SKETCH :: Ambiguous Suspicion

SKETCH :: Aching Jaw

Charles Baudelaire

Heautontimoroumenos

for J.G.F.

I'll strike you without rage or hate
The way a butcher strikes his block,
The way that Moses smote the rock!
So that your eyes may irrigate

My dry Sahara, I'll allow
The tears to flow of your distress.
Desire, that hope embellishes,
Will swim along the overflow

As ships set out for voyaging,
And like a drum that beats the charge
In my infatuated heart
The echoes of your sobs will ring!

But am I not a false accord
Within the holy symphony,
Thanks to voracious Irony
Who gnaws on me and shakes me hard?

She's in my voice, in all I do!
Her poison flows in all my veins!
I am the looking-glass of pain
Where she regards herself, the shrew!

I am the wound, and rapier!
I am the cheek, I am the slap!
I am the limbs, I am the rack,
The prisoner, the torturer!

I am my own blood's epicure
- One of those great abandoned men
Who are eternally condemned
To laugh, but who can smile no more!

SKETCH :: A Baudelaire Poem (2012)

Lyrics:

No longer shall we be controlled
By a so-called divide
That hairy tide with a hundred eyes
With a hundred eyes
No longer shall we be controlled
By a clown full of fear
A wind of ecstasy will come
And wash away the tears
Wash away the tears
Fold up that armour
Take down those signs
Had enough of tales of hate
Living this lie
Living this lie

The winds were riding down a rut
Innocence disguised 
In a cage of windows of a time
That’s passed us by
Passed us by
Memories echoed recklessly 
Hoping to survive
All we are in a dream 
That’s turned to ice
Turned to ice
Don’t fool yourself oh mother
Don’t fool yourself oh father
The crowns stolen from your heads
You will one day find
You will one day find


Café de l'Industrie

Lyrics:

Plump filled corners, a half in measurement, a capped pose, large ears that smell, small nostrils that listen big. Carved out corridors in arse crack ceilings leaning towards and into screaming lungs. I watched the chord linger in the air, swinging back and forth from semen dunked city roads to wombs dressed in tombs that are called homes. 

I’ve witnessed atrocities be born, backwards in gait. I can only attempt to expose, drift away from its “under” control. I’ve watched atrocities be born and then whored, facetious in their tremor, grandiose in their perpetual snore. A remote control for a spine, really? And a TV screen for a mind? 

What whore you media? What whore you today? A rigorous metropolis rut, no storyboard is safe. No conversation paved to elevate. No vision vague enough to consolidate. What whore you today? What hoard you here? 

A game of chess lost by it’s own multicoloured board? How then is this a fair game, when you see only in black and white. That cosmic chessboard was never black, never white.

If that light in your head were it ever to be turned up bright, where lay the chainsaw deity hibernating under your ringing umbilical cord. I watched that cord linger in flight, like a frog on the ceiling of a derelict kite. 

I’ve watched fathers be eaten up by their own patriarchal rights. I’ve seen mothers hang up their bodies to dry, take hold of the ticking oars of time boats, wishing and slushing, folding and cussing, and still peeling out some form of light. 

Awash the smoke beyond all is sound. Amongst the torn out, there still remains a might. The might to survive. 

Hydrogen Jukebox Part One

Lyrics:

Oh my pretty baby, what have you done
Oh my pretty baby, what have you done
Do you really want this to go wrong

I’ve heard you out, over and over
Not forgetting all the years in-between
Distance hums and the lights can turn
All the beers and secrets we turned into dreams

Oh I was your invisible lover
You chose not to feel
I was a handsome stranger
It took you years to perceive 

They say you don’t know what you have until it’s gone 
But I mourn for your loss of the dawn
Underneath the curtain the web un-spun was your own

Oh my pretty baby, what have you become
Oh my pretty baby, what have you become
You cannot even tell the truth from a lie

Oh my pretty baby, what’s going on
Oh my pretty baby, what’s going on
You cannot even tell a friend from a foe

Pretty Liar

Lyrics:

Your lies have been understood as the truth 
And I feel pity for those who suffer under your rule

I hope it was worth the sacrifice 
The sky and your beauty
My love, my love
And your duty


The Emperor Rules For A Day

Old Shoes (Tom Waits Cover)

SKETCH :: Butterfly (2012)

SKETCH :: Lavender Skies Beyond Duality

SKETCH :: Tu Hi Mera Dil (2011)

SKETCH :: Song With No Chorus

SKETCH :: Everything you said 'they' did to you, you did to me.

ROLLER COASTER - TRAPPER REMIX

The Emperor Rules For A Day :: Jemma Freeman And The Cosmic Something REMIX

City In The Sky RMX Lisa Masia (Lilies On Mars)

Roller Coaster Ayankoko Remix

If your hair was a mess - demo 2012

SHABSI MANN is an independent artist/musician based in Hackney, making her own flavour of avant-garde experimental folk/ punk/ rock, inspired by her Eastern nomadic roots and rare dimensions.

SHABSI MANN

Popular tracks