lyrics:
There’s my sister in the garden, eating from vines 
bent by ripened tomatillos, blessed by sunlight.
Sparrows flying overhead like shards of twilight; 
shadows crown the autumn bounty, wanting a bite.

Summer spent herself inside us; sun-kissed are our cheeks.
Long remains her consequence - listen close and she speaks: 

“I am home.”

Pups will chatter ‘round the boundaries we have defined, 
dancing for the old familiars (just to remind 
the nameless wanderers, who huff and pay them no mind).
Lightning swirls around the flowers, bloomed by midnight.

From atop a rusted mountain, I wrangle loose thoughts.
I command my paradise, duties long forgot!

Everything’s unlocking now that I have got the keys, 
and I’m realizing parts of me got lost amongst the weeds! 
I am just a wish that some kids nurtured as a seed; 
I’ve gone and grown and now can celebrate what’s wholly me.

Walk slow, careful not to scare a mud-made beehive, 
lingering in conversations, prolonging goodbyes.
In the faces of my family, there are long lines 
shared between the generations, deepened with time.

Even in the midst of winter, cold unrelenting, 
while under snow Holly’s sky-bound branches are bending, 
and fire’s greeting me with the smell of wood transcending, 
I can hear Summer singing, sweetly and unending… 

I am home!

summer song demo

lyrics:
The flooding came to us late at night, 
after the sun left her post 
for the street lamps’ light.
All the people in the streets 
had sat right down and there they cried,
steeping in the waters 
while the flavor of the tea intensified.

And we prayed it’d go down, at least, 
but it hasn’t gone away.
It seems the water’s here, 
and it’s here that the water wants to stay.

The men-in-the-know had moved up in advance,
leaving in our bloated buildings 
those of us who never stood a chance.
I used to carry books with me, 
but all my words have been humidified!
I used to carry songs with me, 
but one day they got taken with the tide.

The train no longer runs 
down that ruddy stretch of island we called “road.”
Our neighbors with the guns swallowed hard 
silver bullets down their throats.

See the lines the rising water leaves 
on the walls of every empty home,
like the ringing of a tree, 
or a child working out how much he’s grown.
	
I thought we’d have more time.

I washed my soul and let it unfold 
and I’ve been drying;
I crossed my heart 
but you knew from the start I’d been lying.
When it comes to you, 
everything that I do, I’m only trying.
As you’re running me through, 
all your waters renew what’d been dying.

I thought we’d have more time!

My mother came to me in tears late last night.
Her voice kept breaking 
as she said “we’ll be alright.
Soon the seas will disagree 
with what they’ve done to us; 
they’ll see our side.”
While outside no signs of slowing 
(from the rains, going and going) 
scored the sky.
There was no sign of slowing to descry.

the flood demo

lyrics:
I feel I’ve been clawing my way through a cave
in the darkness, the starkness upon me engraved.
(A shadow dislodged, uprooted, debased.)
Deeper and deeper I crawl through this place 
palming along the walls for a gate,
my packet of matches a striking bouquet,

and that fire, how it glowed when my runes were cast on the coals! 
The walls of my cave, well they started to tremble and quake.
And learn! How I learned, for my words were the messages burned!
At the scaffolding spurned, I was enrapt and entaciturned.

“And for my pain, I will not claim responsibility
for every norm I’ve scorched and scorned is mine to abstain!”
It’s so easy to say. Too easy.

When I die, I fear it’ll be in your wake,
and all that I learned will have gone to waste
that year that I spent like a child misplaced,
feeling the friction without the embrace,

while desire slowly burned and you had me stretched and turned.
Now my topology takes; though I’m bent, I will not break!
A stitch and a seam more than mends the holes you left in me - 
I darn and I dream and it streams from me fluidly:
	
“For your mistake, I will not take responsibility!
Not enemy, nor family - you’re only yours to break!”

But it comes and goes. 
And you come and go.

And the meaning of me thins 
when I’m only where you’ve been,
scars all overgrown by a skin I’m meant to own 
(though I see now more clearly it’s only a loan).

Healing is harder than being alone.

Am I more than what’s done to me?
Where’s this lover that I’m meant to be?
Where is the blood that I say that I bleed?
Why’s this the story that I cannot leave?

In the quiet, lonesome night, when my whole body barks and bites,
I gnaw at the fringe of this narrative I wrote me in.
The constellated sky seems (so suddenly) seems not so high - 
I feel under me how the earth extends from my feet.

I couldn’t see how clearly the blame will not erase
the way I feel, nor can I heal when I am bad in faith. 

My fingers are numbed combing my case
and every choice that I chose to make.
With every inch into winter we grace,
Autumn is leaving me alone with my fate; 

Can I go? Can I stay?
It’s all past anyway.

the cave of bad faith demo

lyrics: 
Life’s impact left her screaming; 
mama’s arms make baby’s seat.
Newly born, give or take a time or two. 
Baby splashes in concrete.
Her skyline is an open mouth — 
sky-scraping are her teeth.
Yawning and moaning with ingenue energy; 
baby gasps at light to eat.

The sun: a nipple leaking love, 
flooding through her empty streets.
Let’s swim through this restless day, 
drowsing at the sun’s retreat!

Light, in it’s devotion, 
bright and hopeful, 
sends me home to you, baby.

Our nation is still young — 
younger than our sweet city!
We’ve just begun to walk, 
with toes that buzz like bumblebees.
We’re too young to be stuck the way we are; 
do not feel trapped by memory.
Our lives are but lonely grains of sand 
composing beach.

The ocean: a mother made of 
love that swallows all history.
Let’s swim through this restless night, 
drowning at peace in the sea.

I feel your devotion, 
wide as an ocean; 
I am home to you, baby

I am a sinner, needing love, 
feeling rootless despite thee.
No matter the pain I may endure,
I know I’m meant to be.

I am devotion. 
I am open. 
I am home with me.

city baby demo

lyrics:
When overwhelmed by wool, the sheep are shorn. 
The shears are sharpened, sparking like the braying horse -
who wonders, “why, why oh why am I the horse while you’re the man? 
You get to ride (with spurs like knives) atop the land…”

I’m overwhelmed; may I be shorn?
My worries spun, the spindle dropping to the floor.
And I will weave, my shuttle breezing through the warp, my fears the weft, 
so that I rise, uncolonized, somehow reborn, but not bereft, just simply warm. 

I’ll finally be free to dim the damn light 
that’s been burning away all through the night;
my home’ll be dark, and my thoughts’ll be sparse, 
and I’ll know where I’m running once my legs start.
The oyster’s the world; that makes me the purl
(and I’ll knit me away with a stockinette curl)!
In the field, all alive, my spirit in sight, 
cut back my hair with that harrowing scythe. 

And if anyone asks, I’ll say that it tasks me only as much as I will.
Only I know just how long I’ll go - and just who’ll be paying the bill.

Too many times I’ve tried to bend the Braille, 
reshaping words, the letters loosened by the ale…
But when I wake, the story takes me just the same, and She appears:
black as a spade, Her muzzle cradling my name, 

calling me steer. Born to be beef!
She is the only universal certainty.
She and Her babies, they castrate me in the spring (just for the taste), 
letting me feel but not appeal the harvesting. 
How will you taste when you’re the meal?
 
Nearby the seasoned trees release confettied leaves,
and though we prayed, the storm was raking up the seas;
as for that spot of blood that mocks me so: 
I’ve tried and I’ve tried but it won’t let go.
Now the winter’s come to take control 
and bed me in the sheeting snow.

And if anyone asks, I’ll say that it tasks me only as much as I will.
Only I know just how long I’ll go - and just who’ll be paying the bill.

im overwhelmed demo

produced by Hannah Tobias,
created as part of a residency with the Future Perfect Project

lyrics: 
Make me iron in the forge. 
Melt me down. Change my form.
Let me flow through the cast in silver slithers,
like my sisters past. Descend, life-giver!

And in the shadow of your hand, let me be sweet again!
And in the valleys of your land, let me be reaped again!

Raze the hair from my chin.
Hear my voice, sweet like violins,
young again, in the schoolyard, sharing secrets
with a friend who without shame lets our hands knit.

And see: my body’s ebb and bend is a wending river
in your garden, where I ever-tend and fruit deliver -
ripened, revealed, revered, reborn, and
wrought, and peeled, naked and horned…

Look at me: shaking at your feet like a beaten mutt -
and though my terror hinges me, watch me demand love!

Make me iron. Make me ore.
As the flames lick higher, 
let me burn a little more.

the blacksmith’s prayer

lyrics:
When the morning sun arrives,
in your arms, I feel you rise. 

Cum, in opalescent pearls,
dries and stains in little curls
on my cheeks, and on my thighs, and inside of me.

In the den, we toss hulled wheat into the hearth, into the heat.
Into the earth you lay me down, while you swim inside my mouth:
salty honeysuckle and sweet cream,,,

Tonight, when I fall asleep, I will fall within your reach,
and you will catch me, and I will be complete.

maxvingal