1. |
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The nights are burning.
Acrid smoke from a Hollywood effects machine
rolling over the town.
A fog of thousands of screaming extras,
Falling Japanese monster movie skyscrapers
And crusading art film zealots
Smothering a shocked city in opiate fever nightmares.
The knights are burning.
An orange poppy of incineration
Lulling them to forever sleep.
A conflagration igniting desire in
The hearts of lotus eaters.
Arabian Knights have stolen our treasure and
Destroyed our talismans of power in 1,001 seconds.
Would that these fires burn away
our fear and hatred
in so short a time.
For now our vulnerability is available
In Sense-A-Round
To show during the burning nights.
A conflagration igniting desire...
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2. |
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I fell, you tell me
As if the burns are similar to scraped elbows
I’m fine, you tell me
As if the cuts are made while cooking
I’m not sleeping well, you tell me
As if the swelling is smudged make up
Where are the children?
Out running, running, running
Away to the meadows
From alleys and corners,
Hardening their hearts
Packing their souls like snowballs
Ready for the long, long winter
I fell, you tell me
Running around with bruises inside and out
I’m fine, you tell me
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3. |
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I live in a shattered mirror world
Having enlisted in an army of fused glass soldiers
Whose weapons of mass destruction
Were forged from shards of a crystallized doll house
Created by a master builder and his crew
His head, gabbing and leering,
Sends us out his glass tentacles
To gather up the enemy of the people
At night I lie down under burnt blood skies
Tossing turning fighting biting kicking scratching wishing wondering
Wandering
In my dreams to get back to you
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4. |
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Orgiastic moans coupling with maniacal laughter and
awe-soaked gasps
A reawakening of sound after forced hibernation
59 I believe in screams
Strangled cries awaken fever dreams
59 I believe in screams
Bursting into the air
Washing over the arbor bereft of caretakers
Daring the aurally impaired to take notice
59 I believe in screams
Strangled cries awaken fever dreams
59 I believe in screams
The inanimate jump, bend or sway
Only to alight with blood wet drops
Tendrils extended into the canals
Where it swims in a maze of frequencies
59 I believe in screams
Strangled cries awaken fever dreams
59 I believe in screams
A vibrational ocean for appreciation
Decibeled phantasmagoria flows ahead
Taunting us only to be fenced in
Clockwise notions of notes and chords
Perhaps this vernal rite drives me away
Drawn by lunatic lovers’ evolution of music of other spheres
59 I believe in screams
Strangled cries awaken fever dreams
59 I believe in screams
59 I believe in screams
Strangled cries awaken fever dreams
59 I believe in screams
I resist but I believe in scream
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5. |
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My toy kingdom is crumbling.
My castle in the clouds is burning.
My powers have been stripped.
I have been reduced to a golem,
a straw man parlaying with crows
who would sooner pick my stuffing,
as you tell me it will never be the same.
I saw only our shadow life on the cave wall.
You turned me to the opening.
I covered my eyes
not wanting to lose Eurydice to Hadean reality.
You tried to plug my ears with wax.
I stayed lashed to the mast of my fears
only wanting to hear the Sirens of my dreams.
You read our future to me.
I berated you for being a Cassandra.
As the crows pick at me outside of your walled realm,
I think of Antigone's brothers
and pray our problems get a decent burial.
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6. |
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Decibeled passages crisscross my mind
With images and words that bind us together
Invocations slowly filling
Midnight tunnels always ending in feather-light haze
Jigsaw memories echo crazed and forgotten pleadings
Breathless prayers travel ice-lit hallways beading
With pipe sweat and lovers' condensation
Your faith in me was taken as compensation for your heart
With rainforest math and runes and sigils
An ancient god you were making me into from the start
Since I am only so in apprehension
I voyage through dream corridors to keep up with your attention
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7. |
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Lightning cracked signs and thunderous mad laughs fill my nights
The echoing orders of a mad tyrant ringing through my days
As we tramp through the city enforcing his Singaporean law
The sitcom mentalities proclaim the wonder of order
I and the other beast men run through the steel trees
rounding up,
rounding up your kind
When the rats try to subvert the maze
the Minotaur in our group enacts the punishment of Edward the second
Or orders the most incompetent of us to shoot at their thread
I tell myself this is for you
The wonder
This wonder of order
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8. |
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Darkness, warmth, nourishment and a dark rhythmic pound
These are factors upon which our lives are found
But in the twinkling of an eye, they are taken
By a sharp slap to the back introducing emotions which leave us shaken
For this is how it begins
waking in the night with fearful shadows and creepy feelings
from our ankles to our shins
with a darkness mantra in our heads:
Darkness is
As darkness was
And ever more shall be
During adolescence the environment,
outside and inside,
domestic and foreign,
mixes and feeds our fears.
Our hopes and dreams form out of reaction to
the pain and suffering we are subjected to
by loved ones and strangers.
We make love in the dark, and the light,
moving to a rhythm centuries old
Strange but this is not love, this is sex
Why then is it called love?
Why is it used by us to manipulate our egos over someone else?
And at the same time, be the most powerful positive emotion?
There is a rustling in the air tonight
for the trees chant to Mother Earth
through a dying ozone layer
Darkness is
As darkness was
And evermore shall be
If we look for the warmth of love,
we are lost in the darkness of loneliness and insecurity
It is amazing what we do for love
The abuse we withstand and many times we forsake
the tangible nourishment for the intangible
There are also those times when our love is given
greater than it is received
These are also the times when the pounding begins
A pulsing sensation,
a throbbing painful feeling,
a loud humming,
singsonging
Darkness is
As darkness was
and evermore shall be
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9. |
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Night comes to the land of anger.
A crawling shapeless black ink devouring
everything in its path with black hole nonsound.
I was fighting to reclaim what was ours.
You tried to pull me out of glory's gravitational pull
only to sheer away in fear.
Our orbits clouded by the nebula of duty,
I didn't realize that the bilious ichor-filled planet
was mixed with you as well.
Now, as I lay here filled with earthquake gashes
Your sun's eclipse is all I see and
the un-noise of the nocturnal maw is all I hear.
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10. |
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They’re all out running through fields and meadows
Through streets in the rain
Waiting on corners wrapped tight by their mothers
Handing out flowers to open arms
Where are the children?
For all I see
Are you and me but smaller
Whizzing by, all banged up inside and out
They're all out running away through the meadows
Away from the alleys
Away from sharp corners
Packing their souls down hard like snowballs
Ready to hide from the long, long winter
Where are the children?
For all I see
Are you and me but smaller
Whizzing by, all banged up inside and out
I fell you tell me, the scrapes are from falling
I’m fine you tell me, the cuts are from cooking
I can’t sleep you tell me, the swelling’s not made up
Where are the children?
When all I see
Are you and me but smaller
Whizzing by, all banged up inside
Where are the children?
For all I see
Are you and me but smaller
Whizzing by, all banged up inside and out
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11. |
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A pint of blood is on the sand
A million martyrs hold belief and
New religions crop up where old religions stand
Only to die in blessed relief.
For in days of yore
As in days to come
Logic and belief fight hand to hand
For those who die... honor.
But why? Why did no one hear the martyr's cry?
The blood shadows lengthen
Organizers say we must strengthen
Let no one know the gospel truth:
People follow what they are told.
But all I saw was blood
People spurning, people chiding, people fighting, people dying
A pint of blood is all it takes
To create a barrier between us changing love to hate.
Break it.
I'm human whatever the color of my skin or eyes
Or whom I take to bed
Or whom I choose to wed
People laughing, people loving, people giving, people helping
People believe, dream and live so that the blood will clot,
Stop shadow casting
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12. |
Podditty - Air
01:34
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Sitting in front of the window
watching the leaves fall
describing ringlets through the air
descending
landing on an earthly bosom.
Only to crumble and decay
the more they are blown by
heaven's breath.
The lattice dragon sleeps
outside your window.
Its cross-hatched body
molting ivy scales.
Inside you lie asleep on the bed
your hair winding its way
down in spiral contortions
across your face
ending its descent at your breasts.
Stirred by an inner wind that
periodically escapes
your mouth, strands fly apart.
I wonder whether my attention's
degradation is as inevitable.
Will I have to gird myself once again
And slay the dragon disturbing
The air between us.
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