God Save America.
(Michael Gira)

And all across America
The poison fires glow
And in the blood of our procreation
Annihilation grows
Yes love was made for slaves like us
Designed to fetishize
Consumption, waste and an identity
Based on a dying lie
So God forgive America
The end of history is now
And God may save the victim, but
Only the murderer holds real power.

We came across the seas
We'd fill with offal and disgust
And any object industry required
We bought, enslaved, or we crushed
And now our minds are as naked as
The Paradise we stripped
And our reward is our entropy
Our emptiness is our gift
So God forgive America
And every human on this earth
And God forgive the ruined lives
And nothing is what it's worth.

sometimes the sky

Perfect Day.
(Lou Reed)

Just a perfect day,
Drink sangria in the park,
And then later, when it gets dark,
We go home.

Just a perfect day,
Feed animals in the zoo
Then later, a movie, too,
And then home.

Oh it's such a perfect day,
I'm glad I spent it with you.
Oh such a perfect day,
You just keep me hanging on.
You just keep me hanging on.

Just a perfect day,
Problems all left alone,
Weekenders on our own.
It's such fun.

Just a perfect day,
You made me forget myself.
I thought I was someone else,
Someone good.

Oh it's such a perfect day,
I'm glad I spent it with you.
Oh such a perfect day,
You just keep me hanging on.
You just keep me hanging on.

You're going to reap just what you sow,
You're going to reap just what you sow,
You're going to reap just what you sow,
You're going to reap just what you sow...

Untitled.

lost lamb cries for its mother
nature can be a cruel thing
pits lonely lives against each other
alone in the violence of spring
first bloom is drown in a shower
a bird in a cage tries to sing
joy is not allowed when you've
lost the purpose of your birth
evolution shaped you to be free
but you've become the furthest thing
sing the saddest songs on earth

there's an apple in my plastic cup
a switch, sorry, don't know how
it got there; I must have eaten it
but I can't remember - they took it from me
like a bad person takes candy from a baby
and lets her cry until false forces come
to the rescue, ameliorate her feelings
with lies and imaginary justices
I was caught between a rock and a place
that was far too soft, I buried myself,
don't tell my family, I'm embarrassed-
I took a position of hardest man in the world
so I could conquer my fear of dying

lady in waiting,
don't wait any more
your prince is never coming
your life is a snail-like thing that
oozed through the cracks of life;
we all try our hardest
when the chips are down but that
doesn't mean we achieve
a goddamn thing
or that falling trees make sounds.

I want the sun to warm the planet up like it's supposed to
so I can go outside and breathe real air
and feel it on my face: warm, calm
right now it's just something in the sky,
like a placeholder for the real thing.

cold sun,
sleeps in late and tucks in early
you've got people down here who need you
in the worst way.

unknown credit

Dancing Shoes.

Dancing shoes
On the wall above your bedside
Saw it all as we performed our
Pirouette.
Fleshes fused
As the flicker of the candles
Threw upon the wall a single
Silhouette.
Tu es dan ma coeur et dans ma téte.

Dancing shoes
We have loved on distant beaches
Where the winter never reaches
There we fell.
Dying swan
On the dawn you danced before me
Though your eyes were dark and stormy
I stood still.
Qui peut dire le faux et le réel?

Dancing shoes
Though the distances divide us
There's a paradise inside us
We can't lose.
Me and you
Dance a pas de deux forever
And I pray you never
Shed your dancing shoes.

-Dan Fogelberg (1951-2007)
requiescat in pace

AZRAEL.

song for dead time

now the past is untrue

and this breath is a lie

and the sun is an emptiness

that burns through the sky

and this ground it'll slide down

down into the sea

and when this body dies

no man will breath one word

of ignorance

for me

so bury your trust beneath the ground with me

and lay your loneliness down for the sun to consume

now the earth bleeds cold water

in my open hands

but their bodies bleed poison

and they swallow the sand

and we'll walk to the river

where we'll die of a thirst

and my fate is no question

every fool he is broken

beneath the same

unholy curse

so bury your love beneath the ground with me

and lay your loneliness down for the sun to burn to sand

(hymnal singing)

-m. gira

***

When I came out of the dream it was through what seemed like miles of liquid. My limbs were as useless as they always are and breath was short; just momentarily I wondered if I could breathe water. But in the backscattering light that filtered down from a point a thousand miles above me, I heard a voice just like mine coming from a mouth that looked like mine, telling me I needed to push on, to break through, or I would be lost. I couldn't explain. I just kept surging forward, limbless and breathless, and the journey seemed to take long long minutes if not hours, and those hours were stretched and skewed and rewound by the watery prison warden that ran this hell.

And then I was free, and I was so high in the sky, with an ocean of turbulent water from horizon to horizon above me, and I fell into the bright air. I don't know how many miles were between me and that person on the ground, shouting for me to go back. I could see him so clearly and his thoughts were all words to me; I imagined I could swoop in like one of the sons of God and then his little playtime would be over. No water dripped into the vast blue void, and the resistance I'd felt before against my face and hands had turned to a vacuuming force pulling me faster and faster like a thousand dead things which had never been alive jumping on my back and hanging from my wet shirt. I couldn't slow down; all I could see was green that never seemed to resolve into any finer detail.

The man was gone. I stood on a tree stump in a small grove near my apartment and closed my eyes against the hostility of the subatomic world. In my effort to eliminate thought, I thought more than ever, arms out like a scarecrow's, legs crossed, head bowed. I suppose people must have thought that I was always like this, so removed. But I wore jeans and my skin had scars and a suntan upon it, and so did theirs. My eyes felt unnecessary. I didn't even want to look inside. I knew it was another layer of the onion, and that I had far to go, but I was lost. You have to be lost to get anywhere. At last I heard a bird in the sky, and then other small noises of leaves and crawling things, and traffic, and the morning came alive. And I was to be seen no more, for now my body twisted about itself inside a chamber of fire, and the heat was like a hundred biting dogs tearing at a bone.

Once again I saw the man, through the small room's thick window, and he beckoned me to escape, that I would be lost if I couldn't somehow push back the gravity of so much heat and break the glass. I think I could see someone upside down behind him, like a shadow against a wall with a mind of its own crawling around in search of detachment. Then I sank to my knees: I couldn't do it, it was just too much. I was too tired. Besides, it would all be over in time. Time... And then I knew the name of that man outside, who now just stood quietly with no expression on his face, and he was just like me, except that his eyes were missing and the sockets were black, and where his mouth should have been there was nothing at all. I screamed my last scream and waited for the flames to take me back to the world of sleep, where I am writing this, so it could be over.

Over for a day, maybe longer if I was lucky.