1. |
Wolf Moon
04:01
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Wolf Moon
There’s a wolf in the sky
And he’s swallowed the moon
But the moon was his eye
A self-inflicted wound
There was blood in his eye
His eye the moon
Now the mist is his blood
And the thunder the bones
The clouds are his soul
As they wander towards home…
The sailor carving scrim to map the sky
How he remembered it grotesque as a child
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2. |
Firefly
04:01
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Firefly
She was a cat so when she walked off the stage some man tried to give her a bowl
She floated through these scenarios as he looked her up and down
Summers at the mid-Atlantic coast
“at 18 years it couldn’t be cold enough for me”
The weight was at the bottom so the deeper I dove
As the sediments rose
She was a bat with her eyes closed
Immune to those discerning looks
Careening around the bandstand
There are no dry docks for vessels of this
Size and shape she’d been told
So she eased to shore – quietly careened
In the lapping waves of high tide
Heaving down with each breath
Low tide arrives at moon light
Which was too late – for this firefly
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3. |
Questions and Answers
04:28
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Questions… Answers
What was I thinking about last night?
Somewhere between ten and eleven…
That I was sure to remember in the morning.
Was it something that my daughter said?
Something precious something living now moved away
Another snail with a shell outgrown
What if I’d written it down would it have mattered now?
Would I be somewhat less or an empty shell
Would I wake up late for work and not get lost on the way?
Stuffed animal guts lay strewn on the floor
Of the depressed child’s room after the tug of war
This may or may not actually have happened
But the potential energy is ever present
In stuffed bears and pigs to be ripped apart
In a wild frenzy then repaired surgically
By the needle and thread of a loving mother
Reborn to be handed down to the generation after
The scars will show through in that furry hide
As threaded seams that keep the fury inside
Once upon a time when I was you
If a thread came dangling loose it dangled tantalizingly
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4. |
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The Ferals vs the Strays
The solstice is coming
And nerves are fraying
There’s a slow transition toward hunting
And packs are being formed
Under a cloud of growing darkness, lengthening shadows
From underneath parked cars territory is being staked
The vulnerable are being marked
Those lucky enough for the leash are skipping steps upstairs
A soft, fluffy Persian steps on a littered bag of chips under a bush
As his cover is blown the wiry tabby with the cut ear pounces
The first frost falls under a full moon
Everyone’s breath is escaping in front of them in slow motion clouds
Freezing sidewalks sting little cat paws
The night watch in the slow cloud season is think with loneliness
A dust up here and a dust up there the ranks are being thinned by attrition
But the lucky few that do find refuge in a basement
The string thaw will not reveal a winner
Just a few hardened souls – survivors…
that swipe and hiss at the hands of the local kids
and a couple of frozen corpses to far gone to be identified
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5. |
The Woodpecker
06:13
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“The Woodpecker”
Fly through my window my sugar lump fly through my window my sugar lump and buy molasses candy
Fly through my window my sugar lump fly through my window my sugar lump it’s cold when your feet are sandy
Fly through my window my sugar lump fly through my window my sugar lump soon the shipwreck will be landing
Fly through my window my sugar lump fly through my window my sugar lump we’ll be dry by the fire with brandy
Woodpecker woodpecker 1, 2, 3 – using his beak to make a hole in the tree
Woodpecker woodpecker 4, 5, 6 – let the other birds make their nests with sticks
Fly through my window my sugar lump fly through my window my sugar lump with a thread and a needle handy
Fly through my window my sugar lump fly through my window my sugar lump I’ll leave a candle lit to guide thee
Fly through my window my sugar lump fly through my window my sugar lump though the mist conspires to blind you
If your heart stays true fly above the fray and a sailor’s guile will greet you as the archers arrow pierces
Woodpecker woodpecker 7, 8, 9 I’ll be the drummer in the woods tonight
Woodpecker woodpecker 10, 11, 12 in these woods you’ll find me well
Little bird little bird, fly through my window and bring molasses candy
Whippoorwill whippoorwill fly through my window and sing me to sleep
Woodpecker woodpecker fly through my window and be my heartbeat
Little bird little bird, fly through my window and bring molasses candy
Whippoorwill whippoorwill fly through my window and sing me to sleep
Woodpecker woodpecker fly through my window and be my heartbeat
Woodpecker woodpecker 1, 2, 3 – using his beak to make a hole in the tree
Woodpecker woodpecker 4, 5, 6 – let the other birds make their nests with sticks
Woodpecker woodpecker 7, 8, 9 I’ll be the drummer in the woods tonight
Woodpecker woodpecker 10, 11, 12 in these woods you’ll find me well
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6. |
Only in Threes
04:49
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Only in threes
The initial bolt of confusion when an alarm throws sleeping body into movement.
Should provide electricity required to numb said body through its daily routine
A deep fatigue that a few more hours of sleep wouldn’t have fixed
Task, task, task – tisk, tisk, tisk
A finger wag of a heartbeat list, list, list
I woke to find that I wrote my dreams down again
Crumpled by the bin, I missed, missed, missed
But the record it plays on – the dusty grooves that the needle still plows through
Dust, dust, dust the storms coming
A red light, think a tail light on a dark, wet road
Moving slowly expecting animals to jump out of the woods “what’s the commotion?”
Ash, ash, ash – task, task, task – tisk, tisk, tisk
A deep fatigue that a few more hours of sleep wouldn’t have fixed
Task, task, task – tisk, tisk, tisk
A finger wag of a heartbeat list, list, list
I woke to find that I wrote my dreams down again
Crumpled by the bin, I missed, missed, missed
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7. |
Custody Day
03:44
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Custody day
Hung over in a dark movie theater
With my hand in the hand of my estranged daughter
Her eyes not quite rising above the back of the seat before her
“There are booster seats by the entry, out in the hallway”
Said the child in the aisle seat next to us
Our hands slipped out of each other’s as she went to get one for herself
Lucky for me the theater was too dark
For anyone to notice the dirt under my fingernails
As she laughed in wonder at the sprawling screen
I could sneak in a few minutes of sleep
There was an elbow thrust into my ribs
Daddy your snoring again!
there was blue smoke flowing out of the back of an El Camino
Something I could fix with a new set of seals and a ring job
My daughter was a half a block away when I realized
I was still watching blue smoke disappear into the streetlights
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8. |
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“I’ll sleep when I’m dead” said the zombie
They say you’ll sleep when you’re dead, but I know I’ll never change
I won’t sleep then either.
Do you believe in ghosts? Said the first spook to the next. You look like death!
They say you’ll sleep when you’re dead, but some things (even then) will never change
I believe in irony, but afterlife is after life, so it doesn’t matter to me now.
We’ll sleep when we’re dead but I don’t see myself, the zombie, searching for a bed
If it’s the liars vs the elites you know where this zombie will go to feast.
They say you’ll sleep when you’re dead, but I know I’ll never change
I won’t sleep then either.
Do you believe in ghosts? Said the first spook to the next. You look like death!
You’ll sleep when your dead but I don’t see myself, the zombie, searching for a bed
If it’s the liars vs the elites you know where this zombie will go to feast.
With a grand style they will look you in the eye and know that they have you.
Where confidence is a cheap sell to the gullible
With a grand style they will look you in the eye and know that they have you.
When real strength of conviction is to reexamine and to question – a revolution’s a bridge too far
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9. |
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Baseball: The second inning
To the sound of summer nights through rusty screens
Flies dying in zapping machine
He was walking his dog that would not be sticking around till Christmas – their heads down
Though everyone seemed to know that he too would not be long – for this town
Shot out of town on a borrowed dirt bike
Fill with the gas from his fathers battered, old Escort
Thuds of tennis balls against garage doors – rattled the windows
He’d ask me to play catch some nights and I’d fetch some old baseballs
Was it shadow from the birches or bruises from the switch
We stood for hours too far apart for words to matter more than this
We’d stand in the middle of the road back to back
Giants on the globe playing catch the long way home
To the sound of summer nights through rusty screens
Flies dying in zapping machine
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10. |
The Collector
05:16
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The Collector
That feeling when you love something so much that you turn it into taxidermy
A room full of trophies and Venus fly traps
Googly eyes staring back at you triumphantly screaming
You were right along – you were right all along
My trophy case collects the most endangered of species
Dresses them up to look like the most mundane of pieces
One that you could walk to the tram stop without a second look – even if it shit on the sidewalk
If we did this all the time – what a monument to shit it would be!
Googly eyes staring back at you triumphantly screaming
You were right along – you were right all along
At least one of us is feeling inspired
My handwriting is inventing new symbols all the time
They go to my desk where things go to get lost
At least one of us is feeling inspired
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The Union Ares
The Union Ares is Todd Giles, Iain Dallas and Huw Gurden. and Todd Giles, Mike Bailey and Gabry de
Waaij
Todd used to play in Kolya. Huw and Iain Play in Carson Wells. we are Scotland based.
Todd, Mike and Gabry are plying our trade based out of The Hague.
... more
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