I pray my efforts be
fruitful enough;
my habits be
strong enough;
You be kind enough
I not lead my child
to grief.
I pray my habits be
strong enough;
my foresight be
long enough;
when the chasm opens up
I not lead my child
to grief.
I pray my foresight be
long enough;
the signs be
clear enough;
when the demons decide to come
I can help my child
learn to be free.
I pray my efforts be
fruitful enough;
my habits be
strong enough;
You be kind enough
I not lead my child
to grief.
Published as lyrics for Cindervoice’s You Are the Hand EP, 2014.
How long
can you hold your breath?
Two minutes?
Two thousand years?
The city sits
upon your neck—
snakes,
so still
suspended
upside-down
in drinking water—
saliva
now a nutrient
feeding grand machines.
Modern industry rushing
past your memory,
quaint,
unthreatening
fragment of nostalgia
that you are;
frozen,
beheaded
as you are.
Published as lyrics for GODHEADSCOPE’s Patience EP, 2011.
“Where one can no longer love,
there one should pass by.”
Though memory aches for former shapes,
pass not that way again.
Human curves and fingerprints
should not be cast in corners.
The huddled form is not for you.
Pass not that way again.
Where surprise has fallen mute,
there no gods will grow.
Those spirits have all lost their breath.
Release their spent air from your lungs.
Fever dreams too tightly held
deserve only your tears.
Lay to ground their will to death.
Pass not that way again.
Steps ahead, voices resound
that beckon us to being,
forgive us our misshapen pasts,
and welcome us in changing.
“Where one can no longer love,
there one should pass by.”
Though memory turns to clasp cold lips,
pass not that way again.
Published as lyrics for Cindervoice’s Before the Turn LP, 2010. Includes quotation from Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Walter Kaufmann translation.
Spinning, whirling
dancers in the alley.
Dresses turn and bloom,
dragging through the grime.
Joyful, smiling,
dirty skin colliding.
City walls are echoing,
for we are not yet dying.
Concrete calling,
precarious and falling.
Dancers stretch their limbs like
flowers from the cracked sidewalk,
marking passing time;
pulling joy from grime.
Published as lyrics for GODHEADSCOPE’s A City Out Of Sight LP, 2007.
Hatred is a dead body
handcuffed to my wrist.
I drag it behind me,
uphill and down.
The face which smears
over rocks and concrete
is the same as the one
I see in the mirror.
The fingers which cut
grooves into the soil
bear my fingerprints;
leave their traces.
The wake I trail behind me
slowly ceases to be red.
The passenger sheds his skin.
I grow still more hollow.
Blank features pass away
as my face grows ever harder.
My back curves from the weight;
the spine is bleached by sun.
By the time the bones remaining
detach and fall away,
there will be nothing left;
nothing left to save;
but an empty shell
dragging empty handcuffs
behind.
First published as lyrics for Cindervoice’s Before the Turn LP (2010). / Republished as lyrics for Matthew S. Rosin’s Singing Is Contagious EP (2020).
