Lyrics for Son Mythville ...
Storms Across America
See the Madonna Disneyland
lean into the sea, casting a spell
of the deep as hailstones
ring white pins honed from Hawaii
and a tide of low pressure
rounds up upon the shore
of the Forty-Fifth parallel,
of the Forty Fifth Parallel
at the Forty Fifth parallel
And she sings ...
Rise, O rise, storms across America
Your plastic passions await you
as cars stream in from the Orient
and gas passes through your ports
of entry, pleased, as they are
from the total penetration
of the perfect plan
Star of India, our captains
catch colds in the bowlegged
polarities of warm seas
and freezing skies
The sun, well-timed,
is a clock-face ticking,
hidden from our view
America, may the tilted jet stream
blow a gale of goth up your nose
May the ocean rise and plaster
a new continent where truth
gets chased into the wind,
wakes the ghost dancers from
the Pacific to the Atlantic
before the living dead
can get out of bed
Shipwrecked sailors
found lost at sea
discovered homes
in their own faces,
in bindles of woody words
crushed to hand-length bits
After forty days of fire,
forty days of rain,
of the Forty-Fifth parallel,
of the Forty Fifth Paralell
at the Forty Fifth paralell
etc..
Glass Floats on the Beach
The sun goes up
and Mercury goes
into retrograde
as our satellite’s
telescopic echo fades
and techno-pop
becomes the sea
in which we wade
defuse the threat
with another tragic
mind blast
what a tree lacks,
the wind whispers;
and loving couples
strand tennis shoes
on the frosty morning shores
as missiles are clicked
into load in the underground
caverns of Iran
The camera’s eye
is just a catch
for this cuckoo cluck house,
our mourning latch
and what is least
is that which lasts
as buzzard gulls sift
through black morning trash
and I try to unlearn
this noisy cache
of highway moms
speeding by bullet blasts
and taxi driver Thanatoss plants
look like gods in camouflage pants
Glass floats on the beach,
it’s endless, at last!
The end is coming near
and it’s coming here fast
It’s time to drink
from the pirate’s flask
and toast a tune
to all of that glass,
to the sun, the sky,
the nuclear smash,
the currents, the past,
the pounding surf,
the manic search
for meaning and gas,
the molten glow,
the melting snow,
the rivers that run
through those who know ...
Glass floats on the beach,
the ebb is endless,
it’s here, at last
Ginsberg Rolls Over
(Katie Couric Scares the Shit Out of Me)
Saw a flower child
of a flower child
with a ring in her nose
house big as a cloud
Hanging from a cliff
like a prisoner in a noose
facing the wind,
rastling of the trash bin
behind the media megastore
Someday we all will be
forced to where some kind
ofr ridiculous head contraption
and now I can’t get to sleep anymore
and the country crooner
is a caged old bird now
CHorus:
And I think Orwell is right, always right
as Ginsberg rolls over
while the president goes on vacation
the world burns and seas swell
The world heard over your headset
is corporeal, corporal, and Operation
Wannabe Warlord is just a rush
for the kiddies in the suburbs
And those hay bales
in the hay barn won’t dry
mom and pop from American Gothic
have left their pitchforks to rust
and the country crooner
is a caged old bird now
CHorus:
And I think Orwell is right, alwaqys right
as Ginsberg rolls over
the president on vacation
the world burns and seas swell
CHorus:
And I think Orwell is right, alwaqys right
as Ginsberg rolls over
the president on vacation
the world burns and seas swell.
California Zephyr
Take the train. The mystery whistle
gives warning as a service
to each and hovel and burgh along the line.
Take the train. Shape your body
At a bad angle, to sleep with
One eye open,
a hand on your backpack:
Walk the aisle of the peaceful.
Tiptoe through the dead.
Take the train, but do not envy
The conductors in beautiful
blue caps, who tell tall tales
of DEA rousts, great rivers
frozen over,
whole cities rolling
alive into possibility.
Take the train, leave the attendant
regrets of lost love behind
with the voice of reason
that rules the iron-fisted
tracks of time, faith
and paper-thin legal fantasies
concerning the state
of our nation.
Take the train. Avoid the bad energy
of airports. Smoke in the smoking car.
Listen to long and endless movement
and look toward the Northern Lights.
Take the train, but just know
Charlie Vaughn, he’s just
a shape changer
in a checkered shirt.
The roust was real.
Take the train,
and he’ll confirm
The sun behind the sun.
Take the train, note the brown burned
empty water tank on its side,
feel the mystery rail move forward
again. The observation deck is a churchy
made-for-tv movie ... a transition space
of carpet and glass, frozen stiff,
the great white world,
grafting all tracks
within the context
of our mutual lost
and lonely selves.
Take. The. Train. The late
lifeline and link from Boston
to San Francisco, monk’s tea,
fuel-stained air, electricity humming
up ozone
from East to West.
Take the train,
But send it all back down the hill,
The anger, the fear, laments that fall
upon thine eyes.
Take the train, drilling through
a one-tracked meditation
on your soul’s cruelest capabilities.
Take the train, step off,
greasy, forbidden
and a little too real.
Hothouse Day
On a hothouse day
a solar storm on election day
electrifies a lake of fire
in the sky
The pattern: A tree,
maybe an off-ramp signage shadow,
with pecked And puckered knotty holes,
Where owls perch and eagles play.
I took that last quarter
To the phone booth ...
Oh, if not for so many lonely
And cynical Winnebegos
That drive, ceaselessly,
To bridge the great divide.
The real question isn’t
How to turn lead into gold,
But how to turn gold into soul.
LOOKOUT BURIAL MOUND
I was walking toward the stone circle
overlooking the city of the mind
Leaning over to pick up seven stones
a bone collector, a creature of desire
Both good and evil are in full supply
evil can be found there
in endless supply
great good comes there
at lookout burial mound
overlooking the city
glowing silver town
There on the hill of seven white stones
where the heart will never be found
its made of flesh and cannot ever
be collected, as these bones groan
and so these old bones need flesh
Both good and evil are in full supply
And evil is available
in endless suplly
and great good comes
in endless supply
Both good and evil are in full supply
And evil is available
in endless supply
and great good comes
in endless supply
Out there on the hill of seven quartz white stones
where the heart will never be found
for its is made of flesh and cannot ever
be collected
and so these old bones need flesh
