1. |
A: There is No Plan
02:19
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i am a fountain, i am a ship, and i have tasted of flight. i have dreamed the sweetest of dreams, and i have held them all through the night. i’m a paperback novel, all yellowed and dogeared, with its cover all torn away. i feel beaten, i feel worn, i feel well-loved for sure, but i’m never certain what i should say. but someday i will know what you long to be told. someday, i’ll find the words you always wish you had heard. someone told me today that when the sun burns out, he hopes that he’s not around, but there is nothing i would rather do than sit awkwardly with you and watch the whole thing come down. because who else could say that on judgment day they watched their precious world end with their friends singing, laughing, and clapping, and dancing with hands held gently in hands? someday, we will know what all of this was for. and someday we’ll understand just what was in that big old plan.
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2. |
Lists
01:33
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i’m sure i could explain why i always feel cold as longing to finally feel somewhere near whole or my soul searching for that which i could never know, if i believed in such things as a soul. which, of course, i don’t, because that’s all bullshit. it’s probably something i don’t want to admit. it’s probably more to do with my eating habits, or you’re right and i’m anemic. so why not add the way that i eat to an evergrowing list of my deficiencies? like the hours i keep, or the way that i sleep, or surely how my little heart it bleeds. or the face that i make whenever i sneeze, or how my chest it falls whenever i breathe, or how i look into things way too deep, or goddammit all, i’ve got knobby knees. i want to make a list of all the things that i like. i want to write and write and write until my pens all die, then hire a pilot to go up and fly and leave my list writ large across the sky. i’ve started my list. i haven’t dulled my pencil’s tip. how can my cup run over if there’s hardly a sip? i said i’ve started my list. yes, i’ve started my list. and so far, it looks like this.
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3. |
It's A Full
03:25
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one morning as i drove home from the city, i saw newspapers lying in the streets, and the very first thought that went through my head was ‘they must’ve fallen off a truck that was driving way too fast.’ i wish i were a little bit smarter, and i damn sure wish i were a better songwriter, because i’m sure i could some beauty in that. but instead i’m left up here with vague words that hardly make sense and a tenuous grasp on things like syntax and tense. i force these clumsy fingers to play all these clumsy songs and pretend that i’m alright when it’s all going wrong. my mother tells me stories of when she was young, long before a single breath ever formed in my lungs, and my favorite one she’s ever told me out of any of these is that my grandfather sang such beautiful songs that the neighbors would come and they would sit on the lawn and wait for his voice to float out on the breeze. so many years later, i stand here and i strum and i yell. and i pray that someday i might sing just as well, or that i might wake up and write some beautiful melody, or that i might someday make someone finally, truly happy. it’s nights like these that remind me the size of my bed. i wish someone were here to tell me my heart is pounding, not just my head. i wish someone would tell me the world is spinning, not just my bedroom tonight. i just wish someone were here to tell me i’ll be alright.
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4. |
Survivor's Syndrome
03:20
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i’ll eat tonight, but i sure as hell won’t drink. it’s been too long for me to do that. i just need some time to think. i can’t finish a meal anymore, and i know that isn’t right. it must be indicative of something more than just a lack of appetite. so instead i sit at home, and i hope i go blind, and i hope it happens soon so i don’t have to watch my impending doom. and i might hope i’m lucky enough to be struck deaf as well so i don’t hear the whole damned world going to hell. the added bonus to all of this: i won’t hear the stupid shit that i’m bound to say, or watch as you [or anyone else] turns to walk away. maybe i should hope that when i wake up i’m struck unable to speak or that my throat closes right up when i try to breathe. maybe the pressure i feel in my chest when my heart beats is a concern or maybe just a lesson i should learn. that through my veins pumps too much love or life or maybe just blood, and i ascribe something to nothing too much. i guess what i’m trying to say, tho i’m taking the long way around, is that i just can’t wait to be underground. and when my time comes to go, i pray i may go slow so i can say what i must to those who must know.
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5. |
St. Vitus' Day
02:46
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there’s a man who never believed in ghosts, but he put his faith in spirits every night. he would raise his glass, he’d raise a toast, singing ‘here’s to nothing ever going right.’ he’d say ‘life has a way of taking what is left and making it all go wrong. believing only leaves you alone, bereft, and singing the same goddamned songs.’ the piano’s gone out of tune again. he never knew those songs anyway. tonight he’ll fight the darkness, and he’ll fight the rain. he’ll dance on st. vitus day. there’s a girl who was never good with words, and every phrase she put together seemed to lack all in the love songs she’d heard and scrawled across her lovers’ backs. no matter how many she brought home and no matter how many were in that bed, there was never quite enough room to get down all that had to be said. the piano’s gone out of tune again. she forgot all those words anyway. tonight she’ll fight her loneliness. tonight she’ll fight her pain. she’ll dance on st. vitus day. the piano’s gone out of tune again. that’s always fit our voices better anyway. tonight we’ll find everyone who can’t forget their pain, and we’ll dance on st. vitus day. the piano’s gone out of tune again, but no one knew how to play the damned thing anyway. we’ll laugh, and we’ll sing. we’ll make love in the rain, and we’ll dance on st. vitus day.
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6. |
Dreams
01:22
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i had the strangest dream last night: it was an afternoon in late july. it was my funeral, just the priest and i. no one was there to say goodbye. so the priest checks the time on his cellular phone, says enough is enough, and he goes home. he leaves me lying there, alone, and doesn’t bother to consecrate my headstone. so the gravedigger throws me into the ground. the graveyard, again, is devoid of all sound. no moaning, no crying, no tears being shed. no laughter at all the times we’d had. no consoling hands on shuddering backs. no girls in dresses, tearstained and black. no man stand standing around, shaking their heads. no lips were moving. no prayers being said. just me, in the ground, in an old wrinkled shirt quickly and quietly being covered in dirt. when down through the air floats a rose to my chest, and you’re running away, wearing that dress you wore when we lay underneath the moon, but the color’s all wrong in the late afternoon. when you get home, you mention it to none. you forget you were there as soon as you’re gone. but a hundred years later, there grows a tree from the dirt that made up little old me. a boy looks at a girl like i looked at you. she stares back blankly like you used to do. and just before the scene goes dark, he takes a knife and carves into the bark their names. he leaves them carved up there; by coincidence, they’re the names we once shared. at this point, i wake up from my dream. but now i’m not sure what it means.
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7. |
Song for Twentyfour
01:51
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8. |
11 November 1972
03:55
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he laughed when he said ‘ignorance is bliss, but that’s only true for the ignorant. it’s not such a lovely thing for those of us cursed to feel or to think.’ he laughed even harder when he said ‘when i die, i hope someone’s right by my side to take my hand and to hold it tight and tell me tomorrow i’ll be fine. because everyone i’ve loved has lied to me at length. why should that stop with my death? and, anymore, i don’t have the strength to fight off these stubborn breaths.’ he told us of the night he swore he’d never drink again as he clutched a double whiskey in his wrinkled right hand. the night ‘i fear it’s terminal’ slipped from the lips of his wife, and he said ‘yea, mine too. it’s just called living life.’ and then he told her ‘you should be glad. dying’s the best time i ever had. count every breath as a chance that you have missed. darlin’, that’s all i’m doin’ ever since we first kissed.’ he took up his drink as from the room she ran, and he tells us he never saw her again. when he gets home he rubs his eyes, and he shakes his head, stumbles blindly back to his bed. he decides the last he needs tonight is another drink. he hides those black bottles back under the sink. he swears if he makes it through the night that tomorrow he will decide right. he’ll take a walk again beneath those lonely stars with his pockets full of stones to the reservoir.
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9. |
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i pray these limbs might actually be strong enough to catch me when i am falling down, or that they might save me from bruising the soles of my feet and stop me before i even hit the ground. i’m not saying i’m at the end of my rope, at least not quite yet, but there’s a day that’s coming, and i hope that it’s soon, where my name’s one you’ll forget. i hope this water might be cold enough to take all my breath right away, or that it might rob my lungs of all the stupid stuff that i’m so desperately dying to say. i’m not saying if the water fills my lungs that i would be glad, but i’m also not quite saying that it would be that bad. i wish i could remember all those things that i’d known, like how good it feels to have something to give, or that i’m not afraid of dying all alone. it’s a much worse way to have to live. i’m not saying dreams don’t come true, but if they do, and if i don’t wake up tomorrow, just know that i loved you.
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10. |
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we’re sending these postcards over endless miles of radio silence and nautical miles. we’re putting these undertones into overtures you’ll never hear. you’re never here. we’ll write them in blood and sign them in tears and stamp them with what we have left. we’ll drink to our love. we’ll drink to our fears, our happiness, and our health. we’re counting syllables like heartbeats, and our breathing’s as forced as our rhyme schemes. in this cold, our lips are split just like infinitives as our clouds of words defrost, derivative. they tell us that all you’ll know is all you’re told, and it’s all you can say or all that you can be. just an epilogue or an afterthought in a book that no one cares to read. we are bankers, and we are midwives, with our forceps and our silk ties and our ghosts all dressed in white. the weight of the stars tonight is immense, so we’ll hide under the cover of the future tense and pretend that everything will be alright. we’ll write until our wells are as dry as a valley of bones waiting to come alive, and our pages are as black as our sunken eyes. we’ll run as fast as we can go. we’ll reach as high as we can go and rewrite all we know. you learn and you live and you love and you give and you laugh and you sing and you’ll cry. the earth will quake. our notes will shake. we’ll find beauty, and we’ll die. the sky will fall. the birds will call. the trees will take root round our bones. fires will burn. our children will yearn, and we’ll learn we were never alone.
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