1. |
(picturesque ruins)
02:38
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“We are born into a preinvented existence within a tribal nation of zombies and in that illusion of a one-tribe nation there are real tribes. Some of the tribes are in the business of sucker-punching peoples psyches in the form of maintaining the day-to-day job of government—they sell the masses a pile of green-tainted meat; i.e., a corrupted and false history as well as a corrupted and false future, and although that meat stinks of rot and pus and blood, this particular tribe extols these foul emissions as if they were virtues made of glorious sensitivities: “Raise Ole Glory while we do it to them again ...”
Then there are other tribes which work hand in hand with the government, offering slices of meat in the form of doubletalk; or hope—hope as a chain of submission. Then there are the tribes that suckle at the breast of telecommunications every evening after work and are fatally lulled into society’s deep sleep. Day after day they experience waking nightmares but they’ve either bought the con of language from the tribe that offers hope, or they’re too fucking exhausted or fearful to break through the illusion and examine the structures of their world.
There are other tribes that experience the X ray of Civilization every time they leave the house or turn on the tv or radio or pick up a newspaper or when they suddenly realize their legs have automatically come to a halt before a changing traffic light. A civil war and a national trial for the “leaders” of this country, as well as certain individuals in organized religions, is the soundtrack that plays and replays in the heads of members of that tribe. Some members of the tribe understand the meaning of language. They also understand what freedom truly is and if the other tribes want to hand them the illusion of hope in the form of the leash—in the form of language—like all stray dogs with intelligence from experience, they know how to turn the leash into a rope to exit the jail windows or how to turn the leash into a noose to hang the jailers. But when the volume of that war reaches epic dimensions, and when the person hearing it fails to connect with another member of the same tribe who can acknowledge the sound, that person can one day find themselves at the top of a water tower in suburbia armed with a high-powered rifle firing indiscriminately at the ants crawling around below. That person can one day find himself running amok in the streets with a handgun; that person can one day find himself lobbing a grenade at the forty-car motorcade of the president; or that person can end up on a street corner, homeless hungry and wild-eyed, punching himself in the face or sticking wires through the flesh of his arms or chest.”
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2. |
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humanity is a vile stain
a streak in the drawers of existence
building a shit monument to the absolute pits
who the fuck would be proud of a species like this?
all of these changing heads
(free me from the)
have got me caught up in
(silence of)
the eternal sleep of
(interior)
the statues that we are
(life we live)
a ghost on their way to
claim the wrong,
blood flows no matter who
it’s from
“Some of us are born with
the cross hairs
of a rifle printed on our backs or skulls.” - pg. 58
will I spot the fault?
will I fight the sun?
will I change the plot?
will I turn the gun?
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3. |
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“another city dying of a disease
whose anatomy was just beyond the inhabitants’ grasp.” - pg. 30
I feel so defeated in here
(I’m just a dog inside a cage)
(The repetition’s gotten old)
It’s all so bleak, I want to
(SNAP!)
(I just need to remain focused)
Please don’t treat me this way
(Blinded by my daily rage)
(it’s not just me, we all)
HURT!
(I have nothing but anger now)
(I’ll bury it in my papers)
When did I lose integrity?
(Growling at the passerby)
(WAIT!)
I’m reduced to the lies I sell
(I work, I fuck, I sleep, I seethe)
(I am only doing my job)
it has me wanting to
DIE!
bleeding currency into the culvert
all the profit has run from my body
bleaching on the tar running through
the business district
(PUT ON YOUR WORKIN SHOES BOY)
Logan:
[on what stilts should
we hold our wealth now?
what will tax do
without a balance?
the sunset of money burning on the horizon
how will we pay for all the wrong we’ve done?
I have no mouth, but I must shriek,
when it falls apart, what will our paystubs hold?]
my wallet’s been bleeding since before I was born
the heart of the pocket consumed by cancer
always praying to a corporate god but I never get an answer
I don’t hear a thing
approaching
the end
of
work
life
balance
set myself on fire
hang me from the fan
bring the office down
my life as the match
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4. |
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it is through the righteous care for others that you begin to believe that certain people should not exist.
the police, the kkk, the nazis, the confederate flag-wavers, the every day racists whether blood or water, the abusers, the rapists, the misogynists, the billionaires, the capitalists,
the future is brighter when they exist no longer
and through the fight you begin to learn
that what the system says is right is often not what is right
when will they finally find value in only human life?
born of the cloth cut from southern value
make a scarf of all the threads I refuse
tightened around my neck, the heritage I reject
in the tree branches, am i a faggot or was it trans panic?
a long repeating, cyclical history
silence being beaten into you for the small fee
ticketed by prison systems built for profiteering
if you’re brown you’ll never win
if you’re queer you’ll never win
if a native you’ll never win
if you’re disabled you’ll never win
your world will always be burning down
your place will always be in the ground
they’ll be shooting up fanaticism until a fatal overdose
the divine cocktail of patriotism, personality, and perverted ethnocentrism
always scanning the room like a soldier in a hot area,
watching for the next move that grubby little rat hands can make
disease of mind, body, and country.
be sure that when the plane is crashing to put the ventilation system on democracy before yourself.
always put others before you and business above all.
then put whatever it is a cop says right above that.
bastardize the moral ground you stand on, nose up, high and mighty
what will happen when the earthquake comes and knocks you off
personally, I’d like you begging on your knees, family weeping
all your prayers go unanswered now that the tables have turned
bleak
this blood has run cold, writhing and striving toward the brand new american dream of bourgeois success
built on the backs of the poor and the manipulated masses
a consistent tap on the poker table of life asking for help with a deal bad enough to make you an honorary Kennedy
but for the love of god (office) do not shake the table or start up the card counting
subservience is the new black and for that my heart beats red
my view goes red
my heart beats red
my blood runs cold and red
and all these systems are cracking the people in its teeth
and all these dreams, they only show how the system is broken beyond repair
without a mass change
without a mass change
without a mass change
without a mass change
without a mass grave
oh fuck I meant change
never a waking thought
never a waking nightmare
never a waking fear
of those “above” us
no more shifting, falling over
no bullies acting as murderers
no more shameful thought left in who you are
you love
you fuck
you have
you feel
you do
you help
you hold
I feel myself changing
freed from interior life
a shattering of the screen
you put the gun in my hands
you put the knife in my hands
you put bullets in your head
you put stab wounds in your back
there is no more excuse for what it is you consider to be the correct way of using power
no choice but open fire
oh how long we’ve begged for life
mercilessly pleading
and falling apart at your feet
do you see us?
I’m waiting
if you’re living behind the blindfold I’m sure you’ve never seen the things I’ve seen
the view is different from the top but here at the bottom it’s enough to make anyone come undone and
come undone and
come undone and
come undone and
fucking snap right back
fucking break a neck and
fucking rear your head like a cornered animal
fucking drink the life of a spineless bastard
fucking slit the throats of every vile pig in navy blue with blood the same
no longer clay pigeons
so many moral conundrums
all different levels of being
egregious amounts of abhorrent
eliminate yourself as judge and jury
bury
all your
police
so many lives were robbed
now it’s your turn to feel the fear we’ve felt
let me tell you about something you lack
let me tell you about love
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5. |
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we were better hunks of clay on the cosmic wheel and should just return to pre-creation.
we’ve been pouring bleach
in the soil of eden
waiting for seeds to sow
burning the roots of cul-
ture expecting something
beautiful to show
the beast in the garden
was just us all along
[I think it’s best if I mind my business
but how many apocalypses have niggas lived in?
it’s just because of life through my eyes
that i aspire to more than a semi-charmed life in a so-called community
shit get a lil hot then you doomer me
my nigga who is “we”?
with ya ass you never wiped on
all y’all thought ya found zion
and awoke with no shoulder to cry on]
twelve inch politicians sweetly lull us to sleep
then rob us blind for their american dreams
we’re doomed to grow, our destructive life actualizing
and the poor are just collateral damage, our safety not guaranteed
what crops should we expect with a mass of toxic seeds
what harvest will we lord when we’re spitting on beauty
once we locked everyone in, the earth was almost set free
then we fucked it all up for profit and greed
it’s always a struggle, there is no use denying it
we’re all expendable when we’ve been dealt a hand of shit
at the end of the fight, the ruiners should all come with, each head decapitated
we have all been sold up the river,
pollution lines all of the banks, the black banks
and now we want to make a change
but it sucks we’re probably too late, we’re too late
I guess once we all die maybe the world will finally be a better place, a good place
rotting bodies lining streets, all atoning for the mess they’ve made, we all made
heaven’s capacity has been exceeded, so now we all will just be erased, all erased
when the fire comes to take us all away, I swear that “all I want is some sort of grace”, just some grace -pg. 103
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6. |
Cesspool
03:59
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(Religious leaders love to work their way into the foreground of thought,
gentle manipulations for the belief system that you aren’t good enough to stand on your own, always pushing you to regret the things you have and treasure all the things you hate. A progressive shame aged like wine for you to take off the shelf and consume at their command, sent around like communion.)
(The bad series of routines that lead to nothing I care about continue consuming me as I search for love in the light of god. I am continually told that I will not be enough no matter the lengths I go to to try but am told I’m simultaneously too much for this almighty figure. The end of this cycle feeds right back into the beginning of this birth that feels so wrong to possess.)
disgusting presences staking their claim over the public conscience
the tendrils of influence spreading further by the day as you pray for some difference
the lined pockets of deceptive creatures circling neighborhoods of those without hope
crawling back to the gutters after a long day of peddling the same trope
blindsiding the weak with poison thought
all desperate and in need of a path to walk
now volunteering for goodie points with god
and praying every day for the pardon aught
your god’s not
coming here for you
cowardice
is all that they’re selling to you
a cesspool of narcissistic predators
consuming the flesh and wealth of underlings
that they believe to owe them things for
the infected implant of their well-being
(I’m standing here looking for the loopholes
In the speech your scripture’s selling to me
I’m standing here looking for the loopholes
In the speech your scripture’s selling)
it’s a lie they raised on their farms
then slaughtered to feed all the masses
preciously picked with investor’s pride
but personally
I cannot wait to go to hell
to finally get some reprieve
from the religious pigs and
bleeding-to-death machine
I cannot wait to go to hell
so I may finally get release
from stupid meaningless degrees of
fellowshiply fodder speech
I cannot wait to go to hell
to finally get a fucking piece
of the messy jigsawed answers,
who
calls
the
shots
I cannot wait to go to hell
to spit in the face of god
on my way falling to the depths,
ma-
king
my
peace
if your god is out there he’s a fucking sadist
a manipulator with a new glowing facelift
dog eat dog and brother clubbing brother
in the name of a holy awful motherfucker
one of the biggest tragedies in history was the fellowship coming before the wire hanger
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7. |
Niema (Living Close)
05:05
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“and when I react with feelings of murder I feel horrified and tell myself that it is fascist to want to murder these people and in my horror at my feelings I attempt to rationalize them by going further saying but in this culture we accept murder as self-defense against those who try to murder us and what’s going on here but public and social murder on a daily bases and it’s happening in our midst and not very many people seem to say or do anything about it. There’s not even an acknowledgment of murder from most of my friends… // and i want to throw up because we’re supposed to quietly and politely make house in this killing machine called America and pay taxes to support our own slow murder and I’m amazed that we’re not running amok in the streets, and that we can still be capable of gestures of loving after lifetimes of all this.”
-
i am playing pretend
for those who pray
whether it’s when they see me or every day
i am playing pretend for the ones in blue
whether it’s a uniform or just a suit
i am playing pretend for this machine
that’s eating everything i love and me
no one else is playing along
if the world is a stage then i’m being booed off
I don’t remember my lines
sometimes i think it’d be easier to just take it and die
then i keep getting kicked up from where i lie
your pound of flesh is worth more than mine
I’d like to see what makes it so divine
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8. |
(dangerousness)
01:29
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“as each T-cell disappears from my body it's replaced by ten pounds of pressure ten pounds of rage and I focus that rage into nonviolent resistance but that focus is starting to slip my hands are beginning to move independent of self-restraint and the egg is starting to crack - america america america seems to understand and accept murder as a self-defense against those who would murder other people and it's been murder on a daily basis for nine - count them - nine long years and we're expected to pay taxes to support this public and social murder and we're expected to quietly and politely make house in this windstorm of murder but I say there's certain politicians that had better increase their security forces and there's religious leaders and health-care officials that had better get bigger fucking dogs and higher fucking fences and more complex security alarms for their homes and queer-bashers better start doing their work from inside howitzer tanks because the thin line between the inside and the outside is beginning to erode and at the moment I'm a thirty-seven-foot-tall one-thousand-one-hundred-and-seventy-two-pound man inside this six-foot body and all I can feel is the pressure all I can feel is the pressure and the need for release.”
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9. |
Unawarewolf
04:55
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possessed
by the need of what’s inside me
I am
searching for something in the way
horror
with no one else left beside me
become
the thing that takes them all away
stray identity politic
animalistic, gone ballistic
an interchangeable head
the blood of strays beneath my nails
I’m going hunting, I’m going hunting
no better feeling than to kill
I’m going hunting, I’m going hunting
my head goes silent
I’m going hunting, I’m going hunting
when emptied by the thrill
[I will take them all]
all my life I’ve wanted this control
all my life I’ve wanted this control
to take back all the security that they stole
i will take it from them
staring at the reflection in the water trying to understand its ripples as my own curvature
what when where how and who is this creature
bleach out the roar in my head as their eyes go pale
if god didn’t want me to take then why did he make everything frail
i so direly want to know
if god didn’t want me to kill
then why did he give me the tools
why did he give me the tools
why did he give me the tools
why does everything crumble so easily in my hands?
I so direly want to know
I’ll just keep killing
everything that made me this way
and i will just keep seething
no apathy, only rage
“Dance is gone, and beauty, and love and music.
Smoke remains, and hunger.”
when backed into a corner
the beast is in us all
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The Holy Ghost Tabernacle Choir Savannah, Georgia
left to right:
tanner // drums / vocals
nat // vocals / noise
sleve // bass / vocals
aaron // guitar
photo by wolfe eliot
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