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 (soundcloud cut)

South China Sea penitentiary
They’re making rounds to the sound of the drums
Trash into islands while Jakarta is eaten everyday

Lake Ponchatrain still growing steady
Inhabitants at the rims of a bowl
They say immersion helps you learn
Well we get it, thanks for the wisdom

I know, I’ll change, what’s right in my hands
Let’s be horrified, that’s our luxury
Products of fear of not existing

Misaligned

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 (soundcloud cut)

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 (soundcloud cut)

Bystanders block the path
In misaligned queues
Crying polemics of pain
It’s by proximity
We got to know
Neighbours they warned us not to trust 

Someday you all will lose control
Replace yourself if that’s the goal
Sinister culture finds a way
You will inherit all the shame

Shifting uncomfortably,
A crowd gathers round
Is there nothing else that anyone could do?
However small it is
the stinger burrows in
And a barb is only made to go one way

Who am I to intervene upon the scene?
Lock the glass door of the lobby, avoid the screen
Maybe it’s just my point of view that makes it hard
I don’t run the board, and I don’t change the guard

So who’s gonna break this spell?
Cause it ain’t me!
Accidents are deserved
Embolden those with the nerve
protect what’s ours
Whatever, all this proximity
I need comfort to be free 
To settle in
and make it mine
Who would want to lose face?
Who would want to be replaced?

Proximity

From the swamps you’d hear them calling--
Look away, look away!
The commissary's plundered nobody's around
Look away, look away!
The crowds are running to the rising siren sound

Look alive, look alive!
The rumbling of the shells will tell us when to go
Look alive, look alive!
The realignment of the order came to town

Smell the rust of the guns
reclaimed by the mangroves on the shoreline
 
Putting up a sacrifice to right the many
ways you disregard the land
you never had to understand anything at all!

It’s the way you tell the story that will surely
Kill us all, the slaughter halls
If you can't choose, prepare to lose
everything in one moment!

I don't want to go
Nothing needs to change
Messing up the world
The way I want it now
The way I want it now

I don't need to know
history of the game
Messing up the world
The way I want it now
The way I want it now

I don't want to go - (every seed you sow)
Nothing needs to change - (but we need to grow)
Messing up the world - (to survive)
The way I want it now
The way I want it now

It's a rotten business
How we sow the seeds
Like a bee that’s caught in a mud puddle
Wasting time pollinating brackish riddles

It's the role of a victim
facing an armored carriage

Battery Guns in the Mangroves

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

Feeling light and buoyant as you run
Attune to the traffic, municipal collection
Venture onto sidewalks through the noise
Stepping over cracks, and all the hidden little voids

Now, you’re looking over your shoulder

Talking through your long soliloquy
Every place a burden as you grow your history
No one else to talk to, nothing else to see
Island on an island
Putting up your boundaries

Sometimes friendly, sometimes cold
A smile creases your face in folds
Age will raise the stakes up higher
Bet on borrowed time-- 

What luck you’ve won! 
So now you’ve got a second chance
You’re gonna overshoot, 
That’s backlash wisdom making plans

Now, you’re looking over your shoulder
Always somebody left behind

So what are you gonna do, 
now that you’ve got a second chance?
How you gonna retire
and set your final circumstances
If you’re still holding on
to what you’ve no more right to do

Put it to rest!

The Winning Treatment

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 (soundcloud cut)

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 (soundcloud cut)

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

This time I’ll move alongside you
amidst the very little fears-- 
of which, I do indulge and raise alarms,
I won’t disarm
my careful words remain 
with such a charge

Stairwell No. 2

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 (soundcloud cut)

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

I looked around, 
empty field in the setting sun
I never found evidence of survivors
Half the time they left in complete disarray
Clothing thrown around with their uncooked meals

I looked around 
as the night swept the land so cold
I never found evidence of a river flow
It comes, it comes, it comes, it comes,
it comes, it goes, 
oh nothing grows where nothing flows 

Half awake,
Stumbling fumbling feet, I trip
Chasing passive income drips
Swallowing my spit

Dust to dust
Sun baked eccentricities
Tell me why constructively
I don’t need to worry now, worry now

Bang! he cried,
Aims toy rifles at the prize
Kid grows up with actor's eyes
Distant father’s frozen stance
Uncanny resemblance

Tries his posture standing tall
Bruised his face in sibling brawls
Learns his place through foul play 
He won’t be around someday

Reckless horses charge away!
Everybody leaves this way
abandoning their posts for better ground
betting that the land will--

Come around
Aquifers tapped underground
Quick wins, he would disapprove
The kid won’t need to worry now
Worry now, Worry now, Worry now

Open field
Nightfall waiting for the sound
Picnic blankets gathered round
Back when he was still around
The last fireworks display
Sparking out to sad dismay
Everybody leaves this way
Promises dry out dispersed
Why not leave them first?

Nothing Flows Nothing Grows (soundcloud cut)

Take the knife, hold it tight 
Every tool is yours to wield when the time is right 
Son, I know it’s cruel 
You better learn or be left behind 
Willing to cut your way in line 

When you're there, 
on your own
Keep contingencies for dying trying times 
my advice to you 
You better learn or be left behind 
It might kill to be kind, yeah 

After a lifetime stuck in your ways 
This letter falls flat with nothing to say 
Been writing your whole life-- figure this out 
It shouldn't be hard 

Now with age, 
subtleties of your stature become clear-- 
I disagree with your advice 
To be kind is not naive 
All you saw was scarcity 

And today, I recognize 
locking eyes with ancestors I say goodbye! 
I see you tried-- Implying care, not affection 
Supervision, not protection-- that’s why now 

After a lifetime stuck in my ways 
This eulogy’s flat with nothing to say 
Been writing my whole life-- figure this out 
It shouldn't be hard 
It shouldn't be hard

Stature (soundcloud cut)

Wide open sun, it’s casting illusions
Baked in exposure, time to rest
Bring on the heat death

Splayed out on sandbanks
Glory the expanse
How could you tell them?
Rambling to everyone back home
everyone back home

Bring on the heat death

Wide Open Illusion (soundcloud cut)

Yellow lines are scanning by
I should be listening to night skies
Instead I'm speeding through the countryside
Like I'm skipping a song

At the wheel, 
Falling asleep
How reckless, I
Never feel the center of gravity
Nor the poles shifting,
Not steering,
I'm just shifting weight to live

Yellow lines are scanning by
I should be listening to night skies

Comes a storm,
The first drops in months
It rolls in quick--

Jolted awake, 
I pulled a hard right
From the headlights off the mirrors
I'm a disaster waiting to arrive

Passengers, entrust in me
Get closer to the risks
we're tied, we're tied

It's pouring but
We can't waste time
A slick tar slip n' slide
Back home, back home

Worry for them, worry for me
Your earnest wishes come
Too late, too late

Listening to Night Skies

Ledgers, logs, they fill the room
like entering the tomb
of a man unknown
Now rest assured, with written words

The answer’s in the archives now
look him in the eyes
you cannot relate
his rationale, his furrowed brow 

Dusting off the antiques, your
dresser and your drawers
Find the reason why

Dust to dust, Dust to dust

You want closure? You get a forecasted fate
a parent knows, a seed will sow, 
we kill our foe, then fill the rows, we have to grow
his arid age will raise the stakes
at the rate we cultivate, we’ll decimate, 
and then replace-- everything!
another Aral sea, cascading mistakes
breathe in the dust, it was always a part of you!

Maybe I was too enamored
Stood there frozen while I stammered --
No way, no way, no way.
You find it morbid-- it’s important!
You say his choices were abhorrent
No way, no way, you’d ever do that too

We need action! so they clamored
In dissonance, I stood and stammered--
Maybe, maybe, maybe
Is it so morbid?-- it’s important!
Desperate times he had resorted
Maybe, maybe in hell with no water, 
son to father, cannon fodder
Maybe I’d do that too

Dusting Off the Antiques

"I think they always believed that, this group of old people, they really deserve this kind of poverty because they have not prepared for their old age"

Mirage Backwards

To every person you wanted to be
In this life or the next
To every hand that you gambled thinking
This pair plays the best
At the time I thought you’d at least be impressed
I wanted nothing more than that
To every wish that you bet on me
Like tiles left unflipped
That’s why it’s never enough

Up and over and the round begins
I can’t even pretend
That I’m gonna lose
Wanna write that down

Shit talking my opponent's game
Who sets the pace in the end
It’s gonna be me

When courage strikes
I draw my tiles
But it’s an awful hand
And I’m wondering now
Is anyone else going to make
This work this work for me now
No Is anyone else coming by
cause I see that now
No one’s gonna make
This work
This work
This work
For me now

Up and over crushing bone again
Guess that’s my heavenly hand
What a disappointment
Don’t you know that it’s

Your duty to go out and win
Stop looming over my bed
And leave me alone

Oh clocks chime slow from hospice rooms
But I still don’t understand
Why you don’t stop by
Now is anyone else going to make
This work
This work
For me now
No is anyone else coming by
Cause I see that now
It’s me who’s gotta make
This work this work this work
For me now

That’s why it’s never enough

Heavenly Hand (天糊)

Searching for scraps in the harbor, making noise!

Seagullmoine

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