Blurry Splotches Of Light

There are times I feel more like the old than the young
I've spent days in my room just putting teeth in my tongue
My mouth is a hole and my pockets are lint
Don't ask me for dinner, my money's all spent
I can give it all up, I can take what I get
Because everyone knows the way

The way to sell yourself into the system is just
An admission of guilt:
I'm a human, I lust
After freedom
Dear god and dear government,
Save me from myself

I've caught myself thinking these last couple days
About the way I was built versus the way I was raised
I'm sticking hair in my face as an excuse to shave
Cos that's all I ever want

I'm reading your books and I'm putting some notes
Into margins I just feel these words in my throat
I'll announce a flood and I'll build them a boat
And I'll sink it in the middle of the sea

I'd love to sit beside you on our way through the world
And you'd know me as Boy and I'd just call you Girl
Because that is all we need in this oyster: a pearl
A name we do not have

The way to name your kids after flowers is fine
An American theme
Oh sweet orchards of mine
I'm eating all your apples til I know it's the time
To burn you to the ground

They've made me a cynic, they've filled me with dirt
But I dust myself off, and I take off my shirt
And no I'm not sure about how all of this works
But I'm willing to learn

In the back seat of a car that reeks of fake pine
I've opened my hand and you're counting the lines
Instead of a diamond I'll just dig you a mine
That's what what you're taught to want

And the only world they know has been filtered through tubes
They live on the couch, and they sleep through the news
And the only drive they take is straight through, for their food
Cross themselves before they eat

I take off my glasses and I find I can see
The blurry splotches of light are the true parts to me
I'd give my whole body if I thought I could be
Anything at all

Prizefighter

I talked with you the night through
And god you were a typewriter
I feel like I'm just like you
Another failure prizefighter

They'll make movies about us
A generation typecast
So we'll watch them and reminisce

About words we left unspoken
Rotting right inside our mouths
Arms and legs unbroken
Days went by, sat on our couch

You talk about your city
You talk about your modern art
And god you are so pretty
Another way to fall apart

I can't picture us fighting
I see the ground but it's just dirt
I see you are like lightning
I see you are like fireworks

House fire in my body
I am too sick to be alone
The way you look beside me
Is comfort like a dial tone

They say it's cos we're young but
We really think that something's wrong
We hang our flags upside down

I Thought I Might Skip Town But Maybe You'd Mind

It's a shoot-out
At the break of dawn
It's a dumb mouth
That I'm kissing on

Do you feel that
Under your skin?
That's the state that
I've been living in

That's a car crash
That's a house fire
That's a mustache
That's an evening's work

I thought I might I skip town but maybe you'd mind
I said "I'm skipping town." You said "God that's so fine."

In your mirror
In your caviar
My reflection
My face in the wall

On your way home
On your bread lines
On your cell phone
Unintelligent design

On your desktop
With your alphabet
Try to make me
But you always forget

I'm a real mess
I've got nothing but sound
That's a life vest
But I think I'll just drown

Did I write this?
Are we playing a part?
Read the stage notes
Are we fucking it up?

And if I just missed my cue I think that's alright
And if I really have to be with you I guess I won't die

Washing it off our hands
Fucking the government too

It's a protest
It's an act of war
It's some tear gas
It's another chore

Another

Wear your hair like it falls from your head
The revolution comes I'm making my bed
So fall with me

Come over, maybe waste your time
Come over, we'll fall asleep all night
Just waste with me

Am I just another tragic case?
I look at you and I cannot see your face
I just see myself
(Falling all in love.)

Becoming The Sound

You've got freedom all over your face
My feet are behind me yet again
And I trip, it's like I'm giving chase
I fall down and wind up where I am
It's New Years, so another needle drops
I am not a DJ but I'll learn
The player hums. He skips and then he pops
You smile like you were just making sure
Waiting for the evening to begin
I eat your tapes and wander through my head
A butterfly is parted from its pin
Whisper something I remember having said
Can't sleep enough with you always around
But I don't mind, I'm becoming the sound

Pay Crime

You're calling your friends you're so out of reach
I'm just trying to lick the plaque off your teeth

So turn the lights off
Some people round here are trying to sleep at night
It's getting cold out
There's a buzz in your head and you sort of don't sleep that great

Knit this quilt like
You're making a lie and trying to sleep in it
And you feel like
Your gold is a fraud you're a fool for believing it

You've got a hunger headache
You've got a baby mistake
You've got so much there to take
So take what you want

You've seen a head in a hand
You've seen a foreigner land
You've seen enough bad bands
So see what you are

Running scared to
Your one-size-fits-all worship house
You've been sinning and
Only conforming can possibly save you now

We've got our finger on
The pulse of the people the people their heart has stopped
Granting refunds
The people can't help it they're feeling a little robbed

You've been beating this drum
You've been pointing this gun
You've been wanting to run and run
all away

You've been speaking in rhyme
You've been biding your time
You've been paying for crime
But crime doesn't pay.

I'm the great great living machine.
Did you have a dreamcoat?
Did I have a dream?

I'm the first first man on the moon
Am I too late for the future?
Am I too soon?

More Distortion

So you're making babies out of gold
And you're nursing them until they're far too old
And their wrinkles show
And their inner glow's
Stamped out with a foot that doesn't know

So you're grinning at me with those teeth
If you could speak I'm sure that you'd agree
We're all junkies now
We're all drunk on how
We can reaffirm what we just disavowed

So you're keeping your head in your hands
Overwhelmed with a grief, yes, we've all had the bends
I don't know it but
I've assumed as much
Why the hairs on my skin bristle under your touch

So you're having second thoughts
Hang onto those, they may be all you've got
I'm a mountain man
I'm a Jackie Chan
I'm a fuck of course but I do what I can

So you use more distortion, right?
So you use more distortion, right?
So you use more distortion, right?
Of course you do, you're only rock and roll

I've just got to have your tongue in my mouth
I've just got to have something to adore
I've just got to have your body on my couch
I've just got to have more and more and more and more and

I've been eating my share of dust
I've been to the doctor and he says it's my feet
I've been metal and I'm starting to rust
I wake up bruised I've been kicking myself to sleep

Eyelids

Why would I question myself?
I am always wrong
I check her windows at night
And that light's always on

Why don't come down from there
You could hurt yourself
I can tell that you're scared
But I can't offer any help

She cries
With her mother in the car
On her way to
A city where I'm not

But she's not leaving
She's just finding another way back home

And she's not breathing
But I'm kissing air back into her lungs

I follow up with
A question for the crowd
Am I so helpless?
Am I still making the same sounds?

I saw your eyelids
I saw your eyelids
I saw your eyelids
And I knew what to do

Making oaths that
I know I'll never keep
Goes to show that
I can't find another heat

How can I live with myself?
Well it's no life at all
I hold my face to the light
I lick my lips they taste like salt

Why do you bother with me
I can never change
I'm full of headaches
I'm so disgusted with my age

She seems
Like she's living through her eyes
On a rooftop
I go to her and sigh

But she's not hearing
She's just in a car and on her way

It's just a feeling
But when I feed it it comes back to stay

I've had enough with
Sleeping through the night
She's so human
She's so stubborn she's so right

I saw your eyelids
I saw your eyelids
I saw your eyelids
And I knew it was you

Coca-Cola

A bag is thrown over your head as a kid
To keep germs and ideas from tunneling in
Yet you're stubbing your double-joint foot on your shin
Does no one care to know?
That you take the elevator to your invisible jet
And it's not nearly fast enough but it's as fast as they get
And let's get out the camera when you take your first shit
And relive it in a year.

When you're feeling like your love is just a surrogate child
When your diseases win the walkathon and smirk in their stride
When artificial lighting burns a hole through the night
Does no one know to care?
About your sense of belonging to an underground cult
Toasting your health with your head in the smoke
And if the children of the world can find joy from a coke
Can we mass-produce that here?
Another million shrink-wrapped happy meal treats
Another million children hiding under the sheets
Another million bankers with nothing to eat
But their stomachs full of dimes

And the polygraph test reads your truth as a lie
And our eyes are closed tight in prayer to the sky
And they're gorging themselves on American pie
Cosmetic surgery!

Thanks, Giving

That man's glass shattered
He won't see your face
You've been reborn, darling
Expect a golden age

Your home recordings
Your question's tone
You're moved to rapture in your
Microphone

You're not alone
We're all alone
I do it too

Today I'm feeling new
And it's alright cos I'm not that old

I'm not an agent of change
I'm a prophet of Everything Stay The Same
Please, please, please!

Your television going
Running on the power of fear
We keep the cameras rolling
And there's so much to see
And
Use to
Make
Us
Obedient
But we do it to ourselves

Your declaration of dependence
Was folded into
A swan and then
Put in your Bible to mark just when
You stopped buying that shit at all

You reach for your gun
Just to find
It's a remote
Desert island
Just before the storm

We get where it is warm
And test it for radiation
We don't trust anybody anyway
So what's the use

In keeping quiet
The sinks are sunk and our lips loose

You've got me running straight through you
And wishing I could stop and take you in

Like an intensely gorgeous drink
Just give me time to think
Just give me time to blink

And I've heard the quiet
And the keys in the door
The way that you've been moving
Makes me wish I had something to die for

As it is I need a cause
The bandages and gauze
Have grown into my skin
I'm forever injured and can't remember where I've been.

Body Soup

[produced with Chris Stillmank]

--------

Frostbitten, one autumn evening
Making coffee for my better sleeping
Days.
I find,
Another window into my mind, and that's okay

I meet someone with no mask on her
No sense of doubt, my sense of honor's
Skewed.
So I'll stay with you
When everyone else is just passing through

Showing me myself with a different face
I was surprised to find that I looked about the same

--------

Blighted, on summer eve’s daze
Solace found: lightning lemon sips
Nights.
I’m lost,
In poise to gaze at neural contraband.

I saw her with evening’s mask on her
I’m heart wide open, my salesman’s wit
Diminished.
So I’m watching you,
With everyone else just engulfing you.

Showing a jokers face for a stoics ball
I’m appalled to find that I’m still dying about the same.

---------

His wit's been trumped up in his age,
A body soup of everything he says

Any time,
I'm found
And when I touch the ground
I grow roots
You take the ladder, I'll take the chutes
It's a way of life
Why not imbibe
Everyone you see, their honeyed energy
We'll be alright

A shaking hand of holy vision
Us heathens made the right decision
We get above it all
And when we take that fall
The lights'll go out
And everything in your mouth
Will turn
Your soul into a burn
-ing effigy
How right.
But weren't it worth it just to see
we were alive.

--------

His voice clogged up by this Clorox,
His body a soup with everything he can’t say.

Someday,
I’ll forget,
That I’ve sunken into the sky,
Without giving seed,
You slap with charades, I’ll bend with tales
It’s not life,
Why, it’s a bible,
Of everyone you’ve known, I’m honey dipped,
I need to be alright.

Diplomatic answers, abstract questions
A political battle for the right decision
I’m below the belt
And if I’m to ascend from this
The sun’ll go out,
With everything in my mouth.
You’ll turn
To my face, weep
-ing baby.
That’s right.
I’m not worth you, but you’ll see
I will survive.

The Joy of Coke

A bag is thrown over your head as a kid
To keep germs and ideas from tunneling in
Yet you're stubbing your double-joint foot on your shin
Does no one care to know?
That you take the elevator to your invisible jet
And it's not nearly fast enough but it's as fast as they get
And let's get out the camera when you take your first shit
And relive it in a year.

When you're feeling like your love is just a surrogate child
When your diseases win the walkathon and smirk in their stride
When artificial lighting burns a hole through the night
Does no one know to care?
About your sense of belonging to an underground cult
Toasting your health with your head in the smoke
And if the children of the world can find joy from a coke
Can we mass-produce that here?
Another million shrink-wrapped happy meal treats
Another million matches on the fuse in the East
Another million bankers with nothing to eat
But their stomachs full of dimes

Spicy

Showing off your tonsils at the mouth of hell.
Tree and tinsel eat out your landfill.

In all angles, we love light but fuck pigment.
And there's a difference because your seventh-grade girlfriend told you so while she was sighing with experience.
And there's no difference because you no longer believe in variety as a prerequisite to existence.
Life is spicy enough and artificially flavored to taste like it's telling you secrets behind its fronts.

Not Your Moon

Found in our depths
Our spaceships collapse
(No motor oil in outer space)
Can't breathe can't spit
Tell ourselves to cool it
You're too hot inside
Set sheets ablaze
Our flags heat us for days
Too much so soon
And it's not your moon

Heart of Progress

Our sherpa guide he wanders
Into the heart of progress
Machines for clones or soft serve
Milked cows long gone and butchered
Ler go, your mines are shaky
Dust rise and run for safety
You are the best we've got yet
Your eyes match the living room set
Talk a lot and I apologize
Over dinners of pasta bowties
Get some while you've still got it
Feet grow and shoes just won't fit
You like when things are alright
My eyes dry out in the sunlight

Greeted

I'm going to tie your laces like a flutterfly in the heart of July
And when we're done I'll have something to scrape off the soles of my shoes
From horizontal walking through the gates of some fine cities.

And we'll be greeted as liberators.

Throb

Drinking water just cold enough to create that fine throat sensation
Feeling a breeze on my naked feet

And a heat rises off the floor
And an invisible crowd throbs to silent music
And I throb with them

Morning

My breath aches of sleep and bottled water.

I just erased a sentence I shouldn't have.

Sunscreen

And the smell of sunscreen permeates
Your innards
Where you keep your favorite things
Your heartburns and diamonds

And for one second I was aching with whatever

At Night

Come breathe with me for a while
Or not
Or yes
Options for the inept
(You wish you'd slept)
(At night)