallow brook bubbling 
Turning way with each storm
Forming shorter paths to pare away the energy

Centuries of currents move
Colliding sediment
And our problems pile onto another enemy
Leaving isolated crescents of a memory

Those monumental footnotes of history
Can't keep a culture sealed away
Anymore

Until then, entrench!

The Oxbow

Moonlight, past the storming
Stars are forming, on their own
Staring unassuming
Maybe moving, maybe still
News comes in the morning
Reassuring
You’re gonna wind up dead

These days, the nervous tics are worse with every regret
and the sun sets
It’s fine, you’ll have to ration out each part of yourself.
Oh well!

Upside down when it’s right side up
You can’t keep all the alarms
Yeah from crying out
loud and proud like the last to fall
The sun is racing away
And you’re crying out loud
No longer so proud
Of what you’ve done
What you’ve done
All dead set, you forgot
You’re caught in machinery
lovely scenery

It’s fine, we all make do with what little we got left
You’ve time, but the body can’t sustain the attention

Upside down when it’s right side up
You can’t keep all the alarms
Yeah from crying out
Loudly delivering last orders
The lucky go in their sleep
But I’m crying out loud
No longer so proud
Of what I’ve done
Did I hurt anyone?
All dead set, I forgot
I’m caught in machinery
lovely scenery
Thankless misery

Tell me straight, percentages and probabilities
I’m on the defense, all the breakthroughs in senescence
I’ll never see, It’ll never be, oh but the guarantee!

He said you’ve still time to make a measured decision
I see your hesitation, but you can’t afford to be too patient
Find new hobbies to mark passing
Fix benches in the park
Vegetable garden boxes
Serve lunch at the public school

He said you’ve still got time
A measured decision
Quality of life or nip it in the bud!
Building homes for the migrant swallows
But the sparrows evict them, 
toss out their children
Not now! I’m counting the stitches
get one wrong and the entire sequence is offset! 
upside down when it’s right side up
I’m counting the stitches
crochet can be fun but if you get one of these loops wrong
It’s all offset upset subpar all a mess
Knees too weak to climb that hill
But what a mediocre view!
Well good riddance
My autonomy is currency
Spent pushing up boulders
deciduous decay
the gradient in the leaves filters the rays
A feast for the eyes though the vision is blurred

He said you’ve still got time

Upside Down / Right Side Up

My love is at capacity
I’ll be here today pushing through the fog

Thickly settled misery
I’ll be coming home
I don’t want to fight it anymore

By the meadow in the mist
Where the trees meet the clearing
Smokestacks from the hearth
Fresh bread in the pantry

I just wanna make something that will last
Putting in the work with fears of the past
I just wanna make something that will last me
At least for the year

Something to Last

Fathers clutching their shovels, reinforcing the vessel
Mothers taking their heirloom bones, grind mortar to pestle
Digging, digging the sullen earth to recover your people
Eating, eating to grow, consuming the land on a promise

He says he knows what’s at stake now
Preserve from loss learn the stories
Siphon the details and forget your role
No it’s not great, but it's the fates of 

Birth of another tyrant-- he’s got liquid mercury on his breath
Yet another self-made monster come to stave off our fears of death
Another category five come here-- to keep us up at night
From a little cave you can see that the future’s bright

But I'm not gonna lie, part of me knows
The head and the stone are just debts that have grown
Sift out the spice, the food in your bowl
Revisit the history, your bottomless holes

It's the Fates Again

And all at once we rushed into the room
They said so sorry it simply came so soon
Thank you for all the assistance 
But we’ll take it from here

We joked around about inevitable ends
Just paper tigers eager to defend
some part of ourselves from disaster
Why can’t this go any faster?

With just a look he wiped my courage away
Rendered a blank and helpless frame
Thank you for all the assistance
We were meticulous in our plans
Despite all our preparation 
And all the finest distractions
Couldn’t help but ruminate
Concentrate on the image treadmill, please

How weakly he reclined
How much it declined in his eyes
I still held hope that one day 
we’d finish that list

And the assistant hurries to the next room
If it were me, I’d never be there on time, no
They say one day it’ll just feel ordinary
But for now, I’m wide open to illusions

The Assistant

Seems I learned through imitating you
Now alone, I find it hard to move
In this heat, I’m walking through a kiln
with terra cotta skin
I’ve baked in all your rules

Terra Cotta Skin

Today, I’m not worth it
because it seems if given purpose
I will take it too far
Radicals, they love to leave memoirs

Keys to ignition, turn it again
But the AC won’t turn on
Trapped in a furnace
Scratching my notes on the dashboard
That’s how they’ll find me
Dead in the lot at the top of Zabriskie, 
they’ll read

By now you have to admit 
though the world won’t change,
leaving it won’t set you free.
All the time spent alone
Turning selfish and old
Still the imprint never leaves
the heart and mind
I’m coming around now to the idea
I’m coming around now to the idea
that something better might just come my way

In the attrition of heat
Strapped in a leather seat
Are you finally satisfied?
Where the river meets its end
Evaporates and ascends
Like escapist dreams you kept
in heart and mind
anytime, anywhere, for anyone else

Zabriskie

It’s hard to see the vision in the heat
But that’s where all the self-made men retreat
Sand and sky a wasteland of desire
Desolation comes to hone you

Now who would find romance in risks alone?
Seems you’ll have do it on your own
Grimacing with pride he turned around and said--
“Sorry I could not convince you.”

That’s why, you will always falter
At that, sacrificial altar
where old names can die a good death
fantasies of rebirth from the land

This barren earth is opportunity
I’ll take and make without impunity
Trust I’ll find an aquifer so full
the flooded fields show my reflection

Eating everything is how we grow
Gardens from the scarlines in the soil
Little bit of ego makes the work so fun
Just another dying project on the run

Patience it wavers, it can’t be the goal
Like a lost little migrating bird headed north
Security gone from the bonds in your circles
Make no mistake cause the maintenance was on you
As you always, always
found your own mirage to call your dream

That’s why, you will always falter
At that sacrificial altar
Now you’ve made yourself a stranger
Tremble into self-made danger

Mirage Forward

So are you going to waste time for me?
Or are you going to put me to sleep?
I’m only trying to tell you what I need
I know it doesn’t make sense

Don’t overthink the moment, it’s done
You’re already here and that’s enough
I’m only trying to tell you what I need
It’s never going to make sense
So you can drop the pretense
No lullabies for me

Lullabies Please

The future’s all dry
Hard to know what you can support
Hard to know what’s in the reports
Perched upon a worn out fence
Makes you wish for permanence
Seeking, seeking

And when you get there,
Better game up the advantage
Hard to say what you can salvage
Arid ages, if mismanaged
wick the last drops from your breath
All dry, all dry--
it's gonna be all dry

Hard to know your supports
Hard to know the reports
Hard to find some permanence

Seeking Seeking

Here’s to a century of accessory, taking your time
Here’s to approximated birthdays, rounding is fine
Here’s to the arms crossed disapproval, judge and divide
Here’s to the present gifted history, everyone you made cry
Here’s to the mattress guarding the money, that’ll raise your kind
Here’s to the sentry
Here’s to the sentry
Here’s to the brand new prestige language, clouding the line
Here’s to the ones who can’t quite pronounce you, although they tried

Here’s to the sentry
rather a guard than a guide 
all alone in the sand
He can only reprimand himself 
[Nothing flows where nothing grows]
He can only reprimand himself

The Sentry

Why wait around here with that look of expectancy?
Spare me the details for the sake of simplicity
Can’t open up now, there’s so much more work to do
They need support now, and I’ve something to prove

Maybe I could see myself
Giving in to better health
Find that good old rock foundation
Forgetting all presentation

The crowd all knew they were at least a bit culpable
leaving the room, you lost your chance to be vulnerable
she’d want you to go take that opportunity
but splitting off, still with that look of expectancy

Maybe I could see myself
Giving in to better health
Find that good old rock foundation
Forgetting all presentation

You, The Audience

The sky was unusually clear
The water of the river looked blue in the angled light
Across the river, crowds of people had already begun to stream into the square
Horns rang out -- 

Dun dun dun dun dun
Dun dun dun dun
Dun dun dun dun dun
Dun dun dun dun dun

Watching the television in the darkened conference room
It happened faster than our expectations 
Said it was going to take more than a week,
Maybe ten days

He surprised us.
He surprised us.

He surprised us.
He surprised us.
He surprised us.

In the shade of a wall
Two young conscripts lean back
Untie their leather boots
Switching their pairs just for the spring

Civilians driving past
Honking their horns
Premature celebrations
One regime passed to the next

The Coup

He says he’s outsourced the loads in his life
Milestones missed, sufficient data fills the rest
All those holes, Baudrillard filled long ago
Oh memory, two blurry smiles fill the frame

Filling of the Afterimage

Our hearts get preserved in jars, 
Sermon on!
and tell us why we must accept,
he responds

Says he’s already made his peace
Son, why'd you have to leave?
Fixing his flesh in the dye

After outbursts all dissipate
No heart left to participate
Floating in formaldehyde

Freezing memory
Of the firstborn

Firstborn

In my heart this is true,
There are a million other things I'd rather do
Like pulling teeth with dirty tools
What other shame or face do I have left to lose?

Nosy neighbors, they all want to know
If I'll leave behind a fully furnished room

From the garden, barren hillsides,
Count a hundred tiny residences
shuttered down

They're all tense, dimming their lights
Sleep through the day,
reconnaissance throughout the night
And when that clock, finally strikes
I fall so effortlessly free, another life

If I own it, it will comfort me
Borrowing time so I can finally sleep 

From your closet, stuff your suitcase
There’s a dwindling number of possibilities
to leave your station, desperation
From your basement counting schemes
to make it big out there

From the garden, barren hillsides,
Count a hundred tiny residences
shuttered with the night sky
from the sky-cam
Oh reports are saying that
he didn't have a choice
If not for self-defense
then maybe escalation
was the only way, I had to light it up 
to claim the night sky from disaster!
There’s a million other things 
I’ll never do before I leave!
before I leave

Special Root Canal Operation

Searching for scraps in the harbor, making noise!

Seagullmoine

Popular tracks