Unemployed On Labor Day

waterfalls over rocky walls
I've only seen
them on a screen
exotic animals beyond the malls
mere projections on a machine
and war and poverty
recurring themes
they may well be
where I can't see
and if there were none
just simulation
well that would be
all right with me

but

don't let love be a media manip
a distant ego trip
on open arms and lips
I'm not at all convinced
the real thing exists
I'm a mister who's missed being missed

don't let love be a photoshop piece
on feelings long deceased
forever unreleased
I'd be more serene
if I could just feel instead of seein'
it on a screen

a face to face
warm embrace
I've only seen
it on a screen
a shared space
a shared grace
a fantasy
it seems to me
the folks I meet
on these city streets
they barely greet
they got no heat
my local scene
it's more routine
they're all staring into tiny screens

oh!

don't let love be a media manip
a distant ego trip
on open arms and lips
I've never been convinced
the real thing exists
I'm a mister who's missed being missed

don't let love be a photoshop piece
on feelings long deceased
forever unreleased
I'd be more serene
if I could just feel instead of seein'
it on a screen

who am I talking to
is my point piercing through
we need to see
empathy
a good foundation
for new relations
so we may be
a society
I hope you'll pardon
my intervention
but we are more than
two dimensions
when we start seeing
into our beings
we will begin our minds' ascension

don't let love be a photoshop piece
these feelings will not cease
until they are released
I'll be more serene
when I can fully feel instead of seein'
it on a screen

don't let love be a media manip
a distant ego trip
on dreamt-up arms and lips
I'm not yet convinced
the real thing exists
I'm a mister who's missed being kissed

and I wonder
when I'm gone
will I be missed

Screens

Good morning hills
so deeply green
it takes some rain
to make that scene
so glad we made it
through that torrent
went so long
felt abhorrent
but it's all done now
at least for a little while
time to rise
and shine like a smile

all the damp and grey
feeds a perfect day
time to run and play
strife makes life

it takes some rain
to make things bright
sun alone
got finite might
harmonic balance
meets desire
we gotta try it
lift us higher

if we sail too high
we will lose our minds
and if we stay too low
...well, I think we know...

across the boulevard
folks are stretched so hard
they play their calling card
join in

Going On Noon

Created for a friend at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, NH.

Cheshire Adams - WUNH Hourly ID

Cheshire Adams — Guitar, vocals, glow-in-the-dark rainbow Slinky, keyboard (but not that kind)

Colors
burning brightly
a conflagration
screaming nightly
collide, a scope
turning slightly
its cyclic nature
seeming rightly

Pressed up
against a thick pa(i)n/e
efforts to break which
all loom in væin
depression
tolls, (a/like/my) big Bane
a chain that contains
and squeezes my flailing brain

And I can't stop thinking
it does its own thing
plunging flight
to plight
and I can't help thinking
if there were just one thing
I could want
I'd be all right

So I
gaze at the dark (light) show
the green and violet
embraced in constant flow
call it
furtive vertigo
a scene that's best viewed
from so far below (in woe)

Purpetule Haze Acoustic

A collection of performances of one person with a guitar.

Down From Me

Seems so quiet
I know there's life here
wasn't so long ago
it strode plain

towering Hyatt
pierced the stratosphere
room to grow
to a new plane

who would buy it
it would disappear
a seaward flow
as of rain

reverse riot
lyingsevere
a bush aglow
the flaming brain

heat will fry it
cracked and sere
perfected so
it can only complain

who could deny it
meiosis of fear
creeps from below
(and) will not abstain

who dares to try it
a radical shift
a bent timeline
to a better course

scattered power
perform this lift
seek to combine
each disparate (desperate) resource

hour follows hour
the widening rift
slopes decline
void of remorse

to survey and scour
to gather and sift
and fall with a whine
from soul-crushing force

and sit recessed, sour
and just vaguely miffed
to find nothing fine
that one could endorse

each passing flower
may perchance be sniffed
or just wither in sunshine
doting energy source

or have weeds devour
all that's far and near
how I long to know
we can break this chain

(and make this change)

seems so quiet
and easy to drift
if I could just hear
even sounds of mine
then I could go
like a whipped horse
bolting from pain
to a gentle shower
and new territory
without restriction
new territory
with no excess friction
new territory
free from constriction

an alien story
fact

or fiction?

Blue Ballots (acoustic)

used to be cool
calm, too
me & you
the occasional clash
barely a splash
gone in a flash
but now it's strange
more heated exchanges
get more deranged
& with greater force
we're on a bad course
maybe toward divorce

your temper is hotter
yet you are colder
all the same
the nagging thought of
the fact that I may
be to blame

these hot emissions
with such repetitions
make these conditions
we blew our caps
such mishaps
incur collapse
the floodgates wide
the times we cried
intensified
there's no return
we're gonna burn
in this inferno

your temper is hotter
yet you are colder
all the same
the nagging thought of
the fact that I may
be to blame

my selfish deeds
did supersede
your wants and needs
and I don't know
if I can fix it
it's like an addiction
affecting all I've known and loved
taking us under
I hear that thunder…

your temper is hotter
my weight to shoulder
my crying shame
the nagging knowledge
that I'm the one to blame

raw demo

Andropocene

I recorded both of these songs on 4-19-2012 and consequently decided to package them as a single.  "Society's Waste" was penned with a blatant metal vibe in mind.  Perhaps I can convey that well with an acoustic; I don't know.  I certainly don't have a "metal" voice.  "Large Outside, Kitten Inside" is sort of a mock rock-epic about a bygone feline friend (named "Loki", hence the title).

Society's Waste

on the road
senses slowed
had to pull off get
some rest and reset
pupils wide
slowly spied
a luring shape in a
window silhouette

xe stood innside
no want to hide

dyin' to bare
why we were there
we found our words useful
for revealing
a gnawing yen
to scale the taunting walls of
xen
and bust through the con ceiling

we strode inside
to bed we hied
released and sighed
in heat we lie
my my

in the dawn
gazed and yawned
in the surreal dim
light of earthset
from the night
evening's vision took flight
with my clothes, keys, phone, and wallet

I stood glass eyed
the wound had pried
steep drop inside
gaping divide
soft raze innside
the wound my bride
no rays inside
this light has died
bye bye

Innside (old mic vocal)

I'm lost deep in a musical piece
a sonic wonderland from which I want no release
I'm feeling invincible like floating on air
melodies beyond compare
I get entranced whene'er I hear them

Sing
it's something I can't help but want to emulate
you know I
Think
if I only were to give it a try, I'd
touch the sky

I got to step right out of my mind
into a different kind
and I will see what I find
if I can breathe something new into my own sound
I could flip fortune around
upturn the frowns
oh I just want to

Sing
and have someone listen to me and appreciate it, I
Think
if I only just keep at it then I could
touch the sky

all of my life I hear the people just scoff
their heads in a coif
how am I going to achieve liftoff?

I just want to
Sing
and have someone listen to me and appreciate it, I
Think
that I could go high if I could go high
I just want to
Sing
in a way that can confront this air and penetrate it, I
Think
the time at last for my dream is nigh, to
touch the sky

songbird gotta fly

Touch the Sky

Born into darkness
raised in the darkness too
exposed to nothing
the darkness was all I knew
I know there's light out there
if I could just break through
There's more to life than this
I know

There must be more to life than this
I know

They say if I find that light
it'll burn me to the core
well I know I'll freeze to death
if I stick around here much more
it's a chance I'll have to take
this I know for sure
There's more to life than this
I know

There must be more to life than this
I know

Cheshire Adams

Popular tracks