1. |
Montserrat
06:19
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I was injured in battle, cannonball straight to the knee. My leg healed crooked, so somebody break it again for me.
I felt confused about women and God's love. I tried to just think about nothing at all, to not think about make-believe.
I lost imagination and traded my town for the speed and the rope and the beads and trying to learn what it means.
I gave up talking to people for so long I forgot how to teach; and I gave up the sins of the flesh but found more in the wheat.
I forgot to tell father about them. He said, "boy there's really no need." But I still feel guilty; so if not for you, then, for me.
I got home before midnight on Saturday for the first time in weeks; and I tried to say anything, tried to explain, it all just came out like a weathered and slow.
I took my sword to the mountain, left it at the black virgin's feet; and I cried out to her every day six years counting. I'm hoping she's weeping for me. And I took long learning the mysteries, took long learning the creed. Probably take long getting to heaven cause I hardly ever make myself bleed.
Can you believe how they found her? Alone in the cave in the trees. Then they carried her up Montserrat with the stones and the priests.
I think that I would have left her there for someone else to make the same memory; maybe I should be more willing to share and look up for once from my stubborn and slow.
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2. |
Before
04:24
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Just as the bees fly through the sky, out to the flower, back to the hive, my mind is working, logging it's time, returns to the light in your eyes.
Just as we don't know how bees fly, bodies heavy, wings not so wide, I am a stone at all times besides when I think of you, a loss of all pride.
Just as the bees end their own lives, fall to the floor showing their might, I wanted to touch you; but part of me died just being by you a moment in time.
Sometimes I think back when I missed you that night. Would one more encounter have made things go right? The bee was the brightest, the flower was lines, and so was the helmet. You learned it was mine.
The bees all die with no queen, the flowers all die with no bees, the people all die with no petals or leaves and no one is left to believe.
The bees all die with no queen, and the people all die with no bees. No reason at all for the colors of fall if no one is left to see.
The bees all die with no queen, and the flowers all die with no bees. If the honeysuckle dries by the fourth of July, why even go to the beach?
We walked the gulf coast. God had killed all the fish to make room for the trash. No picture or drawing could capture our wonder at all of the eels and the nutria, took their last breath. But we still held the lens to each other as if the code required. I tried to find oil to reignite the fire, you weren't cold so you just moved away. The idea of you stayed.
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3. |
Below
02:34
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The beaches were beautiful with dead shit everywhere. I thought of your mother, how close I was from her. I came to the turnpike, approached it while still in prayer. Missed the fucking exit, I couldn’t believe I’d never been there before except in my mind ,and the key for those lovers is a key I shan’t find. And I couldn’t find the trail back to the car, not for anything.
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4. |
Evangeline
05:32
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I prayed so hard I thought I heard your call, but I lied when I got to "most of all." So in circles, I, in circles prayed in circles again like an age 22 record at its end.
I prayed so long while I drove so far, pretend to be on roads to play guitar. On highways, I'm reaching out through the windshield of my car for a vision in the fields or in the marsh.
I watched you take your shovel to my yard. You planted all new trees inside my heart. I baked forbidden fruit into a pie and called it art and ate it as the sky revealed the dark.
And though the last lights off the black west went, in the night I'd swear that I was heaven sent. The morning came, it hurt to wake and I could hardly tell if I'm called Martin, Roy, or Uriel.
I played along while you rewrote parts, and the song you wrote contained the chords I lost. When I tried to put them back in place, you laid me on the cross and let me up when I had learned.
Confused I left without regret and knowing you can't learn If you forget, so I filled the blank with "what you will" and try to make it true and offer all my daily pains to you.
I didn't think that you would sit around and let me go. I couldn't sink cause the water is denser than the oil. I held my tongue when they offered you up and they said your name. I played along with the chords that you rewrote but they sound the damn same.
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5. |
Refinery
08:09
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When I was seventeen, they spilled the oil on me and cleaned off every possibility that I might leave. When you were playing games you saw spilled oil and tried to make it all so we would be okay, but neither of us meant to change.
So I left you there at your father's house on the island that looked greener from my father's house, and I wrote you saying all things work out. And you said maybe one day, but I know not until the son shouts.
Intentions held for you inside the silence of my heart but they are really just a longing to be loved how someone ought. And the oil didn't just stain, it sat and seeped, not even rain could wash away. You moved; I met you and did the same.
So you left me there outside your father's house, and I drove home half drunk, pushed slick words through my teeth. And I wrote you saying some things work out, but you said not now. You have never believed the sun shouts.
I wanted to mine you. Call it 2010, for a few weeks, I broke. And I still wouldn't mind if you said to come back. I'd light every slick word you spoke. No, I wouldn't defy you. There's a life where I sell every vessel for gold, and you bind me and I, you. And we watch as our stubborn but weak pipes grow old. And the sun starts to die too while the dependent moon drinks the last of his ale cause the bar's closing at two. Though the sun dies, the earth and the moon will prevail. And we're sleeping like children, fully clothed, hardly touch, don't need darkness to sleep. But we think like refineries cause I want you to myself, you want all of me, don't need any more power, pump every last drop from your teeth.
I, full of passion and kind, couldn't make up my mind. Did I have enough love for you or only the Lord? I couldn't decide and still can't define my worship in churches or out on the moors. I, in the morning or night, drank Bud heavy straight from your bottle and fell fast asleep in the heat. Why, at the end of our time, you had made up your mind. I would have you in memory; you'd have none of me.
Can you believe we both found her, the mountain, the church, then the cave, and the trees a few years apart in the country I wish you could leave? And I wish that I could have left you there with someone else and with my memories. In some greater picture, you might not be there, but I gave up praying. Your spine became my rosary.
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6. |
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Tonight, on the way home, I saw opossum begin to writhe. Out on the road, its head decomposed, mourning a loss of its brow and eyes. With tail intact, I thought to turn back; but I continued to drive. Mind starts to reel, hand on the wheel, on the way home.
One week ago, I stood by the bed and watched my grandfather leave. Leaving his shell, no ring in the bell. No need for an instrument to eat. And the body lay out with wide open mouth, lying in wait for the sheet. Three hours late, they rolled him away. I stood by the bed.
Two years ago, outside the store, man thrown to the ground, selling CDs. Ignore the pleas. Who wears the crown? Sit on the back, end it like that. Don't make a sound. Blood on the hand, kids turned and ran outside the store.
They're all still somewhere; there's no use in grieving. Refine all your oil and put it into jars. When God returns, he'll press the oil to your scars.
Opossum squealed loudly "I'm ready to go" while Alton took hold of my grandpaw to show the way up the ramp to the mount in the sky where the pairs will repair all that man has defiled. And all of America spoke from their chests, "your raft will not float, come on ours, ours is best." But the guns weighed it down, and the man holding rank threw his crown in the sea shouting out as it sank,
"Surely, this man was the son of God. Why did I then now not reck his rod? Adios, xaipe, vale, au revoir, Allah."
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7. |
Patron Mother
03:07
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Patron Mother, I'll let you down, jump the ship to look for the crown. Unholy waters, I'll nearly drown, but still you weep for me.
Monica of Hippo found husband in bed, sleeps around in Carthage or some west coast town. Weep for everything.
A second light to your merits, Augustine, serve the heavenly laws of peace you taught or you teach. A glory greater crowns you both, Mother of Virtues, awful offspring.
She who sings prays twice as much, fighting off unholy touch, want to want to feel real love but can't bring myself to weep.
Monica, shed tears for me, set on course to kill a tree, made its way by slavery, forget to try to sleep.
Can he who sings pray twice as well as well? Meaning more if doubts restore our health or one with fear and one with bells? Want to want to know you, want to speak.
Patron Mother, Queen of Tears, fall like rain and bless Algiers and if one drop remains undrinked, let the farmer wash their feet.
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8. |
Deathbed
05:49
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It was like building a home, installed a window unit by your bed and then slept in my jeans with our phones dead on the windowsill. No one to call.
Except God was out calling for me in the morning. Yeah God looked for me under that old palm tree. God found me when I felt like I was born again. God said, "young man why do you wear those jeans?"
It was just like Paris Road, spilling whatever in river and street without any concern for the world. Set it ablaze and then watch them all scatter.
But something was already burning in the desert, out the corner of my eye on my drive home. It spoke to me between vampire music. It spoke to me on I10 El Paso. I felt like I was driving towards some long time when the touch would come to a halt, helped me get used to a life without feeling. Like to think it was only halfway my fault. Something like 39 days in a drought.
Drive all you want though you'll never escape it. You'll never impress it. You'll never undress it, Joe. It's possible you had a couple of children; it was something like normal if not for the angel, Joe. How to survive living with your admission? You can call it nocturnal or call it eternal, Joe. If not for renaissance holy ghost visions, all of those beautiful paintings of you on your deathbed might not be so clean.
All the love that you once had will just make you want it more. All the gods that you can’t see that you thought you saw before. All the love that you’ll never get back, never find the same. All made for ruin, none made for gain.
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9. |
Subaquatic Live
04:41
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New Orleans is the center of the world, so one day you’re bound to return. That’ll be the day that I float up and burn. That’ll be the end of the world.
Adams Street feels like a hell where the cemetery doesn’t seem real. It’s nothing that’s healthy. No, it won’t help me heal. Adams is the end of the world. Adams, where I’ll be interred.
Where the Texas plates won’t go away, a blue civic is starting to fade. There’s people still telling me that I’ll be okay; my family didn’t hear what yours heard (the last time I was in church before this weekend. Way out in Mansfield, your pastor was speaking, said we are all saved but I’m betting he’s reaching). It is finished. He breathed his last breath. Then the priest touched my forehead for almost a minute.
“If the house isn’t yours, son, then why are you in it?”
“It feels like it’s mine more than hers even if it just feels like the end of the world.”
The last night I saw you, I wanted to hate you. White hair fell on shoulders like nothing had happened. Asked you to meet me at Snakes for a farewell. Turned into a normal night so I got shitfaced. You told me you’d come back. Don’t know why you shared that.
You told me you’re back in July like you’re back every night in my mind. Not back for me but for what you left behind, your cat. What’d it do to deserve you? Now I think maybe I’ll stay. Was leaving with you til you had your way.
Maybe I can hate you if I drown in the rain in New Orleans at the end of the world. When I am sinking, my mind will replace you with blood spots at the end of the world. When you return you can stand on my grave eating popcorn when you’ve ended the world. When you return, take a picture of my name cast in concrete.
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10. |
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New Orleans is the center of the world, so one day you’re bound to return. That’ll be the day that I float up and burn. That’ll be the end of the world.
Adams Street feels like a hell where the cemetery doesn’t seem real. It’s nothing that’s healthy. No, it won’t help me heal. Adams is the end of the world. Adams, where I’ll be interred.
Where the Texas plates won’t go away, a blue civic is starting to fade. There’s people still telling me that I’ll be okay; my family didn’t hear what yours heard (the last time I was in church before this weekend. Way out in Mansfield, your pastor was speaking, said we are all saved but I’m betting he’s reaching). It is finished. He breathed his last breath. Then the priest touched my forehead for almost a minute.
“If the house isn’t yours, son, then why are you in it?”
“It feels like it’s mine more than hers even if it just feels like the end of the world.”
The last night I saw you, I wanted to hate you. White hair fell on shoulders like nothing had happened. Asked you to meet me at Snakes for a farewell. Turned into a normal night so I got shitfaced. You told me you’d come back. Don’t know why you shared that.
You told me you’re back in July like you’re back every night in my mind. Not back for me but for what you left behind, your cat. What’d it do to deserve you? Now I think maybe I’ll stay. Was leaving with you til you had your way.
Maybe I can hate you if I drown in the rain in New Orleans at the end of the world. When I am sinking, my mind will replace you with blood spots at the end of the world. When you return you can stand on my grave eating popcorn when you’ve ended the world. When you return, take a picture of my name cast in concrete.
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