two songs from last year, new and improved!

Lead to Roam

Floating faces fading every chance I get.

Social graces shielding everyone I met.

Here it's colder. I'll get older, too, I bet (/guess?).



New apartment, new excuse to make a mess.

Same old garments, slightly different way to dress.

And every road I take only leads me to roam

And I wonder, when will it start to feel like

cosmic comment/gilded frames for tired art

mental vomit/common interests, private parts

once a comet, now a chamber in someone else's heart

And I wonder:

• when the revolution will become routine; and
• if the institution is stealing my steam; and
• if the confusion eventually means more than just elegant elocution and survival machines.

Am I already choosing the suicide scream as the only solution to these thunderous themes?

the violent illusion/the desperate dream/the constant delusion/whatever it seems

The proud puppet plays on the shadowy screen.

With this hemlock infusion, I'll sleep so serene. But

it's already useless and

I just turned nineteen and

everything is as it's always been.

the bursting grey space/the endless ravine

onomatopoeia

ohhhhhhhhhhahdowanabeeyanonumotupeeyanoyzizarsoboysturusmyownlyuthurchoysiztubeeyoysturusn
shutmaiselfinsaydmayshelasolipsisticwishinwelkulapsintuasingulqwarknhoepfuleeixploedwenweerumoovtha cork.

(I've got a pretty proposition for you:

In this bottle I have caught a conversation, a collection of our gayest grammar games.
In the grass we can

• ferment this cart of peaches;
• extend the farthest reaches;
• circumvent the art of teaching you to forget my name.)

maybeealadmitamamatonameeavictumuvanonamislubotumeerumoovmaibodeeyaywoentstandfureneethingadal

miymiyndizfloedingthrooatankuvtiymwanduringthrooeedanwiynthroobrayneebriyntumeetmaimentulmait.

Notes are just stones to throw at seagulls and hope to scatter sand.

Rings are just thrones to stow our secrets in instead of holding hands.

Clothes are just shades to shut the sun out and scarce does rapture fit.

Words are just ways to flatten beauty and not to capture it.

(Cheers to Riley Arthur for the last line of this song, which was the first line of this song.)

1. A Song from the Summer

Jenny and the Ghost

goes like this:

A1 A2 B

C1 C2 C3 D

E

F1 F2 F3

A1

GMaj CMaj emin

Jenny was a nihilist. She broke the news one day,

CMaj D7

Smashed her father’s idols, and sent God on his way.

G C e

“If this is it,” she said, “I’ve lit a candle in the closet.

C D7

Moth and mystery, beware! And out away beyond the handle,

emin7 DMaj

Where the Shadow shrugs her shoulders,

CMaj7 G

Where the boys are pushing boulders,

CMaj D7

Where the sun is always out,

emin7 CMaj7 DMaj CMaj DMaj CMaj

I give a shout, I turn about, I seek my fortune.”

A2

G CMaj emin

So she packed a bag and cleared a head and made herself a deal:

CMaj13 B7b9

If she could wear it, warm it, weigh it, then she knew that it was real.

CMaj D7 G amin7 G

But what about what you can only feel?

CMaj D7 emin

What about what you can only feel?

B

[piano blues in e minor]

C1

emin DMaj CMaj G

Gone the day, the sunset fades away, revealing darkness where

amin9 emin amin9 CMaj D7 CMaj

before shone high electric pinks and violent ochers, calm and ponderous blues, golden gleams in every hue.

C2

emin DMaj CMaj G

Jenny pulls her socks off, turns the lights off, but her eyes stay on,

amin G amin9 emin

lit from somewhere soft behind the gentle turning of her mind.

C3

emin DMaj CMaj G

Outside clouds obscure the stars. She knows that somewhere Mars is lurking;

amin G CMaj D7/C

somewhere men are working, but her mind is murky, sinking softly off to sleep.

D

EbMaj9 D7 b9 EbMaj9 G

E

NC

And there was not a light to show her anything

Just the constant rolling waves and howling wind

And Jenny sank in sheets of white and felt no change

CMaj D7

But in the doorway of her dream was something strange:

F1

C G D e C D

She saw a ghost! a ghost! at night she met a ghost!

C G D e C D

And it was cold and kind and gave a gorgeous glow

C G D e C D

But in the morning it was gone. Did she believe?

C G D e

Oh no she didn’t [k]no[w] she didn’t know

D C G C G C G

Now Jenny knows she’ll never know

F2

She saw a ghost!

And it was old and blind and made the blanket billow and blow

But in the morning it was gone. Did she believe?

Oh no she didn't [k]no[w] she didn't know

Now Jenny knows she'll never know

F3

C G D e C D

She saw a ghost! a ghost! at night she met a ghost!

C G D7 B7 emin DMaj

And it was vast and frightening, casting lightning, faster than her fears could comprehend.

make a mess

The phantom, seemingly at random, flew in fits around the

NC

silent empty room.

continue messmaking

Her womb began to whirl, her soul began to swoon;

The silky silver rivulets of moonlight quivered, shivered, quaked,

As if they couldn’t keep the pace or shine upon its face.

F#

Her bed began to shake. Her head began to ache.

F#7 bmin

Her bones would surely break!

A13 GMaj7 A13

She couldn’t take much more, but somehow, more than ever in her life before,

GMaj DMaj

she felt she was alone (but she was not afraid! Her visions were her own and she was not a shade).

GMaj

She felt she was a weight and she felt she was a Mass and she felt she was a Wake

bmin AMaj GMaj f#min

and in the morning it was

NC

gone

4. A Bridge

Untitled #1 (Nicholson/Leibovic)

goes like this:

A B

A B

C1 C2 C3

B

before



after

A

eb min

Blown. You made me jump out of my

Db Maj

shoes. I'm tracing culs-de-sac for

eb min

you. I'm counting rain checks by the

Db Maj

phone. You make me jump out of my

eb min

shoes.

B

eb

Did the air begin to shimmer round the strings of his guitar?

Db eb

Was the mist deep on the marshes when he touched you in his car?

eb

With a matchbox and a lantern and my hand inside a glove

Db (Bb7/D) eb

With a shotgun and a shovel, I’ll roll back to you, my love

A

Blown.

You made me jump out of my shoes.

I'm tracing culs-de-sac for you.

I'm counting rain checks by the phone.

You make me jump out of my shoes.

B

Did the air begin to shimmer 'round the strings of his guitar?

Was the mist deep on the marshes when he touched you in his car?

With a matchbox and a lantern and my hand inside a glove

With a shotgun and a shovel, I'll roll back to you, my love.

C1

Eb Maj

Thrown away the traces and the

Db Maj

prints. Forgot the

bb min

faces ever

ab min7

since (except that

db min7

pale blue eye, it

C2

Eb Maj

shone along the freshly-sifted

Db Maj

earth, where,

bb min

underneath, a hidden

ab min7

heart will tell a

B Maj

tale in softer

C3

Eb Maj

tones). The seed of sin so darkly

Ab7

sown.

F7

The mist rolls

Bb7 (G7b9/B)

in to mask a

c min

moan, a mortal

ab min7

groan. A rush of

F7

wind through the

Bb7

chimney is

eb min

blown.

B

Did the air begin to shimmer 'round the strings of his guitar?

Was the mist deep on the marshes when he touched you in his car?

With a matchbox and a lantern and my hand inside a glove

With a shotgun and a shovel, I'll roll back to you, my love.