1. |
Blackened Shores
05:06
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Gaslit to madness
in a grey stumbling cloak
is a spectre of sadness
on the eyelid of the slope.
Oh, Errol in blackness,
feral under black lights
with little else to carry
but his song from the islands.
The songs that keep captive,
his concrete consonants,
the songs that will summon,
elsewheres and ancients.
And the voices that conjure
the tall basalt strangers,
the long blackened records,
the yelling glacier cuts,
the loud irascible shores,
are the dialects pressed
into fallen firmaments
as horizons underfoot.
Oh, Errol in blackness,
feral under black lights
with little else to carry,
but our songs from those islands.
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2. |
Arrival
04:40
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Press your tongue against
the plate of your skull,
pull your teeth around
the skin of your lips.
announce and perform
an adoption
a surrender.
renounce and deform,
denounce and reform,
your mother’s tongue.
and when you arrive
the demands we make
are little surgeries
or open cast mines
with designs
to act
like a puncture in your neck,
a wound a valve,
an injury that marks
the severance
between here and there
so that the cut
of your tongue
will carry no weight,
and not enough air,
to bear
to relate
the distinctions the details the stories
of your negotiations
with the sea the mountains the towns
with the lines we draw
the thresholds that promise
peril for you
and luxury for us.
and when we hear
the mutilations
of our sovereign cant
we’ll call you out
to bear the sin
of the fury that knocks,
of the wrath that pounds.
on our thinning
skin.
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3. |
The Mourning Tide
02:53
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4. |
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Run! Cry the fells
Sun gasps mountains wide
Burnt, is the hem of the forest
The maw of cold, roaring slow
Run! To the porcelain hills
To the snow that speaks underfoot
As interior twist
As rubber against itself,
Stretch
Stretches your throat as you swallow.
tearing the roof from your mouth
the roof from your home
Stretch your throat as you swallow
Your tongue ripening slowly
And quickly hushing you hollow.
So I pluck the bone inside my ear.
I open up the cavity and ask,
you to crawl inside and whisper…
all the words for snow,
and all the words for light,
all the words for night,
all the words you know.
all the words for snow,
and all the words for light,
all the words for night,
all the words you know.
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5. |
Fallen
01:11
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I admired the reflections
on the windows as you fell.
I saw sides of you, I hadn’t before.
but the depths you’d plumbed
before you leapt,
swallowed whole
all the shame I felt
for leaving you alone.
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6. |
Wednesday's Child
05:53
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Lungs they hang
strung like chilli
in the window downstairs
feet and ears and snout and
eyelids pulled away
I’m upstairs sleeping
it’s in the eyes, all in the eyes you’ll say
where the souls lay
where are they now?
It’s three in the morning,
the whistle and crack of body breaking
of beams and panes
and bones aching...
I am the stoney, milk-eyed man, upstairs sleeping.
I have you honey, I have the milk of your kindness
I am the stoney, milk-eyed man, upstairs sleeping.
I have you honey, I have the milk of your kindness.
But I am the blood,
and I am the phlegm,
and I am the choler,
and I am the bile.
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7. |
Bellows
01:13
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S is S, and only sings in autumn,
when her teeth un-seize from the hissings of summer,
when her belly un-chalks and digests the words,
she kept within the quarry of her gut.
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8. |
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I’m the last choke, the sliding yoke, slow slowest slow.
slower draught and needling muscle,
curling in palsy I bend inward,
my bough inside yawns its aches,
your hand on my back, hopelessly.
She’s in the forest, breathless
she’s hope, she’s here, the lump in my throat
she’s the name I’ll never say
only as an echo can I hear of her.
I’m the last choke, the sidling yoke, slower ever slow,
and my gut, dry as a stone, dry of song. I wilt I crack.
my riverbed run to ground.
on the linen; on the skin,
my insides out, her lips by my ear,
she breathes for me, she breathes for me.
She is the forest, she’s the summer wild,
she’s hope, she’s here, the lump in my throat
she’s the name I can never say
only as an echo can I hear her.
I’m seized and soundless,
but hers is the voice I miss the most.
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9. |
The Visitor
04:12
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We stand outside, your hands on my hips
and they say,
we are so handsome together.
and i watch the smoke from your lips,
unfurl…and dance… let’s dance
it’s the first time i’ve seen you in a while,
so we pretend it’s been no time at all.
We’ll run away together, our teeth in hand,
we have so much we must unlearn;
the way we speak
about each other,
the way we think
about time abandoned,
so we pretend it’s been no time at all.
And we’ll bound
across the landscapes…
though we’re bound
to trace the edges,
to skirt the borders
of the cities
whose promise is the right
to shed ourselves
of ourselves.
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10. |
Eye/Exile
01:30
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