Lyrics: Large Lights

The more I stay awake. The farther It gets away.
If I stay up too long, this memory will be gone.

It is dark when I wake. It is dark when I get home.

Big huge large lights, that say I've been lost.
That's a lie. I chose this spot. This spot is mine.

Where have you gone? I can't be left alone this long.
It is dark when I wake. It is dark when I get home.

Lyrics: The Piddler

Why did you let me down, standing out at the Fairfield Line?
I've tried to rest in this deafening sound, the sky meets the ground.

Slow, slow, so slow.
Did the clock wind out as the room went cold?
My suit has torn a hole.
And your dress has split where it can't be sewed.

Why did you have me wait? My feet went push till the floor went split.
I stared through the screen and latch, and through the roof peering near the thatch.

Slow, slow, so slow.
Did the clock wind out as the room went cold?
My suit has torn a hole.
And your dress has split where it can't be sewed.

Why did it take so long for you to say, "Hey, I've met someone"?
I sure as hell would've left this town and it's sparse lit clouds.

ZOO Creature

At the ZOO I scavenged for an impression of anything other than the backside of a macaw. Every animal dismissed me at it's leisure, with a recklessness only a caged creature could afford.

Were the large faux rocks and electrified fence tops protecting me or them? Both surfaces lend themselves to fear through conditioning; the rocks with their slip slide slopes and the electricity with it's whirling pulse. Wild is only wild if it acts as such, and these beasts were not much for acting; rather sleeping, picking, or eating.

Only one time was an impression of force made upon me as an elephant recounted his displeasure at the lack of clean dirt beneath his feet. His blast was so deafening that the ground rumbled as the bark shook free of it's parent. It was in that moment where I truly realized the presence of power.

Lyrics: A Work In Progress

All my people think I'm simple.
Drink the coffee, read the paper.
Hear the band, the tunes they're flailing.
Sit for hours, just to play it out.

Who's in? Who's next?
A Work In Progress.

Will the waitress wave to greet me,
Or the doctor nod to see me?
Will my parent's come to meet me?
Drive four hours, just to call me son.

You've been a selfish child.
A Man In Progress.

The role is call. The bell's been ringing.
Kids at tables, blinking, dreaming...
Eyes adrift, with mouth's wide open.
Wait for hours, just to go outside.

To scream and skip.
The Boys in Collared Blue.
Inflamed, in bloom.
Their mind's consumed,
With frogs and glue.

The music's blaring. The women staring.
Nice to see you, how entertaining,
Of a notion that I am pleasing.
Conversations with no meaning...clung.

To youth and guile.
A Work In Progress.

Lyrics: Breathing At The Door

Breathing at the door. When will you let me out? I've scratched and I have kicked, and I've quieted my mouth.
Breathing at the door. What a selfish place to stay. Locked in one place, god these people have no taste.

You're awake! I hear it. You're awake! I know it.
I hear you tossing. I feel you turning. Creep your feet out, put them right down, let me out now, open up the door.

Breathing at the door. Why must I beg to move? I've took all I should, give me another room.
Breathing at the door. When will you let me out? I've scratched and I've kicked, and I've quieted my mouth.

Lyrics: Billy's Cane

Hands bound with this rusty lock. How I cannot twist it off?
Mya does not understand; she's a girl, I am a man.
The chain is wrapped around the log with my head wracked in a fog.
Such a blow I did receive, it was one I could not see.

Mya's standing over me. My hand's gone blue, but legs are free.
What's she holding by her side? A club, a cane, a wiffled slide?
She speaks in coiled rhymes of verbs. A curse with every other word.
"Mya please..." I sputter forth, through weakened tongue as if rehearsed.

Humble Beginnings

From humble beginnings to a mediocre rise. My grandmother using rubber bands and hair ties to lock up the coffee in an unsealed pouch, not so we couldn't drink it, but so we wouldn't want it out.

The pipes that held the water frozen to the outside of her house, bound with bailing wire and old cloth. I don't know if they smelled, but they were the colour of her dirt, which was red and tar, much like the house that rested upon it.

Her head was curled in stoney white gauze that whisped like her dresses, or were they gowns?

She remembered my name from time to time and she remembered to shuffle while she stepped. At my age both seemed ineffective and discomforting.

Not much has changed.

Lyrics: Beating Thomas Best

The Heat ride the streets in varying degrees. Some are extreme, you close your mouth when they speak. Thomas skipped a beat and wore that hooded jean, a black cat hat, and a real smart tone with his speech.

Beating Thomas Best.

The Heat told you once, don't make them repeat. "Boy don't you lie", that's a flipback grip to the thigh. Thomas raised his hands, but was slow to drop the knee. Pace comes at a price, he lost his hearing and an eye.

Beating Thomas Best.

He was the fastest in the neighborhood. It was the damndest sight we'd ever seen. A white tshirt was all we'd glean, as he rounded the corner of 5th and Betton Street. As he'd call up high unto his Maw, who was staring through that dirty yellowed window shawl, saying "I'm the boy who can't be beat! I'm the King of 5th and Betton Street!"

Beating Thomas Best.

Brick Hole

Fill the hole.
Throw the stones in the well.
Fill that hole.

Fill the hole.
Shovel the soil in.
That dirt is precious.

Put you heart.
And your back in the work.
Fill that hole.

There's a Brick Hole.
Can't be topped with stone.
Can't be lined with soil, it must be paved out.

That's the way it goes.
When you don't have stone.
When you got no soil, you can't fill that hole.

Lyrics: The Valley

I saw them kissing down in The Valley. Her Valley was spread out wide.
I opened closed, then shut my eyes to forget about the Fire.

I saw them groping down dear old Molly, her sweat a dripping sign that we was done, I'd just become a widower of my bride.

I came a coming with my Fire, to burn all of them inside. It looked as if my torch would take their voices and their pride.

Then I saw my dear old Molly her face a ghost of pale. My heart went quick, but not my hand so I knew right then and there.

That the Fire burning in the Valley would take my home as well. It ate my woods and coffined up Molly, Paul and Dale.

Nary couldn't of done much better, you see the heat it hides the smell, of them who burned for doing me wrong. I put them straight to Hell.