Decompositions

Livin’ in a body, not for the faint of heart
With every day as improv, you don’t choose your choir part
There is no expressing what you can barely bare
But the burden becomes art whenever you can share

Livin’ in a body in 15 minute clips
When a routine ‘How ya doin?’ lands just like a hit
Livin’ in a body, an amputee by birth;
Cleavage from the mother comfort, stuck down here on Earth.

Livin’ in a body, when comfort can’t be feigned.
Knowing that you are as young as you’ll never be again.
The cosmic disconnection, feels like I am concussed;
Where is the help I need today? and Why ain’t this discussed?

Livin’ in a body, a multi-decade blip
The kids are grown-ass adults, and how much did we miss?
Livin’ in a body until you know you are alone
Do the one you’re with, especially when you’re the only one at home

Livin’ in a body, no Second Line quite yet.
But the invite says to queue up for a lonely, last duet.
What did I do? and Who dealt this hand?
Where are my people? and Where’s my band?

Livin’ in a body for these last 10,000 years
Autoimmune dysfunction, grains of sand in all your gears
Livin’ in a body, take mine if you will;
Cannot assuage this chronic pain, yet I cannot get my fill.

Time yet for rising to a grace I cannot fathom
And worship the dust of my seven-year-old atoms.
The slow change of dying is like Theseus’s ship,
If you change all at once you would cease to exist

Livin’ in a body while considering Beyond

Nothing at first, nothing at all
the great big empty concert hall

Nowhere from afar, nowhere near
cause somewhere the vision is blurred and the answer disappeared

Nobody answers, nobody there
just a simple melody carried through the air

Find a way
just step away from it
got something to say
but I’m too afraid to repeat

Come around
did I show up late?
gaining ground
heavens I’m gonna break and

Stop right now
cause there’s nothing quite like nothing on your mind
Stop right now
cause there’s nothing quite like nothing left behind

Nothing left, and nothing right
and nothing speaks as clearly as the silence in the night

Nothing missing, nothing understood
something telling me that nothing ever should

Nothing at last, no longer on the run
I’m dying to know if finally, decomposition has begun

Scraped off the pavement, replanted in bed
Attending collapse, but no lapse in the head
Grimace, the grimness; mystery machine is broken
Summon the will to still be alive and awoken

We marry yes and we live with no
Slow decomposition or end by crushing blow

I am alive. That’s all I’ve got.
And I am here. Until I’m not.

When you feel stuck, just go on living
Inside your head or outside and giving
Is this world still with us? And what will follow?
No time to wait and see, get up and out of your wallow

We marry full and we live in a crescent
Slow decomposition, indefatigably senescent.

I am alive. That’s all I’ve got.
And I am here. Until I’m not.

Take it up
Make it up
Shake it up

Wish it up
Fish it up
Dish it up

Buckle up buttercup
Take a knee honey bee
Start the show with or without the dough
Demonstrate your combination plate
Don’t be fake bake a chocolate cake
Stay in the loop just get the scoop
Investigate the candy date
Bring the heat whenever you feel the beet

Auf Deutsch diaspora; Bio Bologna pile
Terroir right where you are; the taste of crescent rolls to make you smile
La tamalda ding dong; Bugialli’s Sauce
Preparing honey simple syrup requires skimming off the dross

Symbolic tamale. Symbolic tamale. Is it colonial folly? Symbolic tamale.

Can you smell the baag, and all of Madhur’s Seasonings of Splendour?
Medicinal masala chai and making nut milk in the blender
Tempering a tarka; arresting hegemonic creep
The goal: to build a kitchen midden & know the cultures several strata deep

What we eat, it has a past
from basic needs to smorgablast
and by dominion, our menu is vast.
So, where’d it come from? has gotta be asked.
Pause to think as you break your fast
and cast about for some new ballast

Symbolic tamale. Symbolic tamale. Is it colonial folly? Symbolic tamale.

Consequential appropriations, cultural impermanence
Ever-fermenting, method mutable, or unplanned obsolescence
Now I lay me down to rest, the damage with a spritz of lemon zest
Je crache sur le tombeau de destin manifeste

Symbolic tamale. Symbolic tamale. Is it colonial folly? Like Yoga in Bali?
Symbolic tamale. Symbolic tamale.

Woke up woke this morning, I felt a subtle stall
Another hue, another light, I noticed it was fall
Hit the snooze, turned on the news that I don’t recognize at all
It’s been so long with so much wrong, and coverage wall to wall

Wake the screen, hope for green, waiting for the call
Cynics in it, just to win it, bring healing to a crawl
And I keep pushing, mostly wishing, our backs against the wall
But the clock keeps ticking, nothing sticking, getting closer to the Fall

Autumn light, getting darker, leaves about to fall
Thieves revealed for stealing what they’re dealing, they have no shame at all
Yet still the arc keeps bending, we’re defending, the writing’s on the wall
Hope defies the seasons and depletions, we’re right before the Fall

We’re right before the Fall, right before the Fall

From a minor manger, oriented as ranger
The stranger the stranger– that’s my kind of danger
A series of queries about behavioral grammar
Charting a course as a Cultural Jammer

Seeking succor in stories of the Trickster Redeemer
In the Zone of Proximal Faith, co-regulate with a dreamer
Solution midwifery, in from the periphery
What does the myth smithy proffer?

I say, “Word!” to the wordier
Particular words placed purtier
Foundationally sturdier
Damnation to the dirtier
Word! to the wordier

What to do with a life so much hairier?
How to carry on when who knows who’s a carrier?
Say hello to The Discontinuity
The wordier makes meaning from the dreaming and the ambiguity

We can get through this mire
Go progressively higher
The end isn’t nigher
Still, circuitry flows
Until breaker blows
This, History knows
Even as the mystery grows
Even as the mystery grows

Wonder worder, like a wordier birder.
With the stars! With the tunes! This boy is no disaster flirter
Wonder worder, even as the mystery grows

In the seas of the human script
where light and belonging lay writ
we now choose from a menu split into oblivion

Zoom in in a blink of an eye
specialize in your piece of the pie
we all get to be a micro spy of our own conceit

While the sun and the moon and mars
never cease to be super stars
we keep fighting our internal wars right or wrong

And now all there ever was and will be
analyzed till there’s nothing to see
Let your brain go dark for a moment

It’s easy — if you care to let it fly
It’s easy — if you dare to say good-bye
It’s easy — you can learn to let it grow
It’s easy — but you gotta let it go

Bye bye binary, you’ve been full of spin
you know you’re on the ropes, and the truth keeps seeping in

Bye bye binary, we’re breaking through your frame
if you split the difference, it all will be the same

Bye bye binary, you know what’s on the line
zero to one extinction, now we’re running out of time

Bye bye binary, singularity creeps in
Intelligence artificial, but the truth remains the same

Some people think they make just where they are going
‘In God we Trust, but we make the Miracle’
But we prefer to look back and down and in and on and through,
Find salvation in the salvage, we think that’s lyrical

Yosemite Kora June, she knows for certain change has no curtain
And the only way forward is around
By cycle, by meter, by foot you go to greet her
And the only ‘for sure’ is that we walk into the ground

Walking around in circles, anywhat, anywhere, anywhen, anyhow with you
Walking around in circles– our love, our life, our Yosemite Kora June

Can the current country keep her, Yosemite Kora June?
In the tree rings you can hear the sound of birds.
Call to her across the canyon Call across the years
In a language older than any words

With all our Relations out in The Creation, we bow in joy and in duty
Taking our cues from beyond the dust
Gaining merit and seeking bliss, at the edge of the precipice
Life is like a glacier, in Grind we Trust

Nothing so precious as days like these;
Upright standing, down on our knees
Step by step a Good Ancestor gets released;
Slowly dawning that enough is as good as a feast
Smell the fire rising on the breeze;
We can’t go on living if she leaves

Walking around in circles– our love, our life, our Yosemite Kora June

See you later alligator
Gotta go buffalo
Hit the road happy toad
toodle loo kangaroo
Out the door dinosaur
Bye bye butterfly
Take good care polar bear
Peace out rainbow trout

write a new song, a new song, you gotta write a brand new song
write a new song, the old one’s gone, so go out and write your song
write a new song, nothing can go wrong, if we all go write our new song

Livestock
laughing stock
chicken stock
woodstock
Greg Stock
Amstock
Timstock
Dianestock

woke up this morning with an empty head
had nothing to say that hasn’t been said
shook up my inbox, slid down my keys,
a world of words came streaming back at me

call me thick or call me thin
rethinking the theme, reshuffling the bin
theatrically thoughtful, thoroughly thunk
we keep digging our metaphoric spelunk

I want to learn what I learned and unlearn it again
find what I found and then lose it again
listen to those that I don’t understand
find us all an open end

I want to wake up the past and let it sleep again
fight for a cause and surrender it then
be all the change that I possibly can
turn it all around again

I want to sit in your seat and then rise up again
capture your heart and set it free again
vote for the thought that in this land
we all came to think my friend

Letters of mine, letters of mine, used to be tender but aged with time
poured all my hope and spilled so much ink, but words cannot express what I think
we came so far yet stayed so close, tickled the sky and touched our toes
lost our train of thought but regrouped, we’re still making sense of the alphabet soup

welcome to your pile of dirt
state of the yard
spreading like an overshoot
missing the mark
squeezing out the precious dirt
thinking you’re smart
living like it’s all dessert
but we’re falling all apart

from the moment you first saw the light
you wanted to stay
to sow and grow and expedite
never wasting a day
working up an appetite
your fruits on display
so spare your final terabyte
cause in the end we’ll all be composting away

(compost …. decompose)
compost away, compost away with me

Living in a body, when the warranties are lapsed.
Once it was, “Oh, yes I can,” now it’s just, “Perhaps.”
Got a leaky undercarriage, but the engine is still good.
We’ll drive this thing into the ground, parading our manhood.