It looks like I succeeded in writing a relatively happy song that doesn’t include death or murder, but still, somehow bones managed to work their way into it. I really do wish I could write a song without mentioning bones, but apparently I can’t. Before bones, it was ice and people dying from hypothermia. Why the obsession with uncuddly white things? I don’t know, but hopefully I will grow out of it.
I have been learning a little bit about bones recently- dinosaur bones. I was trying to celebrate the dullest time of year (I mean that as a complement) by learning about the most boring thing I could imagine, which for me was dinosaurs. But I have to say, once I knew a little more about them, they no longer seemed so boring. What I like most about them is how they opened my mind to larger cycles of time- deep time, as paleontologists call it. It’s a refreshing antidote to the “shallow time” perspective of our culture, which encourages us to see each decade as a major historical epoch.
Bone to Bone
People say you are the dark one
dim and dusty, cold and hard one
dry and scaly skin
blood so sour and thin
draw the curtains and let our time begin
Bone to bone now
in a dark room
press your forehead to mine
let the world resume
let them stick to their ways
I will come out changed
I will speak my mind and I
won’t care what they say
People tell me you’re a creep
you tell me people are sheep
I believe you will outlast them
watching from your mountain so steep
Your room so dark and blue
the whole world is a shadow to you
your bones they bear the lines of
every tooth that sank into you
Claw marks across your arm
why did they mean you harm?
you with a spine so straight that I
I cling to your arm
Outside the winds derange, but I
I will come out changed
I can feel your bones upon me now
so cold and so strange
Let the vinegar spill out
let it roll down your chin
let me hear your blackest words now
let your long long story begin
Nights in the jungle survived
you are the one who came out alive
dipped in blood you walked back home
so thin but swollen with pride
Your blood in my veins, I
I will come out changed
I will laugh at all of their words
I won’t care what they
Your hand on my hand now I
I can see through your eyes
all the chains were only shadows
all the flags were only their lies
The imprint of your bones
like an angel to follow me home
you will always be beside me
blood to blood and bone to bone.
Hmmm… I just realized that 72% of my recent songs have been about death, 31% about sadistic murders, and the remaining ones mostly about people being beat up, kidnapped, or chased. Time to seek professional help or is this just normal Scorpio behavior? Next week I will try writing happy songs, maybe.
Hunt for Me
Smile, smile, smile, smile
Sin, sin, sin
You were born the king of our town
I will bow, I will bend.
Two, two, two stars collide
Please stay warm upon your throne now
I will run I will hide.
Ladies in silk
Wanting to adore you
Laughing at your jokes
Kneeling on the floor for you
Look at your life, a page of fantasy.
So please, don’t hunt for me.
Dad knows best
Watch me kneel down and beg for forgiveness
Watch me stand up to the world and confess.
Gold and lace
Everything I have will be piled at your feet
Please don’t chase, please don’t chase.
Look at me crawl
Scratching at the dirt now
Look at me fall
Ripping up my shirt now
Rolling in mud, pig for all to see.
So please, don’t hunt for me.
Run so far you always follow me
Shadows so dark they always swallow me
I can make sure that no one ever loves me
I can make sure everyone’s above me
Run so far but tripping on the black lines
I can hear you say I’m running out of time
You knew it was all a big lie
Licking on your lips, because you love to watch things die.
Please no blade
No dogs die, please no rabbits,
Just humiliate, please humiliate.
Your smile is warm
Only sun, only summer
Please no storm, please no storm.
You can take some snips; I won’t try to mend me
I will tell the people never to defend me
I will tear myself apart for all to see.
So please, don’t hunt for me.
This song was created through the confluence of two streams in my mind. On the one hand, I was thinking about Christmas, and how happy I am for winter to be coming. It’s not even Thanksgiving yet, but I’ve already had my fill of accommodating autumn and am now craving the stern precision of winter. I can’t wait to fill my home with bundles of puritanical pine branches and portraits of scowling santas.
The second stream of thought that produced this song is so taboo I should probably not even mention it. But here it goes. I was thinking about… White People. The White Race. It is weird, I am afraid to even say White People. Although considering the racial genocides that have gone on since the beginning of history, perhaps it is not weird that our society would prefer to blot out concepts of race altogether. Still, how can I think about ice, snow, and Christmas without white people entering my mind? Some think humans turned white in the first place from spending so much time in frosty, northern climates, deprived of warmth and sunshine. In a way, white people are the children of ice and snow. Or more precisely the descendants of giant white man who is made of ice and snow himself, although he turns green in the spring. He is a severe man and you don’t want to end up on his bad side…
Through the Christmas Tree
Follow me through the Christmas tree inside a silver ring and I’ll stay with you, my whole life through I’ll never ask for anything
Seasons go, we’ll watch them flow through windows of ice see the people die; they always cry so surprised to pay the price
Snowflakes fall, they form a wall that cradles us inside where we’ll drink our tea, you’ll stay with me, couldn’t we be satisfied
Snowflakes fall, they form a wall but that’s the price we pay to be hard and strong and never wrong to never falter never fade
When the white man comes you can know he will not leave you dry-eyed (fly away when you have the chance) Gold or silver, only you can decide (better not to join his dance)
Shaky wrists, glassy eyes your mind starts to slide filled with fantasies, christmas trees, dreaming of the world outside
Tall and proud, men say out loud that pain is divine but I’ve seen it slice, a blade of ice they clench their teeth; they change their mind
When the white man comes you can know he will not leave you dry-eyed (fly away when you have the chance) Gold or silver, only you can decide (better not to join his dance)
Distant dreams of earthly things take on a golden glow how the valleys shine; they fill with wine they draw you to the world below
Where I once found you red, almost dead stripped of all your rings lying weak and poor upon my floor you who wanted everything
This song was inspired by my ongoing realization that the grumpier and more serious you appear, the better people treat you. The heavier and darker your clothes, the thicker your glasses, the more sour your expression, the more intelligent people think you are. And the more intelligent they think you are, the more likely they are to come to your aid in an emergency situation (even better if they think you’re rich.) We all know that when animals are in trouble, the amount of effort people put into saving them depends completely on their weight. The whole world joins forces to save a trapped whale, but when a fruit fly languishes in a glass of water, nobody sheds a tear. So in life, you gotta seem heavy. You got to try to be that whale.
Sober
Let me be the one who is sober,
Unconcerned, responsible and older.
Sneering at their childish plans,
Disgusted by their sticky hands,
Weighing down their dreams like a boulder.
For in this world never believe that
it’s safe to be terrified or go soft inside
for we’ll take it all
we will all watch you fall.
I used to think a smile would make them love me,
But it only lifted all of them above me.
The wiser man would wear a frown
That drags the other person down,
Cause when they’re down they see the glory of me.
For in this world never believe that
it’s safe to be terrified or go soft inside
for we’ll take it all
we will all watch you fall.
I used to float like a happy bubble in the air;
They smiled at me, they watched me pop without a care.
While the ones who frown are carved in stone,
The ones whose hearts are filled with bone,
They’re the ones we always repair.
For in this world never believe that
it’s safe to be terrified or go soft inside
for we’ll take it all
we will all watch you fall.
People say that happiness is a butterfly
Who abandons you, who flits away when it’s time to cry.
Drive the sluts out from your fold-
Bitterness contains the gold,
Bitterness contains the glue
That binds hearts to you.
you bought me candy and you held my hand and we walked, just the two of us, there on the sand and we watched the horizon so far away and i smiled- i knew it would all be mine someday
but then when you left the horizon turned flat it was an empty line, who wants to waste their time chasing that? and all the dreams were shadows that left the world colder and the future was only a place to get older and die
death was everywhere behind every smile it fueled the people’s dreams, they drove mile after mile but i stood there, just waiting for my time to run out tousled by the purple sheets blowing about
in a wind that came from somewhere, but from where no one was sure life was just a riddle then, so pointless and obscure that no one even tried to answer it, they just drove faster in their cars wanting to go anyplace as long as it was far
from the place they were born, a birth they could not even remember memory was a flashlight, a tiny handheld ember that we used to move forward, but never to look back, while behind us a presence grew so ominous and black
and in front of us we were certain we heard footsteps descending we knew they were death’s feet, heralding our ending for i’d seen my own mother slide like a child into his robes so we focused with exclusion on the things we could control
studiously shining our little lights on tombstones memorizing names that belonged to the bones and at times i would lie down and dream i was dying i’d close both my eyes and watch purple flags flying
thru a sky with two moons and my hands would grow colder would my mother recognize me now thirty years older? would we walk again, the two of us, on a beach in the sky? would i feel hope again when i found a world where you don’t have to die?
or would death be there, as well, would he slide through the curtain a jack in a black box who makes pain so certain when he scoops out the fruit and then leaves me the rind until i’m clawing like an animal for a way to feel full inside
when you were here, i was here, i occupied this place, but now my heart is stretches like an ache throughout space i look everywhere to find you, people tell me to let go but i see their eyes shine with a demonic glow
i will follow you, i’ll follow you, i’ll fight through the veils we will meet again, i don’t know where, but please let your trail lead me outside of time where we can hold hands forever and i can dream again, knowing we’ll be best friends forever.
bells ring, people sing nobody cries about anything they just let go, follow the flow this is the wisdom that people know
but i dream in stone- i know this world of air it can’t be the world that’s really there through my fingers the tears keep falling down they’ll fall and fall until they reach a solid ground
aye aye bye bye theodore has left us and we’ll never know why try not to cry when people die
ok, but where do they go? they go to the light that’s what you say, but it doesn’t seem right to have to stay in a world so slight
change is life, life is change these are the things you can’t rearrange nothing in this world lasts forever this brings value to the time we spend together
but I dream of bodies that God won’t take away with limbs that never fall off and decay through fingers my tears keep falling down they’ll fall and fall until they reach the solid ground
aye aye bye bye theodore has left us and we’ll never know why try not to cry when people die
ok, but where do they go? they go to the light that’s what you say, but it doesn’t seem right to have to stay in a world so slight
we won’t cry, this is a celebration theodore made his life into a joyous creation
he was smart, fun, hardworking and modest now he’s invisible and made of air just like God is
but i dream of gods with bodies of their own who walk this world decked out in flesh and bone just like angels, my tears keep falling down they’ll fall and fall until we reach the solid ground aye aye bye bye theodore has left us and we’ll never know why try not to cry when people die
ok, but where do they go? they go to the light that’s what you say, but it doesn’t seem right to have to stay in a world so slight
don’t despair, he’s still sort of there living in your heart like a puff of warm air
One of my favorite parts of living in West Virginia is driving through the mountains at night listening to religious sermons on the radio. Yesterday, the sermon was about the Millennial Reign of Jesus, which begins when the Saints of Tribulation rise from the grave and begin their march up the Mountain of Olives, where Jesus will be waiting for them along with a white unicorn. On this mountain, Jesus and the saints will arm themselves and prepare for the battle ahead, which involves casting most humans into hell (but only AFTER turning them into immortals, so that they will suffer till the end of time) and imprisoning Satan deep in Cetarez- the Mariana Trench of Hell (where he will live for the next one thousand years, until he escapes for the Final Battle.)
While I’m not sure I completely agree with the preacher on what the future holds, I do like it that people’s minds are open enough to entertain such fanciful possibilities. And I like the idea that the very essence of reality could suddenly change in the blink of an eye. I tend to assume that the basic laws and shape of the universe will remain as they are- but what if they won’t? What if the people of the hills are right, and this is the seventh day of reality- the day when God rests- but soon his day of rest will end and all of hell will break loose? Although, personally, I would prefer a less violent eighth day, when Jesus returns to right every wrong and turn the earth into Teddy Bear World.
