1. |
Dead Scene Poems
04:48
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Some coastal town.
The rain raged lonely.
House clearance call.
The walls wind worn.
Forgotten inside the loft.
Among the dust I find the box.
There’s a chill in the air now.
A low gasp as they’re revealed.
A hundred antique songs.
On magnetic tapes of pretension.
“Stories From The Blackhole”
and titles worn indistinct.
Memories lost in time
and cheap ink.
There in the chords the notes and the verse;
those dead scene transmissions
of which this
is the first.
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2. |
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a story for the ages,
at the centre of our lives.
Where fear is the residue of change,
it's an honour to be present as something dies.
(There’s no sunlight in our skies)
We’ll write only of our salad days
or some sad inversion that wilts and greys.
And I won’t defend where I’ve come from.
I can’t change what I’ve become.
I was a dead man walking,
I was the black ash in your eyes.
But on the wrong side of the glass
reflection is the mother of compromise.
(There’s no sunlight in our skies)
I’m lost inside
clean stories for clean people.
Tonight we write futurism
from the brink of extinction.
It sings
and sinks,
ascends
and blinks;
some social amnesia,
some unspoken lament
lingers again,
repents again,
forgets again,
repents again,
forgets again,
repents and then;
the doorways open.
clean stories for clean people.
I’m lost inside
futurism from the brink of extinction.
(The abyss gazes back at you)
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3. |
Music For No One
05:09
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How’d we get out alive?
We swam into that dying light.
And dreamt under the same stars.
Amidst haunted shipwrecks and burials at sea.
From the sinking Temeraire
the Sirens sang softly,
sang softly of loss and hope.
I wonder how it felt to be there.
Down the Malecon, climbing Koyosan.
Passes through me like a caffeine rush.
Just a whisper in the face of a storm.
All this music for no one.
I used up all my time
and gave up all my heart.
For this.
And in the dark times
will there be singing
of the dark times?
And in the dark times
we’ll be there singing
songs for no-one,
sung to no-one.
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4. |
Vox Populi
03:49
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He came to me
in a fever dream.
Knee deep
in a blood red stream,
calling forth the flash flood
to be the baptism
that’ll free us finally
from our prison.
We will be the shadow.
We will be the shadow.
He said he saw it all
in the purest vision.
A British Boxer Rebellion,
a modern Vietnam.
The right consultant
and a painted face
will win you the arms race.
We will be exceptional, holy and rational.
So I took it upon myself - I formed
this little gang - and by the spring
we’d taken Hull, Barnsley
and Rotherham.
The irony of an impotent rage
starting fires in another man’s name
became a Chinese finger trap;
a lighthouse painted black.
And what we needed was a plan.
What we wanted was a prophecy.
What we got was an execution.
A beautiful and brutal execution.
And all will be exceptional,
honest and logical.
There’s nothing to see and no-one to see it.
There’s nothing to see and no-one left to see it.
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5. |
The Long Dark
05:18
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At some intersection
Between the myth of Sisyphus
And the galileo space probe
I just want to find home
I just want to find my destination
Truth hurts
And becomes blurred over time
I can write
A thousand words
But I had it all there in the first verse
This rain rages lonely
This rain rages lonely
This rain rages lonely
This rain rages lonely
This rain rages lonely
This rain rages lonely
If only
It would end
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6. |
Are You Awake?
05:39
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I was born as the clocks struck thirteen
In the shadow of the monitoring station
In between the could have been and the never was
Never closer to heaven, never further from God
A spirit crushed to diamond brightness
With the dignity of a beaten dog
In some foreign forgotten slum
I was born in walls
But I build more
Inside each other
To house the inertia
These are the bad times
Turned into punchlines
Before your very eyes
The speed of thought slows
And I catch my breath
But progress is relentless
Dial in cliches about
Circles and time and decline
I’m just kicking cans in the backstreets of my mind
The pace at which I’m thinking
Is like the flicking of channels
With the clarity of a single clap
In a laughter track
No one is winning
No one is well
In the distance a bones snaps
A last gasp
The tear gas
Your never grasped
The siren sound
It’s all around
So mime your mantra
“It’ll pass”
Are you awake?
Which one of us is dreaming the other?
Please let it be you
How we regress
To the unknown
The hell of loneliness
The bliss of being alone
Are you awake?
Which one of us is dreaming the other?
Please let it be you
We’re crawling
Into this
Lit furnace
Hand in hand my love
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7. |
One Road Out
04:37
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They’re pulling bodies out of the fire
The stained glass smashed
The steeple a smouldering pyre
We gaze across the rat maze lanes
And the flickering rooftops of the estate
The amber claws a new dawn from the skyline
The dishes and transmitters beam the world’s woes in real time
From here it’s so clear
There’s no trace of a doubt
This place has only one road in
And road out
We walk down to the red clay lake
Firefly ashes pass as we wait for the day to break
This is the film between the takes
This is the text that didn’t make the page
The bits that they throw away
Our dogs lap the water and we realise
We haven’t spoken in days
From here it’s so clear
There’s no trace of a doubt
This place has only one road in
And road out
“It’s the saddest song I’ve ever heard”
Said your boyfriend when we asked
And it was Walkaway by Cast
That’s how I knew it wouldn’t last
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8. |
I Am Destroyed
05:27
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Assorted Flotsam
Shadows of violence and passion
It’s always Autumn
Always leaving without saying goodbye
In the attics the cellars
And the best man speeches
It’s the sound of the world turning
Irrelevant ephemera burning
All lines lead to here
Our empty empire
Of trash and trivia
Out of touch and out of time
Waiting for the calm an ending brings
Where once there were rope swings
Is the tension here too real to mention?
The pause before you answer destroys the question
You were yours and I was mine
You were yours and I was mine
In the words
And the flames
The ache
And the dust
I am destroyed
As I think of us
Such wonder and joy
I am destroyed
I am destroyed
In the words
And the flames
The days
And the dust
I am destroyed
I think of us
I am destroyed
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9. |
Listen
07:24
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The final line shall be
An ending's never empty
Welcome to the future
Of last year's revenge fantasy
We are all ghosts
Spectres 'cross this city
I find myself in opaque shadows
Last chapter of this journey
The letter was left
on the window cill
"Half a disaster waits for you
On the farside of that hill"
Others whispered words become a tear become the truth
When all I ever wanted was to be here with you
I burned my own books to keep the fire bright
And stood in dumb wonder at this infinite decline
There's a noise in my head, it's just white noise in my head. There's a noise in my head, it's just white noise in my head. Pointless words, fruitless actions. Pointless words, fruitless actions.
I'd be a national trust park ranger
Six months missing in action
The driest summer in a century
Firewatch by candlelight
From sanity's vantage point
In that other life
In sight of Yorkshire
Recite the poems of my youth to pass the time
I feel the future like a killer feels the past
I promise my heart was always here,
But my mind, tied in knots, was elsewhere
So I go walking
I see the distant radar station
Time for one last shot
At mass communication
I clasp my chest
Too long in the belly of the beast
Like the watchmaker observes
The five digits of a nine
I’ve done my time I know it’s a war on dust
How many chords before the choking truth reveals itself to you ?
I feel the end is coming
But please don't skip ahead
An ending's never empty
Listen: there's a noise in your head
There’s a noise in my head, there’s just white noise in my head
There’s a noise in my head, there’s just white noise in my head
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10. |
Fanzine Years
05:20
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Let the tape spool spill
Let the truth spill full
If we don’t do it no-one will
Speak to me today
To do and to be lists
Exist and be proud
It’s now
In the inkpot’s scent
Pressed lonely keys
On holy sacrament
Refute that refuge status
Island nation
Don’t complicate us
Consistency
Is not your friend
We’re all friends here
I wonder less now
Who we ever were
I thought this all would be
The great puzzle of me
Consistency
Is my last refuge
Farewell to those hungry days
We were here
These were our fanzine years
Before it all fades to black
Take me back
The revolution devours it children
Take me back before
It all turns to black
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