Music

I wrote songs on-and-off for about ten years. I tried getting a band together to play them properly a number of times. For one reason or another, it never worked out. I’m not sure it ever will. In light of this thought, I decided I should record the songs myself in some capacity, however short the recordings might fall of how I imagine the songs “really” sounding.

Mostly, these recordings are a gesture of gratitude and form closure for a hobby I’ve spent a lot of time on and had a lot of fun with. Theoretically, however, I suppose they could also reinvigorate the project (which I’ve been calling “Le Phone Cord”) by reaching people who want to help the songs reach their full potential. (Ideally, I’d just be the principal songwriter, rhythm guitarist, and “musical director” of Le Phone Cord.) If you’d like get involved (whether by singing or playing something––including, but not limited to: guitar, piano, bass, drums, vibes, horns, strings, and electronics––producing/arranging something, paying for something, or making some other kind of contribution I lack the imagination for at the moment), leave a comment and we can take it from there.

Fish Ladder Wallpaper is a “song cycle” made up of material from 2004-2009 (when I was between the ages of 14 and 19). The songs range from arty folk-rock to slacker funk to atmospheric micro-suites to goofy barn-burners.

Perennial Dock Morning is a “song cycle” made up of material from 2009-2011 (when I was between the ages of 19 and 21). The songs range from the Memento of American folk rock to oceanic dirges to one-chord descents into semantic satiation. The songs are longer and more complicated than those on Fish Ladder Wallpaper. As such, more parts had to be cut on this album than on that one since more parts don’t lend themselves to solo acoustic performance.

Underwater Opera House is a “song cycle” made up of material from 2012-2015 (when I was between the ages of 22 and 25). The songs range from jaunty explorations of metaphysical neuroses to musical irrational numbers (both soothing and psychotic) to cathartic bloodlettings over economics and time. The songs are longer and more complicated than those on Perennial Dock Morning. As such, even more parts had to be cut on this album than on that one since more parts don’t lend themselves to solo acoustic performance.

The recording process was spartan: It was done live (i.e., there was no post-production; each song is a single unbroken and unaltered “solo acoustic” take with no overdubbing) on an iPod Nano using the “Voice Memo” function, and no more than one day of work was permitted per song. Because of this rough recording method, the singing is occasionally hard to hear over the guitar playing. As such, consulting the lyrics might add to the listening experience. They are available in drop-down menus next to each song on Le Phone Cord’s Bandcamp page (where all the songs can be downloaded for free) or below, where each song (listed alphabetically rather than by album) is individually embedded above its lyrics.

Thanks for listening. Enjoy.

A

“…And She Came Roaring Back”

mazes of lace
encased in Great Lakes…
scouting outer space
for that freight train face…

there’s an angel in my navel, bathing, gazing outwards.
southbound-facing… effusive frowns…. your eyes are pools i’m scared i might drown…

the worlds i’m bereaved of…
the swirls of fever dreams loved…

“Arcs”

dress hems, broken brain stems twist and bend behind me as fireworks unwind in flight.
bundles and bouquets of orbits radiate from corn-scorched hair and blooming eyes.

unraveling rainbows pour through prisms ribboning calves in runny, melting arcs.
eyelashes latched on my cheeks emerging from the reeds in germinating light.

B

“Ballad”

oh, twin sister,
i cared for the rooster that you left;
it was kind of hefty, but what can i do?
what was it like back there all alone with the gospel doom?

oh, twin sister,
i know that you’ve got roots of your own
and grooves runnin’ through your bones that are not like mine…
yet don’t forget me as we’re ground to dust by time…

oh, twin sister,
having cleansed your blistered bleedin’ feet,
meet me down at the cafe; don’t go astray.
we’ll let a conversation burn and flake into an ashtray…

“Ballet Veins”

from the tiniest tone your tuning fork bones
are an orchestra stoned to death
(as we’re caught in the cold huddlin’ and holdin’
each other as rain pounds cement).

please, Velvida, take me to your dance school.
i didn’t know you then but now i’d love to.
in ballerina shoes your veins are cut hose,
and they’re chopped stems along your pale rose feet.

pretty pirouette pose perfectly exposed
all the squiggly calligraphy
that had run down your stomach in whispered rows
for a theater of me to see.

stretch! visualize! eyes closed in a furor––
against a steel rail, wood floor in the mirror.
a malleable skeleton swallowed––
drizzled cigarette smoke in my hollow cheeks.

tremulous wavelengths…
a music box tinkling…
ribbons that waver…
bankrupt twirls hang, lingerin’…

C

“The Charlie Brown Theme Dies And Goes To Heaven (Intro To Electronic Music Version)”

[instrumental]

E

“Epiphanies”

i was swimmin’ in unconsciousness the day that i found God.
He was sittin’ on the ocean holdin’ a lightning rod.
He concentrated and said, “let there be lightning!”
The Clerks Of Weather overturned it in committee by decree.

i was studyin’ my surroundings when i chanced on Charles Dar-
win pinned down under a microscope with no one at the ocular
lens. …just then when i went to look things got blurry.
he tried to tell me how to fix this, but his speech kept on slurring.

i was tryin’ to pick a part to play inside the Globe Theater,
but i had Shakespeare drummin’ his fingertips on my parking meter.
he said, “who cares? you know the world is but a stage.”
i said, “i guess then you wouldn’t mind if it didn’t pay…” and dashed away.

i was searchin’ for epiphanies the day that i found Bob
Dylan danglin’ from a cherry tree; i let out a gentle sob.
i said “good god! what has happened to you on this day?”
he said “the wind has come and blown us all away…
but i ain’t never gonna––”

F

“The Face, A Facade”

with my face half-frozen
in the ozone
layer lost

and my fertile crescent
body’s essence
focus found…

the moon in May…
birthday balloons…
“perfumes don’t fade!”
laugh brides and grooms.

don’t you know a smile is a cistern,
sister? umbrella––frown rain runs down.
both at times do serve a purpose,
and both do at times serve it well.

as i soak in bath salts
along fault lines
wine in hand,

i laze on rooftops…
(blaze-proof snapshots
sunburned out…)

chalked up and chafed…
on expressions zoomed…
rattled glass panes
predict monsoons.

don’t you know your cheek bones are glowing?
don’t blush that’ll just make it worse.
hollow and haloed and high-sloped…
don’t wear makeup, you can make it work.

raspberry blisters
where razor blade kissed her…
the badger hair brushes
swished ’round in the sink…

rendered in slivers,
i shiver through silvers
as slender as ribbons––
“you’re looking quite nice…”

take it in pill-form
if you cannot perform
under shower pressure
fogging up the mind.

cuckold or cold feet,
you’re still young and so sweet,
so don’t sweat the details
prevailing so far.

bulldozed or doze off
on fire escape loft,
i ask, “does it matter
Madam Macadam?”

ruthlessly truthful:
i’m not sure how youthful
i feel at this fruit stand
on my way to work

in the streets of New York…

New York, New York [repeat until it loses all meaning (i.e., until semantic satiation sets in), then repeat more]

“Fish Market”

the catch of the day
is proudly displayed
on my shoulder blades…
scales glittering in the sun…

on the thatched roof,
chest caked with mud,
fleeing the flood,
flowers in her flesh unfolded…

“Flag”

crumbling underneath layers of static and snow,
my bleary eyes fixed themselves fiercely to an image so bold;
that lingering leaf on a tree is a flag on a pole…

and i’ll hold your hand
tightly, we’ll feel
like we were once
so well concealed.

“A Flood Of Mirrors”

six leagues long the shiver runs,
rippling every reflection.
all the self-aware unknowns
of their spots upon the dome…

queen of mis-en-abyme––though out of sequence––
shines subtly like sequins through the bleakness,
as my myopic dreams fade to kaleidoscopic kinds of closeness…

a waterfall of dresses meshes…
refresh to palest pinks while blinking on a mattress…
statuesque in the flesh––completely arresting iridescence…

clumsily the stars and sea smear and smudge…

messages in bottles spun…
vestige, holy accident…
people of the lost city
increasing velocities…

angels at all angles that fall, bedraggled––
stragglers zig-zagging like particles in stars’ sickle arcs,
fickle marks out on larks that might fix us on the water…

i’m pressed into your chest and cherishing
the crash of your crests, and your warmth and its breadth,
with irises intimate, locking-in above our buckling knees…

suddenly the sounds and seams come undone…

wading knee-deep in a mirror…
never thought you’d find me here…
cirrus kiss, calypso tryst…
from cocoa leaves,
depart with grins…
at the Hudson River bend, the glass––it broke!
oh, bridge, belay!
pants rolled up as the wind rises,
whippin’ hair across your face!

“Freedom”

all my desire expired––
i don’t really wanna go to jail anymore.
so i drop to my knees and i beg forgiveness,
but i don’t really wanna be forgived anymore…

a clock’s face––now hey that’s really somethin’
that i’d love to punch-in without workin’ a shift!
but now even eternal rest requires
punchin’ out the stone that’s been sealin’ your crypt…

in gods we trust, in bods we lust
until we’re clods of dust, so… what are the odds of us
being two halves instead of two have-nots?
let’s tie ourselves in knots until we’re the whole-iest!

all my gardening tools tarnish
and everything i love i just end up lettin’ grow.
but ardence ain’t no flame retardant––
that’s why i find myself in front of this barber pole…

at wit’s end with the insults, i challenge
the mirror to a duel, or maybe duality…
it’s time to reclaim myself and honor,
and now––wait, shit, let’s make it two out of three!

and
so my “¡Adios!”es echo,
bouncin’ ‘round the canyon as i cross The Border.
‘mongst lost counts and those tossed out––silence.
was dyin’ then i decided i didn’t reside in
Order.

[chants of “red-ro,” “dre-or,” “rod-re,” “od-rer,” et cetera––i.e., “words” made up of the scrambled letters of “order”]

G

“Galapaghosts”

body––fat and flimsy; mind breaks at heart’s whimsy.
shape-shifting sister, just cling to something.

doctor, are you evolution?
please then, come in when you can.

why can’t our bodies be smarter? we’re starting
to be not immune to some plumes of disease.

welcome this hive of machines…
i wonder, “who invented these?”

galapaghosts wave from the future––they’re smiling.
let’s stave off starvation and wait here a while…

dosage translates through me…
it’s not from soft soliloquies.

let’s get your form back!

“Gina”

Gina…
broken coffee cups, torn pantyhose––
i need ’em
by the bedside table telephone…

while i was cleanin’…
all your bobby pins in Dixie Cups,
you leaned them
like gardening tools in backs of trucks.

at the marina…
Eastern Seaboard trip in drips and drops…
by the cantina…
roadside flashes haunting the cornstalks…

the rigmarole of our cin’ma’s scope, and
our lyrical e-
lopements along The Lone Star Trail with
masts raised and some gauze-wrapped bouquets of
manifold marigolds in elegy for
workers of rail-
roads––an ode in light bulbs culled, pullulating,
gently pulsating in tents, unrepenting…

Regina Jester, queen of equestrians, sun-
bathed by The Great Salt Lake on baked mud. Har-
ry Haystack, slack-jawed, war-widowed horse whisper-
er, sidled up side saddle to her.

The Psychedelic San Francisco Blood Rush gushed
through the ravines and the grandest canyons, ran
the interstates––a kingdom come undone… the
rusted colossus of The Summer Of Love.

The New Frontier…
that old front door…
peel out, floor it…

soon i’ll be hittin’ the road;
i’ll be hittin’ the beach;
i’ll be pickin’ up West Coast chicks––
let’s go!

“Godless Sky”

a/c generators hum…
the blankness of movie screens…
bodies blur and burn into dazzling spectrums…
stars: saturated, woozy…

to like the way an outfit looks
subsuming flow and fleeting,
shrouded in halogen mists and record hiss––
moon dance in a warm science…

eyes peer into godless sky…
quiet and unmoving…
muted colors… monoliths… structures non-strict…
the unknown slate consuming.

an empty shell
is an open shelter.

“Goodbye, Waves”

sinkin’ ships at sunrise
appear as preamble…
with auras air-raided
we are stately in shambles.

The Hereafter hangs like
paper lanterns slung low,
then glides down the river
with full flames past row boats.

“wait!”
i will wait…
“so long!”
so long…

airplanes scream, oratin’,
over orchards, barren channels…
scene grows grand with distance––
emptiness overflows…

the canyons are spacious…
the craters are not cold.
the sky sags with the weight
of halos and payloads.

i could only ever grasp you as a concept,
so i held you in my head like the holiest math.

at Calamity Synth,
all our problems piled up.
squeezed into a loft bed––
coupled Malthusian scrubs…

they are bulbs burnin’ out,
but planted in the ground
will wane through the winter,
wait for Christmas tree sprouts…

don’t cry at creation––
its dreams just like snow
blown wild and widely…
colliding kaleidoscopes…

at my muscles zenith,
i will crave you so glum.
empty out my unrest
with some fee-fi-fo-fum…

splotches of his pigment
trickle down from rags wrung…
twisted ladders’ rungs rang––
the necklace on which he’s strung…

she’s finding her footing,
she’s up on tip-toes.
*goodbye* she waves, wobbling,
on balance beams baroque.

M

“Mermaids”

lo and behold: the cement on the beach!
crumbling altars altered… a sea change unceased…
revolve ‘round repeating Raptures…
remove the timescales from our eyes as we gaze at naval plumb lines.

water trickling off our bodies umbilically tra-
ces the paths out of an inner space…
cord evaporates––
the tapestry elapses into skies cyclic’-
ly!

hark! garbled codes and codas in seashells…
questions of trees fallin’ lost when Babel fell…
you can hear a pin hit the floor
before the needle drops into the geologic record’s grooves…

this threnody ‘s the only anodyne to rely on Anno Domini…
dominoes in spiral patterns flow––spreading infections and wings alike…
ripplin’ out from the nipple into lands of honey preserves––
inlets, outposts, ghosts, and garbage islands…

sensory deprivation chambers submerged
in erogenous zones grasped with mind and hand…
arousal of the aureoles…
depth charges in search of orgasm… the cell doors explode open!

a soul is an egg that is pregnant––
vestiges build the nest…

pluperfect clouds somnambulate through
sewer systems and blue skies. mermaids
in waves of spermicide
(beached on farmland ‘midst reindeer)…

the scents of salts haunt the collective dream––
the threat of waking up or falling asleep?
auspicious reverse baptism…
first breaths… the lungs swell like parachutes… the memories birthed and exhumed…

scatter all of our ashes in the
ocean and see that our grave is kept clean…

transgender plants dance at land’s end…
intersex symphony, ascend!

flavors on tongues lead to gnashings of teeth…
machine’ries of death on the breath––but how sweet!
the instinct to consume consumes…
links form the first Chain, which we remain ensnared in even as we reign…

is matter a
property of consciousness?

there’s no such thing
as lactating syllables.

locate brainstorms…
you will find them in landfills.

delphian muse,
are we a wick or a fuse?

we know the truth,
but we do not know it’s depth…

at the break of dawn i cracked an egg…
at the break of dawn i cracked an egg.
at the break of dawn i cracked an egg!

Persephone has her day at the beach.
is it Poseidon her prayer should beseech?
like steam spurting up from the whale––
this isn’t a song, it’s a signal flare from an igloo aired in the glare…

“Movies”

i am in love with a girl from the movies.
the movies you made, darlin’, tore me to tears.
an amputated fantasy handed back to me
on Parisian seas where boats meld with the piers.

your flickering form festooned on a silver screen
curls into me and unfurls burning bright!

broken glass gone now there’s no need for acting.
your refraction free vision swims in my eyes…
soaking in all your moodiness and melodies,
swelling in arms that were wreathed ’round your spine…

fleecin’ out fluorescent folk tales on Circus Street––
the language that leaked out your mouth streaked my arm!

warp out of a wormhole and spill through a fish’s gills
as magical memories, mercurial miracles,
spherical streaming shapes scraped off the asphalt
and mended into scenery––
embalming!

“My All Insides”

all my wishes
reside inside the
flowers and fishes
powerfully flowing through me.

all my organs
are gonna transform in-
to vibrating orchids…

“My/The Roaring 20s”

electroshock…
a ticking clock…
i’ll sleep when i’m dead or i’ll die in my sleep.

always tongue-tied…
always waitin’…
every time i go outside i end up with sun-fried skin.
open an umbrella, it starts rainin’…

i don’t even know what you want anymore!
i don’t even…
i don’t even…
i don’t even know!

who would even know who we are anymore?
who could even…
who could even…
who could even know?

the flag was flappin’ formin’ folds in the fabric like Pacific Ocean waves…
a stolen car with broken mirrors, AM radio sta-
tion in place of time… i’m not alone if i forget my age.

N

“Navy Wife”

Navy wives on the pier
out the rain crystallize, come…
umbrellas full bloom…

there’s a leak in the boat
‘neath her overcoat, soaked through…
spoken for… broke in two…

a fortress in a dress
under strict house arrest that’s
self-imposed, closed off…

salvos of salvation…
Florencia’s flotilla
upon freedom freezes…

all ‘s love in fair war.
all ends––that’s welfare.
all ‘s well in love affairs.
goodbye, my love, farewell!

“Nerves”

radiatin’ weakly… speak to me through these seashells…
overwhelm me, sweet thing––drown out bell tower’s hourly swell… well,

all i could do
was pray for you
to bolt from out The Blue…

all my stars are burned out, i ‘s just waitin’ for the news…
we found filament farmhouse, bloomed beneath its blesséd roof… and

so in lieu
of a fixed fuse:
the “night light” of your moon…

fertilizin’ fresh nerves, caressed forth on the threshing floor…
the pressure and the gestures… buds burst in the mud, thirst for more… but

goddamn The Blues––
embrace the hues!
until in grace subsumed…

cremation, cross-pollination of the fates far flung…
yet still under the gun, the pendulum like an ax swung… it’s

a word you knew,
that bird that flew…
a pin to a balloon…

shower steam opens up nostrils in gardens of green…
passages are perfumed, waft above the curfew freely… those

spaces abstruse
where lace was loosed…
the warm clouds rise, occlude…

time is overflowin’, you’re flushed out in the run-off…
diving board bends, buoy bell rings, and the echoes cross… i

think Noah knew
one thing––no, no! two!––
about a world renewed…

the inner sanctum is not an incinerator,
it’s an off-center soft sensitive tilled field.

it’s not smoke, it’s ashes. still, the ghost i can’t grasp is
what splashes the placid lake––memory.

fog up all my mirrors, dear, write just what you want in them…
hauntin’ abstract concept of hot breath…

underneath the ribs sensations are twinned––
that’s Original Sin, where nerve endings
begin.

O

“Octopus Flower Freezing To Death”

and i will be your greatest friend.
i will embrace you as we freeze to death.
wallowing in a wedding dress…
undulating on the stage with lush curls in your hair…

freezing to death,
octopus flower…
shimmering breath and fluttering consciousness…

“Oh Me”

here i am once again––
in more ways than one––
in the sand on the beach
bein’ bleached out by the sun.

history, hysterectomies, anomie, and anonymity––
are these my enemies? manifest destiny? or maybe an option-three?

all vessels must decide to be propelled by capillaries or masts/wood.
false nostalgia could just as feasibly drown ya as your hometown could…

what’s the umbilical, rhetorical effect of this struck syllable’s bell?
fountain pens on a shell-shocked, hell-scaped young man’s novel fontanelle…

the idea of soul ends up a phantom limb you can’t even fathom…
“if you love it, let it go!”––unless it don’t grow, then all you did was abandon…

i doubt i’ll ever feel as free as the first time i stayed home alone.
a calling to belonging inside empty buildings and ruins of stone…

cultural memories lapse but can also relapse within a synapse––
maps snapped open, astrolabes soakin’ in strobed light and my CSF casked…

these are things about me…
still i doubt me that they are me…
they’re an armies fighting for me…
there are five me’s, six me’s… seventies, totaling…?

whippin’ around the bends and the blind curves
of rail-less cliffside
roads, had to rely on the signs so
to not make beelines…
end up in a maw full of sawtooths
where there is no time,
when there is no place
you’re frozen when you die.
there is a new Space Race
that traces through the mind.

i’ve a few good friends.
there’ll be other women…
but right now all i want
is to go swimmin’…

[Insert a patchy, chopped, and screwed recording of The Pacific Ocean Monologue]

“Origins”

thy darlin’ ‘s been snarlin’ ever since ye left The Garden
and thy newfound cock hardened.
“another snake needs charmin’” she ribs, barrin’
a pardonin’…

Lord, this double helix––peel it apart or unreel it
to reveal its secrets…
release us from The Wheel or else floor it un-
til story’s end…

“descents into base penchants block The Entrance for descendants!”
I can say with all prescience…
vengeance engines rendin’ apart defenses––
it’s relentless…

once i was a miracle––object of tears and heart strings pulled…
everyone could start over…
now i lunge for my fungibles as i plunge towards
The Underworld…

ye’d broken thy covenant with thy very first government,
now each must discover this:
there’s no recoverin’ or touchin’ nothin’
sans oven mitts…

rattled enough to saddle up and skedaddle deep into bluffs––
roughshod and tumbleweed…
it’s humbling to ford the streams of each other’s dreams,
flower, bumblebee…

P

“Punxsutawney Phil”

jilted in a field of wilted
wings and watchin’ foreshadows, bets.
how much longer must i be sufferin’
in a bomb shelter of blankets?

oh, Punxsutawney Phil,
i wish i was Huckleberry Finn––
swindling sins on the river,
riding high on suicide with friends.

who’dve known that this daring damsel
ever would escape from here?
i didn’t know from what she was runnin’…
unaware of my own fears…

Aphrodite in absentia––
you know that i sent for her…
but every one of these superstitions
don’t seem to be workin’ out so good…

R

“Receptors & Signals”

estrogen astronaut spins up
from ashtray tins to ceiling fans––

the kite in my consciousness,
the light at the end of my tunnel vision…

i’ve secretly adored
your gorgeous adornments
and floral arrangements;
i meant to tell you then…

now water trickles in-
to the vases’ bases!
drawers stuffed with clothes pinned…
kitchen is saturated with your scents dispensed in redolence…

i take your smile and bake it in-
to apple pie, mood-alterin’ food pyramids…

seasick seein’ ships
through the rain
when they’re all empty to me…

i was engulfed in
your ample endorphins,
but now all i see is
these endless dorsal fins.

but they won’t get me high…
strings detached from kites…
their bodies will not rise
above the waves to grave goodbyes… why?

“Ruins”

“it hurts like hell to exert myself!”
i outburst out loud
in this mercantile, absurd dogpile.
“oh, let the trade winds blow off these clothes!”

the starfish tears apart itself
with a dark wish held
against it’s astral counterpart,
like every motherfucker we know…

you lie on the track and die on your back.
lives fly off the rack
or are tied up in back of an unmarked trac-
tor trailer bailed out to free-flow…

my entrails pen tales of the future…
i’m gonna need sutures…
i spill my guts until they fill the ruts
and there’s a shiver for each breeze blown…

a usurped skull has a burst hull––
‘s never reimbursed in full.
how merciful to have the purse strings pulled
like a tablecloth from ‘neath serene rows…

you pervert yourself to preserve yourself,
but the freeze frame melts
and unleashed flames fell fever dreamscapes shelled
as the aftermath of a sneeze snows…

i’ve only ever loved as a favor…
i was good at it, i guess…
now i hail a cab in Hell…
and i’ll miss you all…
i’ll catch your kisses in the wind…

…please catch my kisses in the wind!

S

“Saturnalia”

Apollo abrogates
and matter separates––
the strayin’ lights, low-laid…
astronomy ashtray…
coffee cream galaxy
spilled in finale…

in consummate café,
feign feeling featherweight.
watching the gunned flares fade,
surveying the landscape…
child pulls at pant leg––
another spinning plate…

but i won’t scream your name
inside a hurricane
as echo chamber maid…
i think it might be brave
to not be that insane––
to open up my brain
as if it were a vein…

when it blossoms
i’m obliterated,
and littered like petals
in a bird baths, rotatin’––
pink and white ovations,
slow motion dilation…

do you know just how comely you are,
as our deaf daughter puts earrings on?
calmest canals cupped against a palm…
navvy with barrow wipes brow with cloth…

“Shapely”

dilapidated dancer…
cotton candy bear trap slipped in snug to quicksand combs…

formless figure skater…
bulbs and buds tremblin’ in fecund farmland folds…

engorged loins––
conjoined twins gushin’ out…
thank god for the textures of tongues, the perfume in your lungs stringin’ out…

“Sill”

tangling tumbleweeds roll through her ovaries,
coffeepot steam starts to scream and soar…
she’s pouring her dreams out her ears into gear machines
while honeysuckle creeps up the walls in sweeping veins.

pipes creak as sunrise dries up the foggy streets.
semen stains drain off the sheets down the sink.
she windowsill sips in the glare with a clarity.
the frame pulls back past her rustling hair, slowly…

T

“Tropics”

“Tropics”

i wanna gentrify Hell…
i wanna cleave a bell clean in half, count the rings…

i want an atom smasher soul…
i wanna sway down by the bay with hula girls…

i wanna rip open your ribcage…
i wanna torch song sing all along the seashore…

i wanna cauterize calenture…
i wanna colonize collapsed time capsules…

midnight, Volcano Island––
a sin, a sun, a sandy wilderness…

there’s a pilgrim in The Void…
nautical jewelry vibrates in ventricles…

with the chords of Capricorn,
she will flood bloodlines and celestial spaces

turning towards the burning,
i will float into your fault lines and salt flats…

the witch that floats
and the glorious boats
that scooped her up and she became a sailor…

the surfaces
of the curvatures car-
ry surfers into Celeste with style…

the astral pro-
jector gestures glow––
the vault of heaven’s evanescent ebbin’…

the paradise
in a pair of dice tossed
glossed with ice and frost and lost forever…?

W

“Watering Can”

clay pots and tin cans…
paint peels off the fence in strips…
by the trampoline there’s a sparkling queen with a watering can rinsing rusting ears…

“Welcomely Homely”

i keep givin’ out my address in hopes that i can follow somebody home…
all i’ve got is this real estate license that lately ‘s feeling so fake…
’cause there wasn’t a house in the dry eye that night,
so when i cried about you later i must’ve been doin’ somethin’ right…

welcomely homely, honey, you’ve hardly been
bathed in the afterglow of conglomeration…

crisscrossin’ Carolina in hindsight, our split-sides nearly lime-lit…
been buldin’ up this house of cards to have a place with its own deck…
steamin’ towards the orphanage of origin,
but in the couplet of your arms borrowin’ for tomorrow’s tenement!

every goodbye was a microcosmic sky-
high signal, double entendre, bilingual breath…

i nearly slipped through the cracks in my voice as i hoisted off…
it was déja vu in dressing room with defenses down…

this is my last stand
against circumstance.
this is my first glance
towards a dove with branch!

Y

“Youthenized In Head ‘Berg”

oatmeal and almonds on my cereal,
sittin’ window-side, eyes on the road…

confetti ‘s fallin’ on the street, but the mayor’s car has stalled––
swallowing her pride, she’ll still be swallowed whole…

plant a kiss upon my cheek, just don’t be disappointed
if it don’t grow into anything at all…

i place my guitar in the car, but i
just end up at a traffic jam session.

hypnosis or neurosis… let’s both ditch this
hopelessness, miss mayor.

…i’ve got about as much insight as
this fortune cookie fortune with a typo.