PREGNANT CITY, SMILING This is the sound of nothing kinder This is the sound of pumping veins Kites never come back Trees always burn down This is the point in which thought starts No one will dance here Nobody drinks here This ain’t the pub of pragmatism Everyone holds hands Rich kids will form bands Let’s glue our lips so we won’t speak… So it’s easier to sleep

KINGS AND QUEENS Spying from the crenellation Windows for those roving eyes Teasing with ribbons of lace A strong foothold above the rest A glass of wine nailed to their hands Working like an abacus Numbers swimming in those eyes No time for a velvet glove When the hand becomes the rifle When the whip becomes a lash When the Sirens beckon you They always shove your head beneath the sea You always keep your gold in your closet But never take it out at night Those powdered hands of your neighbors They always put up a good fight Hands always opened Never with open arms Crown hidden in the pocket Always jangling with jewels When the hand becomes the rifle... CHORUS: Hark! Here come the Kings of Nothing Place your knee upon the grass Curtsy in their mighty presence Spread the roses before them Bow down to the Kings of Nothing Kiss their feet and kiss their wives A watchful eye upon their children But, who says they don’t eat their sons? The lining of the coat conceals the blade The soft, paternal touch of disgust for the dogs Is scrubbed and washed Lest one catches disease Bathing in streams of gold The glutton buys his way to Heaven Looking for the one called Jesus Can you spare a dime? When the hand becomes the rifle... CHORUS

BROKEN CROSS They said you got a broken jaw On your way back home from church It must have been a shock to you When it wasn’t on the news And all the children on the street Doing all that they do best Laughed as they had watched you fall And they called you so naïve Coffee stains and cigarettes Chalk dust all over your hands Trying to crack the laws of space Before the waiting firing squad And on that single rare morning When the sun had failed to rise Your life had flashed before your eyes As the rifles pointed to you And no, you will never again believe No, you will never again believe And all of the stations of the mind They are never what you expect The finger paints will blend together Away with Disney, Einstein, the Iceman, Jesus, and Plato And now you’re sitting in your room On the floor with the bottle Marbles sprawled in a circle The bottle spins in the middle And when you’re waiting for the outcome You will keep your fingers crossed And I’ll bet money against you When the bottle points to you And no, you will never again believe No, you will never again believe And oh, will you ever again believe? No, you will never again believe

CUNT Hey! Let’s share a drink But, let’s not bother saying a word ‘Cause in the morning everything’s forgotten And we each have our own agenda And about the only thing that makes sense now Is to stay detached Amnesia’s just a shot away So, why bother? And the best thing to hold on to Is to not expect a thing from anybody How many friends does one have at once? Or is it always the same one? And like a schoolgirl back in grade school Playing many games of tease for fun Are those dreadlocks in your hair? Are they merely snowflakes? You can’t seem to keep your story straight You use the same excuses Taking about two years to find the courage To run and hide It’s always good to be suspicious of someone Who shows interest in you The brandy sits And the incense burns

LAST STREET The trees that you walk by are starting to sway But the shade that they offer seems to add to the heat And there’s fruit for the picking, but your basket is gone And besides, I don’t think they were offering to you The buzz in your head is not heard by a single soul The tangle of threads in your mind ties you to the chair And the silence you craved for is finally here But it’s all an illusion, it’s not here to last There’s a cat in the trash bin, a fire in the alley A dead end to stop you, though you are sure That you’d know where to go, if only you could But the eyes in the garbage are reminding you That the clowns are not smiling, but are full of tears The makeup on Samson’s face runs down in streams And the ghost of a little girl’s gripping your neck On the last street of Heaven, it’s always this way CHORUS: This is the last street you will go down This is the last street Now the map is torn away Seems there’s no reason to continue down this road Five in the morning, you’re going to bed On a bed of nails, it’s not easy to dream And the glass full of water by the foot of the bed Will be waiting there still in a couple of hours The cars and the buses – they all sound the same And the voices and faces are always the same The numbing regression is here as a friend On the last street of Heaven, it’s always this way CHORUS Heads will roll The carpet burns The swinging pendulum serves as a guide CHORUS

APOTHEOSIS Please tell me, Father (Please tell me, Father) Why is Your cup out? (Why is Your cup out?) Have You been drinking? (Have You been drinking?) Where are You off to? (Where are You off to?) Please tell me, Father (Please tell me, Father) Why are You weeping? (Why are You weeping?) Now mother is crying (Mother is crying) And no one is sleeping (No one is sleeping) This basket of crickets (Basket of crickets) Will never dissipate (Never dissipate) So sit by the fire (Sit by the fire) And hear the flames crackle (Hear the flames crackle) It will all go up in flames... Please tell me, Father (Please tell me, Father) Why are You drinking? (Why are You drinking?) So, please tell me, Jesus (Please tell me, Jesus) What will You do? (What will You do?)

BUZZ Here comes the modern man! You’re waking up to find yourself In the same exact place In places where you’ve never been With people that you’ve never seen It’s fine if you’re not up to speed It’s all about commodity This world we own’s of cottage cheese Or so it seems The scheme of universal love Conspiracy! Conspiracy! It’s all about the words we say And throwing out the cultural glitch Saying it with dollar signs And matching up economies The decentralization scheme “I want a piece!” The beauty of life’s differences Converging towards a great, black hole Coppers, fuckers, Christians, bums… Even cats all look the same So what’s the use of language now? Here’s a random word for you: KNIFE! This night will never turn to day As long as we have lies to say A cactus with no prickly thorns A pirate with no wooden leg C.c.’s making lemonade The children with the needle play The litter box is filling up With arms and legs of other men Here comes the modern man! You’re waking up to find yourself In the same hospital bed The window’s closed The curtain drawn The book is out there on the lawn The nurse comes in with eyes like yours A smile like yours The switchblade drawn GASHGASHGASHGASH!!!

THE ANTHEM OF MR. LONESTAR Standing in the corner with a suitcase by his side And a cigarette and coffee in hand Rocking back and forth like a tree bent in the wind Looks like a perfect 45 degree tilt And he’s yelling dirty things aloud Like rehearsals for a play You know that hair and secondhand suit Make the clown in him stand out And no one bothers to tell him There’s no one there And scuffling right along With a sack of oranges inside The woman with the pushcart stops by And the only thing she takes with her’s The strong perfume of urine And the Holy Ghost trapped inside her mind She’s as obnoxious as a drunk Because she just fell off her cross today You know, this act of righteousness, It goes on everyday And no one dares to point out She might be wrong CHORUS: This is the anthem of Mr. Lonestar This is an anthem for you Hobbling down the same street With a bloody handkerchief in hand To the pictures, every Thursday Looking at the world through the bottom of two bottles It’s a different world And that’s guaranteed! And he’s asking the same questions Like rehearsals for a play And it’s those glasses That just make you want to walk away And no one wants to believe That no one’s there CHORUS Where do they come from? Where are they going? What are they doing? Wouldn’t you like to know? CHORUS

THIRD TIME FROM THE CELLULOID Beware! For the flapping of the mosquito’s wings Prevents you from clear thought Consciousness may not come easy But, it is he who knows Yes, it is he who knows Do not stand in its shadows Do not stand beneath the tree That self same tree Yes, the one that the Buddha hides in And stares down upon you with envy He’s as clear as crystal now And he can be seen through The earth shivers at this revelation But, will you stand as still as the tree he hid in? Will you stand so still? Do you recognize the shrine? Four turtles climb upon the rocks The candles flash an Indian temple Upon the wall Upon the wall A ziggurat of knowledge A lie that has taken the form of the previous line For common sense is esoteric And it is known That all monks are ghosts The bees mate in my ear And the wasp steals me some honey A hallucination into a greater world Reveals that which is feared And in the jungle of posterity Nobody’s a winner Because nobody is playing Yet, the merchants still give advice Free of charge or not They’re still written down in books And are gazed upon But, it never goes beyond that No, it never goes beyond that A knock on the door The feedback is looped Four fingers crawl in through the crack Through the crack What is this message? That which we seek The gods are in the brothel Because they know… Because they know And will you take this with some salt? Or will you horde it all in cup fulls? Will you take it? Will you take it That you are merely but a grain of salt? A single flaw in a concerto A blemish on a painting A sign of life upon a blank stare A single grain of salt A single grain of salt

CHE PECCATO Niente di speciale Qualcuno ha versato il mercurio in il mio tè Nel bar Parliamo molto nel bar La vecchia vedova ride Un angelo con un occhio Balla sul tavolo Lui guadagna i soldi E noi lo prendiamo Poi lo spariamo con arpioni Abbiamo avuto bisogno di soldi Parliamo sempre Sempre e spesso E sempre è spesso Non c’è oro qui per noi Qui i soldi è come la fornicazione Allora

FRENCH CONNECTION This is the last time I’ll ever write about you I promise There are many bottles on the table And most of them are green Though many of them are not mine And violence is a new routine It’s balanced out by country music Like life It’s a bad habit Tonight it’s like my brother And 1780 was a good year But I’ll never make it out of town And Germany’s so far away We don’t feel And we don’t sense We think until it hurts Many go missing Many disappear The color wheel spins It’s coming up to red I do not like the color of August Soon they’ll all get mixed together All the colors of the month They have a habit of doing this The cards are on the table The surrogate hand Though familiar, nonetheless Always on the table Sometimes by a girl Sometimes by a boy And tonight it’s Paris Just like any other night I remember our very own Paris nights But then again, Who hasn’t had a night in Paris? I don’t feel at all When the green rivers flow No, I don’t sense a thing When I lie awake all night The empty stomach The pounding mind Seem to go well together The grinding teeth The cracking bones Like the ticking of a clock Tick-tock-tick-tock History’s religion Always running out of it Do you wonder What it’s good for? A questionable consequence And everything goes numb Every knuckle whitens And each pedestrian’s a target We mustn’t wake the sleeping baby Let us crucify the clock Besides, I’ll never make it out of town Today will always stay this color But it’s not important I can’t tell colors anyways And amidst the silence of the future… This is what you meant to me

SABETH Look to the past These memories An anchor lost at sea Your face is sewn into The blanket of oblivion once more The children with your smile Strapped to the barbed wire linked fence With eyes like yours, but With strips of torn skin flapping in the wind Where is your face? The blade of a knife Sharpened in the mud You’re photogenic Can I slip my life into your skull? Here in my bed The heat and insects visit me at night The image branded Deep inside the callus of my mind Out by the sea Matchstick soldiers singing in the rain Their heads are striking rocks Nostalgia: Her sparks will never glow Ribbons of lace The objects that attach you to the post The images you see Will knock the chair over beneath your feet There is no place for regression This is no place for the broken steps of man

THE VELVETEEN ANGEL CHORUS: The velveteen angel Doesn’t care if you’re bleeding He’s not a doctor, nor a friend He just wants to keep you down The velveteen angel Doesn’t want to hear your thoughts He wears a fez and drives a hearse But he’s not from out of town In the human library Everyone has got a book You can read them if you like But they all seem to be the same From the stained glass window The colors all bleed through And so the skin on your face… In the blooming garden All the flowers are grenades Like a military man With his boot upon your face Everyone has a go Everybody has their say What’s your obligation? CHORUS And when you’re in the basement With four walls around your eyes All white and swollen Like the nurses at the clinic Don’t bother leaving It’s not even your own home In fact, it’s not even your wife’s When your back’s against the wall Just think back to the Mighty Fall The road’s already paved for you Don’t even bother getting dressed The watchful eyes are down the street Up in the lamps and so discreet They’re here to tell you what to eat And even when to bathe CHORUS In the human library Everyone has got a book You can read one if you like But they’ll always read the same And from your window The sky is bleeding through Like what was once your face…

UNDERWATER SUBWAY Knock the tin can on the wall Knock it on that concrete wall The little black haired children lost Lost as to how to respond A young girl in the corner drops her chin Her eyelids hiding her expression The rhythmic beat of tanks rolls by Doppler Effect in full regalia As it shoots its ammunition To the crowd of aging Catholic widows It’s a lesson in realism Or so say the tin hat martyrs CHORUS: Underwater subway scheme Nothing’s sacred, but obscene Underwater subway scheme Underwater... Keeps you in the dark A family down south on the streets Their friendly singing’s being looped backwards It’s all part of technology If it’s tangible, it’s feasible As concrete as the wall We can touch it, we can feel it This is what it’s like to live A cobblestone road right beneath your feet Away with Lhasa, and away with Eden We’ve got your apple wrapped in cellophane We’ve made a log of all your guilt And we have kept your prayers to prove it CHORUS The stars are imploding into nothing In the night, the dreams all end No more white light, no more white noise No more imagination It’s all downhill from here Until the cherry bomb cushions our fall And yet again, the submarine Underwater – so extreme The loop restarts, but we don’t mind The cactus pricks will now retract The scorpion has lost its sting A child grown out of innocence

CONTRACT Well, we rode out the next day… Off to meet our destiny, like everyone else did. Like others will. Up the scoliosis hill. To shake hands with God. His body moved in a serpentine motion. He wore a green bow. He handed us green pens with which to sign our contract. Others would follow. Nobody would be left out. So this is capitalism. It begins with this contract. A love for accumulation. A trance and a drug. The Ferris wheel in our eyes would never stop. Not for you, nor for me. A hypnosis initiated at conception. Monopolized before birth. Green is the amniotic fluid. Green is the sea. The feathers, the room, and the penknife… Well, you get the picture.