1. |
Paris
03:08
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North of Texas, passing a statue, whose name was indistinguishable to me, it was covered in ivy, your eyelids shut, so you didn't see, you said "I'm not sleeping", turned your back to the sun, later on we stopped for fresh donuts, stole plums from a nearby farm.
Had coffee with breakfast, toasted to brother Matthew, at the next exit you professed a fleeting terror, of the open road, living my life in boxcars, possessed by a series of coupons. Led out west where I made my bed, coalesced by fury and anguish, instead I'll stay in Maine. Breaking bread rewriting my first name. Gone with misspellings, oracles who've preordained.
Stars didn't come fast enough, we were already looking up when, cars drove by mistaken for flashes, anything in motion should be stuck in molasses, tipped the cup then cleaned the spill, through the open window a mild chill, a moth flew in with the weight of an omen, I feel like an old man but I'm grateful you've chosen, a life of suspicion and one of superstition, where ghosts are real and demons too, and spirits buzz and hum all along the Danube.
That'll all change when I leave this place.
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2. |
Clown Like Me
02:25
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Face like sugar, a runny nose and a can of sprite. Cloudy sweat pours, down his forehead affecting his sight. He hears laughter, feels it caught in the trees. And I know him, he's a clown like me.
After, streamers and silly string, he'll know he's a believer and the parents silent suffering, they can smell the gin on his breath, hear the slurs in his jokes. He fell to the floor, cackling, howling, covered in blisters, just like other folks, knows where he's been but not where he's going, he misses his sisters and Monday night bowling, he's terribly tired of aging ungracefully, I miss my friends who don't really know me now.
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3. |
Straight Story
01:30
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Car caught fire on a burning highway, I was trying to make it home, when I forgot the records and the boxes, blizzards and empty eye sockets.
Bugs in my ears, ghosts in my hair, extra wheels in my head, grind away without repair.
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4. |
A Brighter Summer Day
01:31
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Nosebleeds, without good reason, it might be the altitude and it might be the season. If seeds should grow, up from the garden, you'll grieve for the kids and how much they've hardened, year to year, summer to summer, and yet there's still so much more to uncover.
How can I say we're the same size? When you press your hand against mine. Divided by minutes and moments, never owned but have still stolen, the brooms all sound like the ocean.
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5. |
Vomit Drop/Sils Maria
01:24
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Losing my taste, for tongues and paste, the cat jumps from his desk onto my plate, a family of flies, emerged from his food into the sunrise.
Clouds rolled in, the hot springs were there to meet them, we shivered to sing and broke our knuckles, quivered and sighed, between chuckles, muffled, forced, overbearing, I can hear their whistling and their chanting, while I break down boxes in the rain. Smell of wet cardboard, stray ashes, whatever it is that's under the floorboards.
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6. |
Gus
02:05
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John, Owen and Hannah clench their fists, doing their dishes in the river, taping scissors to a pair of sticks, the moon above is but a sliver. We fear the dark, the drifting trees, the oily canvas and bristling leaves, shape themselves like putty in the breeze.
Shifting from wood to man, branches sifted through our hair, felt a squeeze on my hand, cold and damp, another tired body, I apologize for becoming so sloppy, romanticized a little world, caramelized amongst the sap and vines, promises of milk and honey on the other side.
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7. |
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Seventeen men lift a cow towards the sky, the wind howled briefly but still no reply, the cow rolls back down with some bruises and thuds, we've been running up that hill praying for floods, call it a habit of love, or an olympic sport, I've been striving for virtue and coming up short, we'll rise to that peak morning to morning, utter whispers of relief as the clouds begin pouring.
We all know it was luck, or a product of chance, we still gather round in circles and join in a dance, all the feathers we've plucked, coins, Pharaohs, burning of flesh, frightens the scarecrows, the cows broken bones, rest on a throne, I've been striving for virtue but going alone, a toad gave me this wart, "keep it safe from harm, before I depart, let me see the pits of your arms."
When the crows finally came, the robins woke and sputtered, choked on their song, their grief could not be uttered, in tune or in verse or any old structure, couldn't put it in a hearse, and call it my mother, it's fleeting and fast, covered in barbed wire, that's dripping like sap, our from the choir, if I have only one thing before you depart, is I've been striving for virtue, and falling apart.
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8. |
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Sand stained toes, curl under the roots of orchids on the shore, I know we're not kids anymore, dirty boots in springtime, remind me to return when I'm thirty or so, I'll be insane by then and hopefully sober.
I hope to see my shadow in heaven, and I have fingers to count to seven and pick our noses, pop my pimples under tinted roses, fading dimples like chimney's in October skies. Callus' rub shoulders of soldiers with cold sweat on thighs, strained and swollen, while a cement block builds in my colon, I walk along rocks across the ocean, I had a feeling the cardinal was an omen, that I may never be back, you may not be here, that's a great weight to carry, we might disappear, in backdrops, costumes, candlelight and distance too, clothes line make flags for the dew.
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9. |
Bridge
01:30
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Seldom sun got me day drinking, sinking further in, polaroids, bell bottoms, jello, shark fin, autumn comes slowly, I'll take my dinners in solitude but never lonely, that'll all change when I leave this place.
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10. |
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Habits have gotten me this far, rabid, manic, paranoid, I'll move to Detroit to see my family cause I think they'll die, before thirty, I'll spread their ashes on a river in Missouri, cause Grandpa said, dad was made there.
I've tasted your sweat, laid in your bed, sleepy kiss on your forehead at dawn. Let's not regret, the time we can't spend, I'll stagger my way cross the lawn. Can't comprehend, what we cannot express, rub my neck, make circles on my chest. Later out west I tried to suppress, how fried and depressed I'd become.
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11. |
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I need sleep, something to eat, a bottle to drink, I hope my liver forgives and my sister outlives me, because I dreamt of the river, my body spent and stumbling, felt a shock and a shiver, my knees slowly crumbling, someone pulled me from the water, I mumbled that they shouldn't bother, but then they grabbed me by the collar and marched me through the forest around the bend.
Ascended towards a black coffee sky, a painting faced us, trying to be erased, to simplify it's truths, in a constant state of change. Junebugs in July, cotton in my eardrums, whispers from the walls, a murmur of the heart, I'll see you soon on top of a mailbox, pale and slumped so I cannot walk, you hug me tightly and cradle my head, the man with the skinny dog smiled and he said, "you're another cog whose soul is rotten, tripping through the fog, soon to be forgotten." Felt a gun at my temple and a passing urgency.
Was it my hand, an enemy, a tempest, a pencil, the seldom son of a land both harsh and gentle? When I awoke, I opened up the window and smelled the rain and the fire staining my clothes, I recall the cut on the elbow that I received lying in your backseat, I'm more scared now than I've ever been of the open road and glasses of gin, what they've prepared for me and my friends. I'm prepared to burn this whole forest, because the river runs and we cannot ignore it, if I find you there awake and breathing or strung out and strewn, finally sleeping cause we needed the rest, despite defeat, our bodies, protest.
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12. |
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A rat trap cracks my middle finger, smoke from a whistle seems to linger, then drizzle down like milk and honey, left outside with strawberries.
The Mountain Lion
I can't remember what I couldn't find
Memories of December
Will vanish with time.
But I remember the mountain lion lying in the sun
His entrails boiled and undone
My teachers used to teach
"Fear this mighty beast"
But of all the animals
I fear this one the least.
Because I know of humans and what they've done to each other
Of the estranged brothers
With no hair on their heads
Who despite all their acumen
Struggle, like me, to get out of bed.
We're exhausted
Our nests have spread to far, our peaks used to be frosted
Now the lions come down for their water
While we push it through our faucets.
Tye-dye dries in the sun
Next to moldy hamburger buns
Clothes pins, gin, empty shotgun shells
That ring every hour at every bell.
The night is silent,
The trolls soundly sleeping,
Dreaming of sinkholes and violence the horrors wake them weeping
At their feet
A mountain lion creeping.
He digs through the trash,
Under the floorboards, and piles of ash
He'll have to cross this bridge, over rivers, over passes
Live on benches and propane gases
To find us all here
Stuck in molasses.
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Scott McRae Portland, Oregon
A dude who makes tunes and writes things sometimes, follow me on the grum for song posts and letterboxd for movie thoughts. Also comprises one half of Ishroyale.
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