Grim Lips

When nephews spit and pitch boom sounds from their dark (yet sacred) caves, friend, this is a calm you will never find again. This radio knows your heart so well that it sings your static through its teeth. Its the only friend you’ve ever had. Burning pitch, booming sounds from your graves, each, the old ones and the new. When you lie to even the sky, and then get off on la la las (as I do, its so hard not to), this old lie it does creep, it clicks and beeps, this ratio knows your heart, sinks your fabric to its knees.

Your heart, it’s bigger than this room, your eyes are wider than the sound when your freckles go boom, when today’s sun switches to moon and throws its old gloom onto the carpets you had in college, the rooms where you made your first stains, the brandished photographs of exploding palms, the voices that sang you that best and only calm. But the dreams won’t come, and then there’s your boyfriend’s eyes. ..He has seen children in this land.....
They place their hands in warm pockets because snow finds them when they’re falling. In their pocket they may find that broken crayon, that splinter of wood, that cause they thought good. So worth it. They brandish their photographs of their fathers, those fools, palms together with clothed eyes. Over with boulders, they’ll seek grass as their closure come spring. The world will wear a sinister gown, and it’s your prom and then it’s your wedding day.

It kills you graveyard dead.

......
I have seen children in your head.

They are on ocean beaches, distant and dear. They poke their toes toward the center of the earth, as if to place their roots, as if to say, "I am here and I take root! Let me be!" But they are just children and those are just beaches, children are not trees. This is a truth if I’ve ever known one. I was on a train once and this woman approached me with glistening eyes. She told me that there were cracks in our stockade, she spoke of elks. I pulled her teeth with a feral rabbit’s beak. The smoke that billowed out from her fingers as she caressed my perfect body that night, against her gums, while the perfect sun orbited the perfect galaxy, the milky one, the bold, and what she said I’ll never forget. "No creature can learn that which his heart has no shape to hold.".... ..As if to break me.....
That first night I could be found down by the refinery playing guitar with Travis, the smell of sugar beets, counting the stars, or the planes, or the satellites, depending on your belief or your view. It was what the poor once called the perfect night. I was there, holding onto my heart, as it skipped (as it had lots to do), singing my static through its teeth and gave birth back my spring. It’s the only friend I’ve ever had.

A bouquet of only one rose, I’ll take it. My hair will turn grey, steel, I’ll live to see it. Your hands will weld our heads together, look at what you did! You picked up the pieces, you easily fixed them, and now, like buds on dead branches, though I may not grow into what I should have grown, I will bloom before I fall. And I thank each of you for that. That I had a chance to bloom at all, in this pasture, before next winter calls.......

Our Dusks And Our Dawns

There are truths and there are Truths. My world seems like a vice-like thing, so good at keeping me in tight situations, with no air in my lungs, nowhere to go, no time to think, barely room to react, really, really, to this Truth. I own no Gold objects, nothing that can be melted down when the market crashes, all I have are old photographs and tattoos, over-weight cats and bad breath. These things will not get me far in the world to come. I saw myself through my nephew's eyes, and what I saw were truths, my age, the cities that I have lived in, the style of clothes that to him are so un-cool ("You really like to wear tight pants, don't you Uncle Steven.....")

My heaven will have Haagen Daz trees in full bloom. My heaven will host vast celebrations spanning centuries and cultures not known. My heaven, holding me, has no morning, has no night, but limitless dusks and dawns, the light is always gold, always gold, and covers me from my east to my west. There are no rear-view mirrors, no reasons to look behind, and no half-forgotten dreams, like pebbles in shoes as you walk the dusk/dawn streets. No ghost-like memories, no haunted broken promises to hide beneath your sleeve. And when you do turn your back, it's always somehow forward, always dusk, always dawn.

This heaven has no eulogy. There are no keys because there are no locks and no crushed hearts beneath thrift store lapels. Bluebottles, jays and sparrows take their rest in your hair and it never matters whether you've combed it or woken in a mess of tangles and curls. Every night is St. Valentine's Day and midsummer's eve, and everybody remembers to write. And if you somehow find yourself in a position to fight, to make fists and use them, remember this.....are you the sky or are you the bird?

There are children out in the yard singing and it sounds German and it sounds like smiling. It sounds amazing. It sounds like Saturday morning cartoons, when your heart could pound because your favorite robot was in danger....or when you realize even your favorite super hero has his faults, actual faults and even he knows fear, even he looks for his limitless dusks and dawns, that place where the light is always gold, always gold, and covers him from his east to his west. I am talking to myself again.

Take me home, where you are, where I have a house near naked rivers and vast green forests. The smell of food cooking from upstairs, your voice laughing to some friend on the phone....where the stars are sneaking through the blue sky like they just can't wait for night. Our neighbor is whistling as she tends her garden, the clock on the wall shakes out time.....and suddenly I no longer feel like a shipwreck but an island. And I am its King and you are my Queen. The sky is red and the day is on fire and the willow trees brush against a wagon of rain while the children leave to go dancing, leave to live their lives. And then its winter, and then its spring and then its the Fourth of July and the sky is on fire again and then its Halloween and ghosts steal our candy and paper our trees and then everything is turning blue. And then, suddenly, thick blankets and hot coffee in the morning. Snow, sleet and ice and I swear to god by Christmas time there will be someone else to hold you.

When I say goodbye, I'll say goodbye to that darkened knoll under the walnut tree and the sound of morning. I'll say goodbye, finally, to that last dusk and that last dawn....and I'll wish someone would put me on a train to someplace far away. I'll never kiss those lips again or break your heart and when I say goodbye, I'll say goodbye to you, my Truths and to you, my truths and to you, your arms.....

Fever Dreams and Fever Dreams

The worst fever dreams of my life. Tossing and turning in my bedroom, on the couch, out in the ditch, on the roofs of houses, on the freeways stretching from here to where you are. The blankets that covered me were one second your hair and the next the ocean waves and then they were a field of clouds. I could smell you the whole time. Every moment there had been crashed over me. Appletini, The Lord Fox, vorhies, broken glasses in the Ukrainian Village, a certain nap on a certain rainy day in St. Louis, fireworks from church yards, the countless dinners that were so delicious they could kill you if you weren't paying attention, and through it all your hair…. I had a dream, and I'll tell you about it. It was the world as it could be and I woke up feeling so energized aside from feeling so sick. I wanted to go running, but I couldn't find my shoes and the sky was throwing down ice. And it was then that I realized the world was still grey and fever dreams are not fact as much as I wished they could be. I just wanted to hear your voice.

I have a vision in my mind of those train tracks where you would picnic, and I see us there, often, though I've never been. It's just another of those amazing moments that never was but could so easily be, if we decided to make it so. You're wearing a dress that is justifying my entire life to me and making the whole world around us jealous, and my heart is so full of desire and love for you, I'm amazed that I am even sitting there. It's autumn and the setting sunlight is falling like waves through your hair and I could just die right there. The food is delicious, the wine is making our heads dance and it's not cold yet. There is a slight breeze softly making your curls stir. I realize it's only Friday and that we have the whole weekend ahead of us. So beautiful. I cannot begin to explain it to you. No one has any idea.

And again I look up from whatever it is I am doing, petting Sam or reading a book, and I realize I'm here, you're there, and there is no sunlight at all, there is no wine, no food, no gorgeous hair or dress, just this terrible fever and the dreams it brings me. Snow is falling outside under a thick iron grey sky and the time between now and when I get to see you again feels like forever. All my memories of you are small tortures, as beautiful as they are. It's all I can do to not get in my car and come find you and somehow let you see what I have seen. If nothing else to just touch your hair once more.

Jason Believe Me, You Can’t Trust Your Dreams

If you listen, if you find yourself listening, thus-wise, perpendicularly to the earth, you will find that not only has it all been said before, it's being said Now and more than likely will be said Tomorrow. (Run a carbon black test on my jaw and you will find….). Every human has had time to find a new creature to become, its costume. Eons. A fish or a weed or a Spaniard. The Earth has grown tired of thee. All costumes have been rented so many times (13), throughout the 13 directions of space. No one CARES anymore, you silly joker. You champion of Grit. You slick sailor in your '58 Belle Aire (my Grand Father owned one of these bitches which he had once been found driving in reverse). Gardens of sprouting flowers, all the tree tops bursting with pearls, in your infinite knowledge of Endings, you should lay down your ears and hang up your tongue and see that not only has it all been said before, its being said Now and more than likely will be said Tomorrow. Your life is a Ghost. And behind you stand a thousand more, in their line, stretching back to your first Father and your first Mother. They held beets near rivers on Wide Plains. They lifted their Stains towards the sun and thought of your thousand year old bones, though you hadn't been born yet.

Do you believe that you belong to something? Angels on harpsichords turn to smoke. You on angels turn to the coast, to the white hair of the tide of some dead sea. I wonder if you'll come back! I don't think you'll come back. Thin sun, thin faith, thinly worn as He would have you. You've sung and they have listened but has nothing changed? Is the crowd too young? Or is ours the older crowd? Think of the scene where the Megabus is waiting, taking you for a whore. Cigarette smoke streaming from your mouth in that cold October morning, it had no soul. When you showed me the vodka in your pocket I thought suddenly that maybe I should paint you a portrait of your childhood for Xmas, of you standing there near the Tree with your arms folded, with the light from some December day on your hair, I thought you'd like that, in the End, though my thoughts might be more suited for the stage. You held a beet too you know, if you think about it. The floodlights shown down upon your brow, your bust, your beet. You eventually grew a Mohawk. You shaved your head. You wore a wig. You gave in. You walked in circles for YEARS. My circles. Your circles. You were waiting for time to turn around.

You were counting on forces you could not control. Now I am nothing more than a memory (or so it seems), a picture in your head, a "Hey, remember when this or when that?" It's truthfully Wicked, and it's wonderful. This is us. This is Who We Are. I wanted to change Everything. All. But I can barely change my oil. In fact, I was checking my oil today and some dumb fuck who changed my oil last forgot to put my oil cap back on and now I don't have a fucking oil cap on my oil tank in my fucking CAR. I'm cool with that though. If I laid down all that I thought I was, spread it out in a field of wild weeds, if I saw what it was worth, if You could see, would it make ANY difference to you? If I turned around what matters most to me, would I be going anywhere more significant? Don't tell me. Really, I'm sorry that you couldn't love me back. It's true. I'm sorry that you could never care enough in these last days. It's as sad as the End of the End. But even that has its ending.

It will be a miracle if my car even fucking STARTS tomorrow morning.

Selling Out Isn’t Possible by Kevin Barnes

Are you a sell out? Yes. Don't let it bother you though, cause apparently I am also a sell out, and so are your parents and everyone you've ever known. The only way to avoid selling out is to live like a savage all alone in the wilderness. The moment you attempt to live within the confines of a social order, you become a sell out. Once you attempt to coexist you sell out. If that's true, then selling out is a good thing. It is an important thing. If we didn't do it, we'd be fucked, quite literally, by everyone bigger than us physically who found us fuckable.
The pseudo-nihilistic punk rockers of the 70's created an impossible code in which no one can actually live by. It's such garbage. The idea that anyone who attempts to do anything commercial is a sell out is completely out of touch with reality. The punk rock manifesto is one of anarchy and intolerance. The punk rockers polluted our minds. They offered a solution that had no future. Of course, if the world would have ended before Sandinista! was released then everything would have been alright. It didn't. Now we have all of these half-conceived ideas and idiot philosophies floating around to confuse and alienate us. I think it is important to face reality. It is important to decide whether you are going to completely rail against the system or find a way to make it work for you. You cannot do both -- and if you attempt to do both you will only become even more bitter and confused.

When I was younger, and supported my parents, I chose to float between the two. A lot of people choose to do this. There are so many confused young people running around now polluted by this alloyed version of the tenets of the punk rock manifesto. Of course they're confused. It isn't possible to be in chorus with capitalism and anarchy. You must pick one or the other. Very few people are willing to do it, though. The worst kind of person is the one who sucks the dick of the man during the daytime and then draws pictures of themselves slitting his throat at night. Jesus Christ, make up your mind! The thing is, there is a lack of balance. When capitalism is working on a healthy level, everyone gets their dick sucked from time to time and no one gets their throat slit. It's impossible to be a sell out in a capitalist society. You're only a winner or a loser. Either you've found a way to crack the code or you are struggling to do so. To sell out in capitalism is basically to be too accommodating, to not get what you think you deserve. In capitalism, you don't get what you think you deserve though. You get what someone else thinks you deserve. So the trick is to make them think you are worth what you feel you deserve. You deserve a lot, but you'll only get it when you figure out how to manipulate the system.

Why commercialize yourself? In the art industry, it's extremely difficult to be successful without turning yourself into a cartoon. Even Hunter S. Thompson knew this. God knows Duchamp and Warhol knew it. Some artists are turned into cartoons and others do it themselves. I prefer to do it myself. at least then I can control how my cock is photographed. Why should it be considered such an onerous thing to view the production of art as a job? To me, the luckiest people are the ones who figure out a way to earn a living doing what they love and gain fulfillment from. Like all things in this life, you have to make certain sacrifices to get what you want. At least most of us do. If you're not some trust-fund kid or lotto winner, you've got to slave it out everyday. People who wanna be artists have the hardest time of it 'cause we are held up to these impossible standards. We're expected to die penniless and insane so that the people we have moved and entertained over the years can keep us to themselves. So that they can feel a personal and untarnished connection with our art. The second we try to earn a living wage or, god forbid, promote our art in the mainstream, we are placed under the knives of the sanctimonious indie fascists. Unfortunately, there isn't some grand umbrella grant that supports indie rockers financially and enables us to exist outside of the trappings of capitalism.

The thing is, I like capitalism. I think it's an interesting challenge. It's a system that rewards the imaginative and ambitious adults and punishes the lazy adults. Our generation is insanely lazy. We're just as smart as our parents but we are overwhelmed by contradicting ideas that confuse us into paralysis. Maybe the punk rock ethos made sense for the "no future" generation but it doesn't make sense for me. I like producing and purchasing things. I'd much rather go to IKEA than to stand in some bread line. That's because I don't have to stand in a bread line. Most people who throw around terms like "sellout" don't have to stand in one either. They don't have to stand in one because they are gainfully employed. The term "sellout" only exists in the lexicon of the over-privileged. Almost every non-homeless person in America is over-privileged, at least in a global sense.

Obviously, I've struggled with the concept. I've struggled because of the backlash following my songs placement in TV commercials. That is, until I realized that the negative energy that was being directed towards me really began to inspire my creativity. It has given me a sense of, "well, I'll show them who is a sellout, I'm going to make the freakiest, most interesting, record ever!!!" ... "I'm going to prove to them that my shit is wild and unpolluted by the reach of some absurd connection to mainstream corporate America."

I realized then that, for me, selling out is not possible. Selling out, in an artistic sense, is to change one's creative output to fit in with the commercial world. To create phony and insincere art in the hopes of becoming commercially successful. I've never done this and I can't imagine I ever will. I spent seven years not even existing at all in the mainstream world. Now I am being supported and endorsed by it. I know this won't last forever. No one's going to want to use one of my songs in a commercial five years from now, so I've got to take the money while I can. It's the same with pro athletes. You only get it while you're hot and no one stays commercially viable for long. It's not like Michael Vick is going to be receiving any big endorsement deals anytime soon. As sad as it may seem, one of the few ways most indie bands can make any money whatsoever is by selling a song to a commercial. Very very few bands make enough money from album sales or tour revenue to enable themselves to quit their day job.

Next time you see a commercial with one of your favorite bands songs in it, just tell yourself, "cool, a band I really like made some money and now I can probably look forward to a few more records from them." It's as simple as that. We all have to do certain things, from time to time, that we might not be completely psyched about, in order to pay the bills. To me, the TV is the world's asshole boss and if anyone can earn some extra bucks from it and they're not Bill O'Reilly, it's a good thing.

She Died and My Cushion Didn't Even Help

I brought a cushion to the funeral but it rained and instead of being buried they put her up in the tree because the leaves were so wide the rain wouldn't hit her. It was actually pretty wonderful though a lot of folks were freaked out about it. I don't know. I sat and thought it was pretty wonderful and I thought that if I ever die, which I DOUBT, then I hope its raining and I hope they put me up in a palm tree and then I thought how dramatic it would be if they put me in a palm tree and then lightning struck me and my body FLEW OUT towards them and it was like I was playing one last joke on the world of my friends and reletives. But I figured that if I ever die, which I DOUBT, I'll probably be buried in the ocean or maybe by then I'll be buried on Mars or Europa anyway and really if you think about it it never rains in those places and even if it did there aren't any palm trees anyway.

Thoughts Threw Frosted Windows w/ Giant Birds, Buddha and Missed Things

I had a dream last night where the Universe was fully explained to me and it was so simple! So simple, in fact, that I cannot recall a single detail. But I remember it was quite beautiful and obvious. The only other thing I can say about that is that as I was coming back to consciousness the first thought I had in my head was that Buddha was super right on about it all! I wish I knew why the fuck I was thinking that. And now I have a strong hunger for food. I also had a dream that a group of pagans or druids were holed up in the middle of the woods outside of Ann Arbor, it was actually more like a swamp, and in the very back of this swamp was an old graveyard and in the very back of this graveyard was the largest tombstone except that the tombstone was knocked down and whoever's grave it was (they were important) had been dug up and it was empty. So there were all these druids or some crazy shit hanging out around this empty grave and their leader had antlers like a deer and he was also robed and hated everything. So this girl had disappeared from the city and everyone somehow knew that the druids had her and were keeping her hostage in this empty grave and I also remember someone telling me, "The Thunderbird sits on the over-turned headstone and kills anyone it wants". A Thunderbird is some crazy shit and I guess it was being controlled by these druids and just picked up this girl in its scary claws and took her to the swamp. We were all about to go into the swamp to rescue her when I woke up. I might have had this dream before.

There is other stuff too but its all too weird to think about. Oh yeah so I was driving to work today after waking up from my Buddha was right dream and on NPR they were talking to these Buddhists in Ann Arbor who go diving into garbage for stuff like coffee pots and diamond rings to sell and I thought it was weird all this Buddhist stuff all at once and I was trying to decode the message if there was a message and THAT'S when I realized it had snowed and by this point my coffee was cold and I was late for my Building Systems class so I had to put the Buddhist stuff on the back burner and its still back there simmering. I'm too hungry to figure stuff like that out. I'm also really tired too, so tired in fact that if you actually knew in your mind how tired I was you would call me and try very hard to convince me to go home and sleep for a while even though its like 30 minutes away, "It don't matter none!" you would passionately say to me and you know what I'd probably listen to you because I'm THAT TIRED.

The funny thing about all this is that I sold my car, I sold my hats, I sold numerous pints of blood, I sold my bed, my dresser and my books, I sold my shoes. With the money I made I went out and bought a new car, some different hats, some fake blood, a new bed, an Ikea dresser and some books I haven't read, and some crazy shoes. I put all these things where I thought they should go and when I sat down to look at them all I realized I missed my other car, my other hats, my real blood, I missed how comfortable that old bed was, how well my clothes fit in that antique dresser and how good those books were, really when I thought about it hard enough, how those old shoes were so much more comfortable. So now I walk everywhere, I comb my hair, I am careful not to cut myself, I do not sleep, my clothes litter the floor, my books are paperweights and my feet are constantly bare. The end.