1. |
Job Interview No. 2
04:17
|
|
||
|
Is today a holiday? The bells are ringing like crazy
Do I appear as a snake in the garden
where I slink,
without
a leg
to stand on?
It’s a world within itself
The bars are cleaner here. The food is making me nauseous.
I spent the last three days finding the real price of milk
Inside your pretty mouth
Your bag in the hallway
is ready for the night, but in my time I’m asleep, I shouldn’t be asleep
Pay attention. Things are happening.
Things are acting and things are reacting.
The flowers are bee-like. The bees are flower-like.
A blade of grass cuts through your heart
You’d like to raise your hand and explain.
But it’s no more pencils. No more books. No more teachers. Dirty looks.
There was a job interview. I huffed, and I puffed, and I blew it.
But hey that’s ok with you, you got a friend who makes you jealous
But might just help me out
The guy is totally lazy.
And keeps you up at night with plights and gripes as bad as Achilles.
You see pain where there is only cruelty.
You were standing stiff as Job
And caught her picture in the newspaper
Under another name but there undoubtedly when
And undoubtedly how, and undoubtedly
Why you think you’ve got it bad as Job?
It’s not like you had a son or a daughter
It’s not like you had any land to hoe
It’s not like you had any animals to slaughter
Or any house the devil could burn
|
||||
2. |
Suddenly, Bugs!
04:43
|
|
||
|
I stared at the summer with a glass of convex. I bring myself to the hill for the kill of a lifetime
out walks the tree hugger, with oils of the essential. he puts his chest to mine, in an act of love and cruelty
now the shape of his chest makes a map of conquest. it’s marked like a piece of land ready to grow poppies.
there’s holding onto life and then there’s staying past your welcome
“I am not out to cut you up, you do a good job of it yourself “
the mind makes it up
a sudden bug
and how does it breath
buried so deep in the skin
and the bedrock breaking in
up on the ground I stand upon
girl, I would be comfortable walking into buildings, reading labels through the holes that I cut through the bedsheets
but all she ever talks about is how fictional that book is. You can make up the results of all these tests
notoriously early, I enjoy the sense of waiting for the magazines to expire and the cigarettes to get stale
but I hear you’ve got a formula for reversing the whole process, in a can full of cold air you can spray at 6-foot’s distance
I cry and throw up
a sudden bug
out the mouth’s corner
and still stomping with my feet
where skeletons are buried
I’m crushing it all over
on the hunt for houses
with screens for walls and mouses
setting traps for me
and I supposes
for my toses
a ghost of a ghost that could fill the mouth of pac-man. even with its size, it still manages to get in.
I flailed and hugged the ceiling, bloody mary at the back end. “if I had known it was harmless, I would have killed it myself!”
do they even know what they are communicating? on wings or tiny limbs with no sense of up or down
and suppose the whole world runs out at the exact same moment. would anyone complain or just stare at the destruction?
what will happen if we make it through the summer?
what will happen in the fall, in the fall?
what will happen if we’re running just as fast
as the season we’re chasing, yes, the fall, yeah, the fall
|
||||
3. |
Turnaround France
06:35
|
|
||
|
He’s gonna be your friend
the king is waiting for the rest of the castle
All he has is a chair
And a tower to stare out
Hoping that the stones will grow up
Then he pulls out a great, big book
And keeps it horizontal
He’s got time for reading
In the endless evening
There’s someone here who mistook it for a bible
And went out to see what the fuss was about
Staring at the page
She saw a mouth in the corner
And thought that she would be an ear
Show some mercy
And the mouth opened for the first time in years to say
“If I could choose, I’d gain it all and lose it all again
Just to end up at the exact spot
Over which
I am hunched
In beggars clothes
Forever old”
Not “older” as in “colder” but “warmer” as in “closer to death”
A talent for being ill
For being close and still
A talent for giving away
Exactly what the body needs
Sometimes we fall off that cliff
the world is flat when the eye requires it
But when you’re sad I am sad
the catch is the catching
And that hairy rug continues
To shed
There’s no word for how calmly the walls come up
I am living in her head
Drowning in it
“Hello, my life.” I said
the time it’s been could fill up a whole other book
We travelled alone to a city abroad
Went to the same gas station
As if just at the curve
Of a wheel in constant rotation
the doctor held her hand
while the plague made its way across the States
I took my turn around France
“If I could choose I’d gain it all and lose it all again
Just to end up at the exact walls between which
I am crushed
At one end hope
the other, hope”
|
||||
4. |
Taking a Tree Down
07:29
|
|
||
|
when the car broke down and mother pushed it up the muddy slope
it was cold for the day it was
it was wet for the place it was
and I was
and a man, and a neighbor, and his friend
having locked up the gas station
taking a tree down
with the car in reverse
in the middle of the night
but with proper permits
it was late for the year it was. 1989.
his first memory is being audience to an out-of-tune piano
his first memory is of the second house they sold
he wants his boy to grab him by the throat
he’s been holding the map for hours now
on his way to
taking a tree down
(slowly, and without a sound)
that parking lot was worth a lot! soon it will be worth a lot more.
if you build it, they will come, in pairs of pairs of pairs (and no need for repairs)
mountains may depart before you see the past again
to see that day when you were all together, taking it down
(slowly, and without a sound)
so he spends a lot of time wishing he could do it on his own
dig a hole in the ground, fill it with some fish and one lonely snake
(slowly, and without a sound)
he fell far for the fruit he was
an apple or a pear
he dreams a melody skirts across a plateau
until it falls off a cliff, like a buffalo
(slowly, and without a sound)
his first memory is of mountains topped with brilliant caps of smoke
his first memory is of Tammany Hall, shitting out his guts
that horse is broken but not broke
he’s powering the engine
with the idea of God
and I’m placing my bets
on what is likely to win
I have no illusions
about changing the outcome
that tree is going down
you would take it home if you could make it worth the dragging
I feel written but not rote
|
||||
5. |
Little Lakes
05:00
|
|
||
|
Little Lakes
When you’re helpless, that’s it. The rest of us are side-effects.
That’s what we get for giving what you had a name.
And the moral soul says, “bring on the locusts”
And the soul moving in says, “give me a date.”
He was made like a pig. A giant hunk of brain.
Those thousands of deaths weren’t a mistake.
And the evening soul says, “give me a feeling.”
And the morning soul says, “gimmie a break.”
I think about the little lakes
I think about the little lakes foaming
I think about the little lakes foaming inside of a spaceship
You had sworn off of violence and I asked how that’s working
Do you have to make enemies just to make friends?
And the hearty soul says, “bring me some soup”
And the caring soul says, “give it a minute.”
Thrashing about, it didn’t feel bad.
You found a box to keep the body in.
And the normal soul says, “I am wounded in love”
And the working soul says “I am wounded in hatred”
I think about the little lakes.
I think about the little lakes foaming.
I think about the little lakes foaming inside of a spaceship
I met a man who liked to travel the world. He liked the feeling that his life wasn’t new.
And I met someone, he doesn’t like the sun. So he always knows when it’s going to rain.
He thinks about the little lakes
He thinks about the little lakes foaming.
He thinks about the little lakes foaming inside of a spaceship.
|
||||
Will Clark Brooklyn, New York
Will Clark plays guitar for Madam West. He's not the erstwhile guitarist. He still plays.
If you like Will Clark, you may also like:
Home Grown : Recordings 1969-1979
by Rick Deitrick
Lovely, finger-picked acoustic guitar songs that manage to build whole melodic worlds with just a few gentle notes.
go to album
The Music of Harry Taussig & Max Ochs
by Tompkins Square
Tompkins Square offers newly-recorded material from two guitarists to commemorate their appearance on a 1967 Takoma Records sampler LP.
go to album
Too Late To Die Young
by Harry Taussig
Taussig's classic, refreshing strumming consistently pushes the boundaries of American Primitive Guitar.
go to album
Sunrise : Bill MacKay Plays The Songs of John Hulburt
by Bill MacKay
Renowned experimental folk artist takes a faithful pass at the songs of John Hulburt's private press LP, Opus III.
go to album
Opus III (Reissue produced by Ryley Walker)
by John Hulburt
Reissue of a private press LP reveals folk songs and solo guitar by Hulburt (of '60s Chicago band The Knaves).
go to album
Why Does The Earth Give Us People To Love?
by Kara Jackson
The folk musician's debut album asks existential questions about life.
go to album
Following a stressful political adventure, the Texas musician returns with an impressive showcase of his American primitive finger-picked guitar style.
go to album
