no matter where we go

No matter where we go, we always arrive too late
to experience what we left to find.
And in whatever cities we stay
it is the houses where it is too late to return
and gardens where it's too late to spend a moonlit night
and the women whom it's too late to love
that disturb us with their intangible presence.
And whatever streets we think we know
take us past the gardens we are searching for
whose heavy fragrance spreads throughout the neighborhood.
And whatever houses we return to
we arrive too late to be recognized.
And in whatever rivers we look for our reflections
we see ourselves only when we have turned our backs.

- Henrik Nordbrandt 

no, you know what?

who the hell do you think you are?
stop pulling me out of the half-light.
i'm allowed to feel some self-righteous indignation or anger.
if i could be mad at you, i would be mad at you.
i can drag my heels.
just leave me here, luminous and alone.
it's mauve for a reason.
i need this grey, this smoke-shroud.
i should have been a chain smoker,
i should have lived in bars.

dreamfish

if you tie hopes to me, i get tired, i feel guilty. i worry about not being everything, i stress about disappointment and not holding on. i hold on tight. litter me with small awarenesses, and i will ask if i'm good enough. every one. every time. there are things that drift away. what happens when i choose to believe? sailing ships. bodies. choose where to be. misplaced. i can't recall. tucked in winter, fragile, doll.

just sweet, is it, mostly. be deep in my deep places, hot where i'm hot, and hot where i'm cold. love my hands, love the way my middle finger and my ring finger on my right hand bow into each other, gapped in the middle but the nails leaning in, conspiring, from so many nights when i have fallen asleep while writing in my notebooks, from everything i've ever drawn. love this hand i have grown specifically to hold expression and unravel myself to the world in long black strands and hard, bright colors. love my hands, my hand, because it is all of me, and it will be good for you. sweet. don't look at me with anything but adoration. i am well-versed in the language of eyes, i might as well be psychic, i know what you think, even when you don't say it. don't don't say the things that hurt me, don't let me reread my own fears and doubts in eyes, familiar and so old. bone-chillingly ancient, petrified, brittle, hard as failure, as hard as all of my sad songs.

i take care of things, fix them, volunteer, distract. i'm scared to run into a quiet moment and realize no one is caring back. i bleed myself dry and then look around helplessly for a transfusion, or run, because i'm too ashamed to ask for one. i do this, i'm bad at it. change me. all of my sad songs can't make me change, they'll just keep pushing you further away. the great regret is staying in place. i just want something to be safe and naked in, without being catatonic, or dead, to get there.

at the end of my day, when i'm called to go into open arms, let fortune follow me. i'm running low, the devil is on my trail. when fate delivers me, all i'll ask it for is a place to rest, and shelter for my soul. oh if i could spend my days free from the prison of your gaze. if i could spend my day free from the shadow of my name... god, just know when i'm being me, and when i'm spouting lyrics and other lines because i'm too damn scared to trust my own weak way of wording things. it is weak, these days. and that just wrenches me through, wrings me out and leaves me shaking and cold on a tight line. my days are so full of monotony, of brainless, brawny work, and i feel myself crumbling internally. like play-doh, slowly drying out in a dark closet, shrinking, pulling away from the sides of the container, getting small and hard. i don't want to be a small, hard, shrunken person.

i'm gunshy and quivering, timid, feigning brave, brittle and hardly here.

not much makes sense. i'm faking it. pseudo-making it. beginning the middle of something again, buried neck-deep in sand waiting for it to unbury me. the salt-water is suffocating, i can't breathe. it beats me, unrelenting. you should see what it's doing to my hair.

like andromeda, nothing listens, no one calls. and here i am, awake, alone, living on a chain. even these wordlinks clatter hollow. oh, the nothingness that holds me is so profound.

and now the final refrain. played out by the band. self-professed, profound, the chips are down. though you're a gamblin' man, love... is a losing hand, a fate resigned over futile odds. laughed at by the gods. another link in the chain. 

i should be better at leaving you alone, i wish i could. should be more normal, less creepy and clinging. yeah... andromeda. we wish we were islands. i believe in the things you say during sleep. too bad i can't hear them. all by myself, chained to this wet rock.

pack these suckers tight, i should walk on water. 

oh, i wish i were here. time for bed. tired of reading wallwriting on a dark ceiling at 2am. i can't even pack the boxes right. 

run

if i ever found the cause of this sadness i know it would be
impossible to keep the vision against all of me
when i took myself far and away
from everyone that i knew
if you're looking for the moon
is it ever when it's new?

when the iron is cold
and the binding holds fast onto you
when i listen for the footsteps that nearly knock me down in the room
the tower is gone you say, but how well can you really see?
oh you'll find it by and by
In a heartbeat you'll be free
and you will

run run run run run run run run run
run run run run run run run run run
run run run run run run run run run
keep runnin' back to me.

oh, the both of our heads you've been searching to find a way through
but there's nothing that I want more than a reason to be followin' you
when you bring out the matches
just remember that i own them all, too
if a lie won't go too deep
in a heartbeat you'll be free
and you will

run run run run run run run run run
run run run run run run run run run
run run run run run run run run run
keep runnin' back to me.

run run run run run run run run run
run run run run run run run run run
run run run run run run run run run
keep runnin' back to me.

keep runnin' back to me
to me

to me.

let's take a dip in the strawberry river

tears of rage, tears of grief
why must i always be the thief?
come to me now, you know we're so low
and life is brief

we pointed you the way to go 
and scratched your name in sand
but you thought it was nothing more 
than a place for you to stand.
come to me now, 
you know we're so low


and life is brief


how low can you go?
death row, what a brother knows
once again back is the incredible
the rhyme animal

turn it up! bring the noise

soul on a roll, but you treat it like soap on a rope
cause the beats in the lines are so dope
listen for lessons I'm saying inside music

turn it up, bring the noise

so what, the ride, the glide should be much safer than a suicide
soul control, beat is the father of your rock 'n' roll

turn it up, bring the noise


runnin' away 
to get away

you're wearing out your shoes
look at you foolin' you

making blues of day and night
the shorter cut is quicker but
time is here to stay

another day 

you're farther away


a longer trip back home


well, here it comes
here comes the sound
the sound of confusion
the sound of love

jesus please meet me at the centre of the earth
cuz these wings are gonna fail me,

and I coulda done worse.



pink 
frosty skies
time floats on by
lights sing to me
with your radial symmetry


space
neon lights
seem 
red and white
ruby red jupiter mars
pierce my turquoise heart
dreams
out of sight


eyes are at the billions
you're still lonely
never understanding
over
don't mind
often wonder
but don't know what to do


often wonder
but don't know what i'll do


i've got a blue-eyed sun
he burns the same for everyone
i had a new best friend


and i've got a green green grass
it grows so tall, it grows so fast
a hat and rabbit magic show
magic man won't let me go


but when i shave my trail
you'll be the first to know


i see angels quickly picking up their guns
how could the sky be blue for everyone at once?


i've got a black-out name


it can't be the one you want.


now you say you're lonely
you cry the long night through
well you can cry me a river


nearly drove me
out of my head
while you never shed a tear
remember
i remember
all that you said


told me love was too plebian


and now
you say you love me


well, just to prove you do
c'mon and cry me a river


cry me a river


i cried a river over you


i cried a river over you


i cried a river over you


she was talking in the suavest tones 
and most refined language
edony 


i'll do anything to be your friend
just clap your hands 
and i will come again


it led the merchants of tunis 
to the gates of the mansion,
this was how was born the word hedonist.


this is a revolution sure-shot:


rampage the pentecost.


i kept you waitin'
late at night i found myself hesitatin'
to turn out the light and get to tryin' to
fall asleep as i was in need of resting


i don't wanna go
please take me back home


if i'da known i have packed myself a suitcase
there is nothing that could roll back the time
so i could change things so i guess i'll just have
to learn to live with strange things now


i don't wanna go


he was driving on the wrong side 
just when he found what he liked it was taken away 
the song played loudly away 


you can't separate a man and his joni tapes....


this dent is now a crater
it's not even any later
than i think it is.


all this cowardice is fleeting
if you fall for it.


you might have heard it before.
if it was permanent
the world would mean a whole lot less.


to stay awake for it
takes more steam than i have left.
that's not any kind of reason
to go through with it.


the written word will lose its meaning
if you fall for it.
there are motors in the ground,
they make the most amazing sound...


you might have heard it before.


let's take a dip in the strawberry river!


well i think i see another side
maybe just another light that shines
and i look over now through the door
and i still belong to no one else


surely don't stay long i'm missing you now


before i close the door 
i need to hear you say goodbye


maybe nobody else could understand
i guess that you believe you are a woman
and i am someone else's man
but just before i see that you leave
i want you to hold on to things that you said
baby i wish i was dead

baby won't you change your mind 


i watched you through the windows...

you had the city in you.

always in the way you moved 

were the skyline and the avenues.

when the autumn came, 

the leaves turned one by one, 

Until the barren trees were left to stand alone.
you still felt the same, you said, 

as since we had begun, 

but a longing crept into the eyes i'd known.

we fell asleep a while beneath the oak.
it's our job to live as well as we can in the time we've got,

was written in the note i found when i woke.

so before the weary ache wore through, 

you slipped back into the avenues.

while you were sleeping
they gave us picks
said go mine the sun
and go gold and come back when you're done.

while you were sleeping
you tossed, you turned
you rolled your eyes as the world burned

the heavens fell, the earth quaked

i thought you must be, but you weren't awake

no, you were sleeping...

while you were sleeping
i tossed and i turned
til i closed my eyes
but the future burned
through 

the planet turned 

a hair gray
as i relived the day...

while you were sleeping
the money died,
machines were harmless and the earth sighed.
through the wind you slept sound,
and gravity caught my love around.

full of dreams, you overslept
and keeping with quiet, through the walls i crept.
i walked on tiptoe, sent darkness swirling 

over all the kitchen in the early morning.

i'll never catch up to you,
who sleeps so sound.
my arms are useless.
my heart beats too loud 

to go to sleep.

while you were sleeping,
the time changed
and found you dreaming in black and white
while it rained in all the colors of the night.
i watched the tv's
memories:
championships,
vanished to sea...

so i waited for the riddled sky
to be solved again by sunrise.

did you have that strangest dream before you woke...
did it escape you like some half told joke?

when you reached for your plume of smoke
it'll haunt you, my honey bee

anyone who is anyone has that same dream.

were you falling
were you flying
and were you calling out
or were you dying?

thank god you're up now
let's stay that way

else there'll be no mornings

and no more days.

'cuz when we're dreaming...

time flies

the phone rings

there is a silence
and everybody tries to sing... 

don't tell me you're surprised

i can see the way you feel.

you try to play it cool. 

boy, take me to a party. 

we'll dance all night long.

once you finish what you started, 

i'll give you love forever.

i'm not blind.

i can see it in your eyes.

not in your song

i'm not your singer

not in your poem

i'm not your stanza

i'm not a color in your rainbow

we're going nowhere

i'm an x

you're an o

and this is the end...

the time is gone and there's much i owe to you

something stayed and something's been removed

i was alone i was alone till you found me

but now you've made a big discovery

who the hell

who the hell

whoa who the hell 

do you think you are?

and i'm still sitting here

i'm on a boat that doesn't float

and i can't swim

that's the predicament that

i'm currently wrestling

with and i'm going to win

and i'm gonna win

and i'm gonna win

and i won't be pinned.

complication is my claim to fame
i can't believe there's another, constantly just another
can't avoid what i can't control
i'm losing ground, still i can't stand down
i know, yea i know

it's hard to trust anyone again

air's still trapped while i still can't breathe

and i'm screaming out, give me help somehow

i always see you when my sight is lost

everything around's breaking down to chaos

obituary

7:25

Un dimanche aprés-midi, 

à Coutances
Dans une chambre d'hôtel moyen, sans étoiles
Le soleil passait à travers des rideaux de voiles
Un soleil frais

she doesn't know.

parallel our sights

and we will find

that we, we need to be

where we belong.

today is alright for too-ni-hi-hight, 

ridin' in a corvette and 

feelin' alright.