1. |
Do We Call This Home?
02:16
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Do we call this home?
do we roam and lie pretty on the land up-lit by the settling sun
and pretend we’re the sons and daughters of international strangers?;
the orphan itinerants
of lovers who parted ways
under the glass and lattice of
eastern train terminals
to become the ghosts that linger
in the books we read
of cold war romance
buckled and shamed
by new geographies.
or is home the place
we can ill-afford?
an affront to all our bids
to outgrow to hope to seek to love to want to speak
of glamour
swift and cruel
of devotions
cast and lost
on the threadbare red velvet
of old hotel lobbies
a witness to histories insisting on their own expiration.
and oh, but I want to die out there.
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2. |
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I think I’ll come out of this quite disfigured
I think I’ll come out of this having conceded too much ground
I’m livid, poor soul poor soul!
and make no doubt I’ll figure it out
upon reflection that I jettisoned
the pleasures I should have clung to most dearly
oh its clear to me now that I don’t know who I am
and when I look at all I have I don’t know who I am
this livid poor, poor soul!
on the smallest plot
on a dwindling plot
of diminished returns
my poor soul on the smallest plot of land
I should come out of this quite impaired
I think I’ll come out of all this quite disfigured
oh, look at what I’ve done!
I’ve conceded too much ground
on the smallest plot
on a dwindling plot of diminished returns
my poor soul, oh poor soul!
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3. |
A Mechanism Of Release
10:34
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I shall like to stay here, and await the mechanisms of release
from the deepest corridors of his voice
and
even if I am idle and lacking the passions
that hold the lines of his songs aloft
even if I have strayed so far from purpose
that I am spare, that I am hopeless
that I am dumb and stricken here
and yes, the chances are high
that I am the contraband
that I am the weight of shame
that I’m the bloat and the ballast which smoothes the passage from his ear to yours
for this private ark of sophisticated lightness
I can hear and I am struck by mineral sensualities
I am here and I’m stricken by his mineral sensualities.
and I know that the record may show
I am not the ear who should be privy
I am not the one to be invited
or be empowered
but still
I shall like to stay here
(I would like to stay)
and await the mechanisms of release
from the deepest corridors of his voice
I shall like to stay
(I shall like to stay)
and await his permission to
slip the preservation of
our tether together.
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4. |
(After) Deaf Republic
04:07
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5. |
The Gnashing Ends
08:45
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Consider for a moment the wounds of inaction
and consider from under this unspooling heat
the tightening yoke of his singular promise:
the multiplication of fanciful horizons.
but scheme with us, and plot together
the ceasing of inspections of the principles and conditions
that sanction domestic gloom, and the interrogations of
the morality of relentless grief
exacted by formal violences and paramilitary systems
of privatised logic:
endless ends
we'll regard the wounds of actions untaken
by the celebrants of decency and rigour
neutered, slackened, outbid,
startled, ambushed, outdone,
by the asset-stripped oratory
of fragile men with lucrative bloodlines
and we’ll remember together
in these gnashing ends that they never saw us as anything but
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6. |
This Notice
00:57
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My imagination is pulling at the end of its tether
and stringing itself up by its souls
as if a curious display or an advisory notice
of hope foresworn.
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7. |
Theatre
05:21
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Out of a skyful of hardware
comes an intergenerational strike
from Christ himself, don’t you know?
this is war, don’t you know?
this is war, don’t you know?
but don’t you go confusing the frontiers, the field, the theatre over there
don’t confuse the operational front as demarcations of a game
whose perimeters can't be broken
and whose margins can't be broadened to annex the precincts and the subways
of our regenerated towns
but Jesus Christ sends his regards of course
he relays his thoughts and prayers at this time
to redeem the vendors
and deliver the shareholders
from uncertainty and risk
from market volatilities
from godless externalities
of course Jesus sends his regards
and so we speak as if from the mouth of the Saviour himself
a hyper-language of un-human particulars
and regard with pleasure
the semantic precision of all our words for extinction
but our hands are tied, don’t you know?
but our hands are forced, don’t you know?
this is war this is war
this is war this is war
and the mouths of the Saviour scream seven hundred arcs overhead.
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8. |
Your Violence
06:03
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His temporary memorials sodden and verging
on miscarrying the crosses of a pale terror
as material as damp fires slung into the humid shrug
of nights that hang
hang, hang
so unreckoned and strange on his theatres of violence
of unholstered advocates sweating a black malaise
tender with malcontent coming unstuck and
peeling away, to hang, hang
hang from the wounds of bare boughs
to pull on the cotton ligatures
that bind and legislate his parchments of absolutes
oh, Father!
oh, Father!
you’ll elect to call for international summits
on the urgency of balance and restoration of
the civility of men in high office
than do just enough
too soon
than do just enough
too soon
too soon
than do just enough
(oh, Father)
even for her alone.
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9. |
Tender Rites
05:45
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A dying hand held by the lowest bidder
a costly pickle you are you are you are
dear to us yes still dear
to your attendant bloodline
a proposal for your fermentation is out for tender
an investor-led coagulation
in your liver’s deepest recess
a consortium of vying interests...
a proposal is out for tender
and never never never
has there been such a buzz, has there been such a taste
this delegation swears
never never such a thirst
a dying hand held by the lowest bidder
make it quick, make it swift.
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