Mystery Fish
Tech support, feral army
In a cave on a failed bit of terraforming
4 corners of paranormal
Get shorn for a thermos and pair of thermals
In the warehouse air where his dairy curdles
St. Vincent de Paul trying to square the circle
Circle the source of his power
Foresight born at the corner of Howard on sale
Cherry pick blue in the pale
It's a blue-nose chewin' his tail
Losing his coat
Schmoozing a high and head-rush
Hack up bile over H1N1, and then some
One eye on the breadcrumbs
Other eye on the Drencrom
Other other eye on the income
Good knife and a grin
Shoot dice with the lice and the ring worms
Peg leg, smells like Medellin wake in the night
Make a pipe out of anything
Take 5, take a dive in the cellophane
Turn 5 into 5 6 7 8
Back out, black out somewhere fancy
Shaped like the backseat of Aesop's Camry
Dude... seat full of chips and sandwich meat from the crypt
In the end, if you give an address in a river of piss
Don't question the mystery fish
Just picture shrimp on a pillow of grits
Close your eyes, lick your lips
I'm at the cafe ordering a cup of fresh
Sarah gave me 2, I gave one to Rex
He said, "Fools ain't shit plus f*ck the pigs
They could never understand what Sumner is"
(Word up, word up, word up)
I'm off the grid
I'm through the gate
I fly these kites into the fray
(Word up, word up, word up)
I'm out the box
I'm through the mud
I fly these kites into the cut
NorCal fried bacteria
No ID survive the vivarium
Try soft wheels, sourdough and heroin
Eat with the chimera, fly with the seraphim
Might hold court with the cats and dogs
Who hold Kools like an orb in a dragon's claw
In terry cloth robes outside detox surly
Curse at a beat cop, doctor a Slurpee
Adopt no Xerxes, fear no moon man
Stay true like a wolf wearing wolf pants
Oooh, never could avoid himself
For long enough to contain or employ as help
And now he look both ways at the asteroid belt
Buzzed, gross and wholly unloved
Still hear an ex in his head yelling, "kiss the ring"
From a fortune to Fisher King
Or from assisted care, blisters in his hair
New day, new diary of disrepair
Soups on, 2-ton crucifix to bear
No shoes, no shirt, no fiscal year
I said hello to Marshall every morn for 6
He yelled at me every time, that's amore, bitch
It only took one tooth to crack the bug juice and chug
Turn a bum to a Sun Tzu, it's bug
Outside home is an open swim
Occultism in the throws of corrosive wind
A cold meal with the ghosts of friends
A whole host of meds
A deal on a Tone Loc cassette
I stepped over a body in the door
I pretend he asleep but it's probably more, God damn
Profound apathy, heart with a crack
I'm ships in the night
I'm darts at a map
Word up
Rings
Used to draw
Hard to admit that I "used" to draw
Portraiture in a human form
Doodle of a two-headed unicorn, it was soothing
Moving his arm in a fusion of man made tools
And a muse from beyond
Even if it went beautifully wrong
It was tangible truth for a youth who refused to belong
No-name nuisance
Stools in a bedroom
Oozed in a brand new cuneiform
Barely commune with the horde
Got a whole grey scale ungluing his world
Might zone out to the yap of the magpie
Unseen hand dragging his graphite
Cross-contour, little bit of back light
Black ink after a Bristol to baptize
You can imagine a rush that ensue
When you get three dimensions stuffed into two
Then it's off to a school where it's all that you do
Being trained and observed by a capable few
Back in New York, five peeps and a dog
In a two bedroom doing menial jobs
Plus, rhyming and stealing and being a clod
Distractions free to maraud
I left some years a deer in the light
I left some will to spirit away
I let my fears materialize
I let my skills deteriorate
Haunted by the thought of what I should have been continuing
A mission that was rooted in a twenty year affinity and rickety condition with an ID crisis
Nap on the front lawn, look up in the sky, it's...
Shapes falling out of the fringe
All heart, though we would've made cowardly kings
They will chop you down just to count your rings
Just to count your rings, just to count your rings
And there were
Colors pouring out of the fringe
All heart, though we would've made cowardly kings
They will chop you down just to count your rings
Just to count your rings, just to count your rings
Used to paint
Hard to admit that I "used" to paint
Natural light on a human face
Stenciled fire on his roommate's bass
It was blooming addiction
A miss and a push and a pigment
Book like a tattooed pigskin, look
Pinhead kids intermittent
Drank Kool-Aid from a tube of acrylic
And I grew up in a linseed oil over linen
Joy to the poison, voice in the resin
Capture a map of the gesture
Back up, add a little accurate fat to the figure
Redo that, move that inwards
Zinc-white lightning shoots from his fingers
Studios drone with allusions of tinctures
Stay tuned for the spooky adventures
You can imagine the stars that align
When a forearm starts foreshortening right
Or a torso hung on a warping spine
Of proportion reads as warm and alive
Routine day with a dirt cheap brush
Then a week goes by and it goes untouched
Then two, then three, then a month
Then the rest of your life, you beat yourself up
I left some seasons eager to fall
I left some work to bury alive
I let my means of being dissolve
I let my person curl up and die
Eating up his innards in unfeasible anxiety is brutally committed to relinquishing his privacy aligning with the trials of the anti-Midas
Nap on the back lawn, look up at the sky, it's...
Shapes falling out of the fringe
All heart, though we would've made cowardly kings
They will chop you down just to count your rings
Just to count your rings, just to count your rings
And there were
Colors pouring out of the fringe
All heart, though we would've made cowardly kings
They will chop you down just to count your rings
Just to count your rings, just to count your rings
I'm getting sick and tired of never understanding
Where is the truth you promised?!
Lotta Years
The kid that work down at the local Baskin-Robbins
Got a tattoo of a lipstick print attached above his collar
I watched him relocating pistachio to a waffle
Thinking I had lost the plot if not the passion for the novel
He asked me what I wanted, I ordered something daft
He said he liked the tattoo Alex drew me of the bats
Thanks
I like it too but modestly confess
In present company, my coloring is not the main event
Look at that neck
The message is immediate, the guy F's chicks
I spent a lot of years making friends with cool artists
So when they drew me tattoos I could truly feel important
Now some 22 year old inside a cube of brick and mortar
Got me questioning my morals and their corny pecking order
I should give a shit less
Cherry-No
Whip-Yes
Lotta years
Uh, lotta years
The girl that work down at the local juice place
Got a head full of dreadlocks down to her waist
I watched her add the spinach to the ginger to the grapes
My hair was underwhelming, my juice was f*cking great
Some lady orders Maca, compliments the locks
She asked how many years it took the girl to grow the crop
"It took a lot of years and then eventually I cut 'em, kept 'em
Reattach 'em anytime I want 'em"
My mind's f*cking blown
The future is amazing, I feel so f*cking old
I bet you clone your pets and ride a hover-board to work
I used a folding map to find the juice place in the first
These kids are running wild, I'm still recovering from church
You should have seen me in the 90s, I could ollie up a curb
You should have seen me in the 80s
I was bumping New Edition, dragging acne into Hades
Lotta years
Naw mean? Lotta years
Dorks
Question: If I died in my apartment like a rat in a cage
Would the neighbors smell the corpse before the cat ate my face?
I used to floss the albatross like Daddy Kane with the chain
I'm trying to jettison the ballast with the hazardous waste
The kid is comfortably numb, routine a tedious crutch
Steep in a self-imposed Stockholm and Lima in flux
Maybe an occupation popular with demons and ducks
Made any mingling akin to being seasoned and stuffed
It's a theatre of jumping jellyfish, jealous little sycophants
Miserable and flimsy from the skippies to the pissy pants
Each one seperately convinced
They're sketching with Da Vinci's hands
Delusion turned the communication to prison camp
You f*cking dorks ain't a threat to the cause
There ain't a lesson we can learn from the ostensibly lost
I think it's funny when defendants from identical haunts
Step out the tempest
A measure of what the spectrum involves
Maybe no one cares, party over here, I'll be over there
[Sample - Sweet Tee - On The Smooth:]
Don't need no help, all by myself
I used to hang around with rappers at the root of the scene
It meant a lot to feel the fugitive community breathe
Maybe to sentimentalize is to be truly naive
I know some shit about your heroes that you wouldn't believe
I think we're all a bunch of weirdos on a quest to belong
The songs are echolocation up in impregnable fog
That's why it's odd to see a pile of imperfections and flaws
Ascend a pedestal to patronize the rest of the cogs
In a mess of obnoxious fantasy, posturing and pageantry
I ain't even mad, I'm impressed, shit it's baffling
God almighty, chop an ivory tower to piano keys
Play your own dirge on the way to surfing maggot beach
You f*ckin' dorks ain't a source of the art
You can't be cooler than the corners
Where you source all your parts
The poker-faced, all it takes a couple sordid remarks
We let the manticore out, We make the sorcery bark
Life is so unfair, party over here, I'll be over there
[Sample - Sweet Tee - On The Smooth:]
Don't need no help, all by myself
I view the rattling of sabers like a show to expose
Insecurities exploding in emotional code
When braggadocio to go from mostly jokey to gross
Corrode a homie 'til his probity is notably ghost
Before the hobby was a jobby was a miniature Hell
You would wobble round your momma like an infant gazelle
The disillusionment has truly been a difficult pill
But you as anything menacing is a difficult sell
In a whistle and bell-o-rama, black mollies that dress up like piranha
It's not even compelling melodrama
It's a comedy, somebody wanna shop you as a saga
I'm very voluntarily persona non grata
You f*ckin' dorks ain't the leaders we need
This ain't the medium for divas out to weasel and breed
I'm often coffee with the paupers over tea with the queen
Don't make him show the regency what disobedient means
Heavy load to bear, party over here, I'll be over there
[Sample - Sweet Tee - On The Smooth:]
Don't need no help, all by myself
Rabies
Hey warm cider, barn full of spiders
Orange moon, starry night, particle exciters
In a pageant rivaled only by the origin of fire
Now add an organism from alternative environs
A dozen pair of cartoon eyes in a thicket
To see a neophyte get sliced into ribbons
I'm here to pick lice off each other and assimilate
Duck a suit, troubleshoot his moody user interface
True and suckerproof, grew to fully disengage
Float his only vanishing point away from the picture plane
Go to where the radio trails off
And people catch rabies on the way to their mailbox
Under a sideways rain cornering the briar
Still pull a broad sword from a hoarded synthesizer
Nap in a hole in a tree
Cat leaving voles at my feet
Talking Master P, memory foam everything
Jettison the rest and roulette us a new trajectory
Spinal Tap 11, tapping resin out the evergreen
Designated dark horse, headless independently
Sidewalks end with ponds and frog eggs
Buried bones, and his very own blurry sasquatch vids
Led like field ants to a hot lens
8 o'clock kittens vs cobwebs, fight!
Maps won't work here
Ice over bittersweet nightshade
Antlers rise from his migraine
Shred or die, life's strange
How do you identify?
New with the matutinal or peckish with the vespertine
Me, I'm pretty useless
Til the roof is painted Gemini, then set him free
Eat his own body weight in genocide
Came back a decorated dog of war
Who wants more though he currently stuck in the dog door
Additionally, dog isn't even his final form
Just a period, between greenhorn and Hyperion
Peer into the eye of a primordial experience
Portamento warriors in unforgiving wilderness
Borderline ethereal, Noah's Arc room tone
Add a little up high down low too slow
Found acquaintances a pain to babysit
So he gave away his shit and gave 'em all the slip
Now pets hit the ceiling when the wind blows
Fish float belly up songbirds crash into windows
Swizzle apple cider vinegar and dish soap
Suicide flies take dips in the kill zone
Still shuffle thru a stack of old photos
Taken before the varicose verified Chronos
I dunno it feels weird
I'd rather feed an apple to a deer
I might've heard something in the walls
Could've been voices
Could've been claws
Coulda been the rebel yell of something more evolved
Pounding on the front door and standing on the lawn like
"Wadup"
Ain't shit
Supercell
Die already
None defy the one-man walled city
Stone made flesh, veins etched in his hands
88 stance draped in invasive plants
And rain dance unsafely, brace for the supercell
Mutiny or footage for your blooper reel, who can tell
Pours hot tar from the top of the barn
Necktie on his head, condor on his arm
Dog Star in a jar, bordering unsustainable
Mea culpa, mea culpa, maybe I should pray occult
Systematic Catholic or sigil of the Baphomet unraveling
Either way his ID show a snake and skull
Always been a private dude who couldn't keep a tally
Of which lies he told who
Dye his hair, shave, change names and his lazy drawl
Soon enough I will estrange you all
I get ghost
(Now the free throw!)
On Dasher
Half-dead carolers deck a hall, wreck a whole advent calendar
Brother on speakerphone lurking at the Burgerville
Bathrobe hammer toes murdering the curb appeal
Would I be returning or forsaken with the craven and
Carnivourous vegetation that take him for his Steak-umms
I dunno I gotta think about it
Truthfully I don't know which makes me a bigger coward
Either stomach all the hubris, cash in his two cents
Loose lips locked up over a chewed Eucharist
Or, maybe re-appropriate the energy
Holed up, passing the poultry to Hecate
Bullheaded burn out fled his own pedigree
And never better, never would've met your Heaven anyway
Anyway, merry merry go make soup out of bones
Just know when the room go cold
I'm a ghost
G-H-O-S-T
Ghost ghost ghost
He's ghost
Flea comb, exorcism and de-worming
Fitted for a curse and a crown of birds circling
Search party falling forward unthwarted
Meet him at the crossroads drawn and quartered
For a master of puppets, how sad are his cupboards
Non-dairy creamers, can of last supper
And a runneth over cup full of black tap water
Its a marvel of privacy over pack hunter
Raspberry jelly on his Jesus toast
And turn heather gray sweats into Easter clothes
With no immediately measurable crimewave ice-age
Christ children still skin a cat sideways
I don't pick teams or administer bans
I'm in the creek with a pick and a pan, it go
Forcibly ejected or a voluntary death scene
Tell 'em what the out-of-order blinking EMF mean
Ghost
Blood Sandwich
Yup
Steps up to the plate
Little brother, little league
'87 he was 8
Rookie season for the skinny slugger
Newly out of tee-ball
Pit against a pitcher with a ripper you could eat off
Churched then a grump alones runner third first
Granny yelling "Go Cubs!", nose in her word search
See MILFs like apes on a monolithic bleacher, and are advocating war and peace in lieu of sport and leisure
"Hi Peggy"
I was 10, chewing on a sweet tart
Little brother, left-field, Queen's guard
Mean arm, knees bent
2-out, 2 on bags
When I caught him staring down at something moving through the grass
Hold up
Tagged runner, and the whole cast rotate
Not before he could identify the culprit
Granny yelling, "Go Cubs!"
Graham yelling, "Gopher!"
New left-fielder give a f*ck about a homer
Got a homie, little rodent, head and shoulders at a supple
No baseball in the bubble
Ruh-roh
Parents thought it adorable
The players followed suit
Inning crawling to a close
Head coach not amused
Coach seeing red
Coach on the diamond dragging 27 inches of aluminium behind him
When he transverse 3rd, the families turn nervous
The following is a transcript of man vs vermin
Here we go
Man stands out by a hole
Pest pops up to patrol
Man plays live whack-a-mole
In a scene that would try every child as adult
Woah
Pallbearer with a ball mitt
Thrown over the fence
Coach at the bench
Both teams lose
"Good game. Good game"
Granny yelling "Go Cubs!", Cubs ain't playing
My little brother is a funny dude
A lot of funny shit happened to him
My other brother pretty funny too
Ain't seen him in a minute though
Just in case of rough waters, I wanna put one up for my brothers
Just in case of rough waters, I wanna put one up for my brothers
Yup
Not a part of the machine
Big brother, big idea, 9-0, 16
Neubaten tee, plaid flannel laden adolescent art kid
Tony Hawk hair, Skinny Puppy denim
And a record player vomiting Alien Sex Fiend
Peel sessions in a Christian home for field testing
It's real youth in the palm of your hand
When your Mom thinks Satan is involved in a band
We were buried in the village voice
Checking who was playing where
Pulled his head up out the paper, pushing out a single tear
Five words, like a beacon of light in the mist
"Ministry live at the Ritz"
It was Christ has risen to Chris
3 loves, 2 fish
Miracle of mechanized loops on 2-inch
Coming to a theatre he would be there in the flesh
Moms didn't say "No," but she didn't say "Yes"
Copped tickets, ha the plot thickens
Countdown to ultimate concert experience
Moms still worrying
"Why are they called Ministry? Are they a cult?"
Maybe she could probably investigate
Bought a mag with an Al Jourgensen interview
Read a couple sentences, glanced at a pic or two or three
That's all, no fair trial
Simply, "You will not be going to the show and that's final!"
What occurred next were the top of the lungs of a son who unjustly had lost what he'd loved
In a moment that would transcend anger to high-arts
Said, "This is something I am willing to die for!"
Can you even imagine a death in the fam from industrial fandom?
Anyway, no body count no concert and Chris kicked rocks in his mismatched converse
My older brother is a funny dude
A lot of funny shit happened to him
We hadn't spoken in a couple moons
I called him last night
"How you doing?"
Just in case of rough waters, I wanna put one up for my brothers
Just in case of rough waters, I wanna put one up for my brothers
Just in case of rough waters, I wanna put one up for my brothers
Get Out Of The Car
I see how y'all be trying to front, man y'all be fronting, man
Been a bit since Mu died
Been a lot more loss in the wake
I recall thinking some day someone's gonna say it's all from the same cause and effect
And I just couldn't fathom
Blaming a whole new page on a made-up chain reaction
Each claim individual peaks and pockets
Pains and a slew of unique nuances
Nahmean?
When you wake up 8 years non-responsive
It's a lot to process
Gone from a happier jack-in-the-box
To a package of clogged up chakras
Oh shazbat
Not the "ever after" he wanted from the "once upon a time"
Dot, dot, dot
Once upon a time he was so much more than a punchline for his own potshots
Ah, Watch the Impossible Kid
Everything that he touch turns promptly to shit
If I zoom on out I can finally admit
It's all been a blur since Mu got sick
None of the subsequent years stood a chance
Whether you his moms or his mans
Whether you his pops or his girl
I was poison, heart full of canines, head full of voices
Whole life trying to quiet 'em down
Like a suicide king with a knife in his crown
Hounds at bay, but they just won't stay
True friendship in a tugboat way
A go dark in the face of the f*cked, when the f*cked was a friend I was basically done
Into the woods go his alien tongue
It was that or a textbook faking of funk
And I can't
Here go the hindsight
8 years been one long blindside
I could pinpoint 7 more turns that occurred cuz he never really healed from the first
Oh what a world
Any hack is a myth, any dap is a joke
Any map is a trick, any graph is a hoax
Ease on down, I'm burning up, I'm bleeding out
Knowing ain't half the battle
That's a bullshit quip written by some asshole
You can own what you are
And still sit around stoned in your car
Not doing shit, halfway to nill
Cranky and waiting for a boss key and hat full of bills
Get out the car, Aes
Shrunk
My first name is a random set of numbers and letters and other alphanumerics that changes hourly forever
My last name, a thousand vowels fading down a sinkhole to a sussurus, couldn't just be John Doe or Bingo
My address, a made up language written out in living glyphs lifted from demonic literature and religious text
Telephone, uncovered by purveyors of the Ouija, then checked against the CBGB women's room graffiti
My social, a sudoku
My age is obscure
My 'in-case-of-emergency' is in the daisies chasing birds
Employed by trillionaires with perfect teeth and pores, and people who open doors for the people who open doors
My medical history is a course at SUNY Buffalo
Charlatan psychiatry and troubleshooting undertow
Nervous in the service still
I'm burger meat and purple pills, "here"
"Thank you. We'll call your name."
Sure you will
Skipped lunch
I'm shrunk
You pack up all your manias
Sitting in the waiting room
You're dreaming of Arcadia, you're feeling like a baby tooth
Awaiting panacea, channeling your inner Beowulf
In Purgatory, just before you pay up to filet yourself and others
In the name of help, coal on a conveyor belt
Into ego death alone, no telephone from Gabriel
I'm half a human combing over Home and Garden stoned
Gold chains over turtlenecks, cigars over cologne
A thousand shitty paintings wrap around a wounded animal
Womb with the Schubert he's a future human-cannonball
Little f*ckers fighting, mother hiding in her Hulu
I'm climbing up the stucco
Let's get to the seppuku, uh-oh
That pretty penny turn the prickly into Benji
If you save up all your winnings, then you get to count your blessings
I finally crunch the budget up and punch the button
She called my name out and pushed me into an oven
The f*ck?
I'm shrunk
She says, "I'm not your enemy"
I said, "That sounds like something that my enemy would say"
Instead of playing off the chemistry she said, "You're being difficult"
I said, "I'm being guarded. You're a quarter mil in debt, I get more guidance from my barber
Look, I'm not good at this, I grew up in a noogie fest
You built your walls up high or say goodbye to all your Cookie Puss
Here's one, every time my telephone buzzes I see images of hooded riders setting fire to hundreds."
She said, "When you start getting all expressive and symbolic, it's impossible to actualize an honest diagnostic."
I said, "When you start getting all exact and algebraic, I'm reminded it's a racket, not a rehabilitation, okay?
Agree to disagree as grown-ups from opposing clans
Honoring the push and pull I should have called the Scholomance
Oh well. Preservation is a doozy
"Will you be needing another appointment?"
"Absolutely"
I'm shrunk
Kirby
[Hook x2:]
Hey Kirby
Whatcha doing Kirby
Whatcha doing there
Hobgoblin, shots of hot Strongid
Vaccine queen deem church socks hostage
9 weeks awesome
Hides in a slipper
Look in her eye like she might be a wizard
Cold met a cat lady in a parking lot, she got the heroes of tomorrow in a cardboard box
And probably hoarding 40 more in the corners of Fort Knox
Swap 20 on the spot and cop the warlock
Back at the haunt, found god in the hamper
Briefs on her head playing Walking With a Panther
Good around misery and golden era samplers
Jeopardy and Wheel at the heels of her handlers
Bet, more than a pet to worship, it's an MD recommended sense of purpose
Here to bat around keys and the means to euphoria
Soon to be hailed, the greatest of all warriors
[Hook:]
Hey Kirby
What you doing Kirby
What you doing there
(I'm not taking my sh
[?])
Hey Kirby
What you doing Kirby
Why'd you eat that leaf
Homie don't fetch, only woke to stretch
Under a thought bubble rich with bowls of goldfish
Skittish in the company of stranger danger
Otherwise, chase draw strings, tails and lasers
In a steel cage match with a maze of cables
Brazen, game-face based on Azazel
Oversized ears up, puke in the Meow Mix
Shred a pair of earbuds, remedy his cowlick
[slurp:] Thanks Kirbs, looking like a milli
Keep an old man sharp, keep a cold Chantilly
Spun plum dizzy in a frisky moment
Never lands on her feet though, I think she's broken
Mouser in training, nap on the toaster
Decorate her cubicle with dogs playing poker
15 years taking prescriptions
Now a shrink like, "Ionno, maybe get a kitten"
[Hook x2:]
Hey Kirby
What you doing Kirby
What you doing there
Tuff
Dum-diggy, bump Biggie
Til the landlady holler, "Get a haircut, hippie"
The death knell generator entertain a fresh kill
Breath quelled dressed like a bloated sack of dead cells
Shedding, purple tape, purple 'hawk, ape
A single flower through the permafrost
Pick himself and learn to walk, in furry pants
War paint, circling a duralog
Boar face, devil by his side like a service dog
Schlock purist, watch the block burneth
One o'clock prophets in the parking lot at Perkins
The perfect politicians 30 clicks outside of Sturgis
Doggie bag doctors, military deserters
Who still shop surplus and can't hold jobs
I look like I'm wearing a ghillie suit when I'm not
Roll out ghost of Camu on the pegs
Might pedal by the police
Tuff with two F's
Ah f*ck that shit look
Can't tell if I'm a little withdrawn
Or dead dog sent to quote/unquote "live on a farm"
The coke bottles tint film noir
Tripping out the milk bar
Poison horchata cup
Milf in the Zip Car
6 arms, 6 hand-styles like ships on scrimshaw
Part Def Jam part Dischord
My wig-picker threw me out of her office
Had to cold turkey 'benzos, summer was awesome
Onion of 'bensis
Summer was awesome
Got brats on the grill
Wormwood in the cauldron
Horse hoof in the dog's mouth
Cholera in the well
Make money periodically vomiting on himself
I read Nat Geo, craft and crack geodes
Lift party hats out of Craft Depot
Unleaded liar blood pumped through his neck
Came down from the mountain
Tuff with 2 F's
TUFF
TUFF
(What's so funny?
You, what are you laughing at?
I said what are you laughing at?)
Before a player ever met his omega
They were effectively reducing his behavior into data
With plans to build a dais where the
People grow potatoes and cabbage
Don't make him raise the gate between the bettas
In a spectacle displaying the nature of strange neighbors
I paint caves 'til the rage campaign tapers
And show a new crop how he used to moonwalk
Out of breath like a 7-day old balloon dog
I still hang band posters and buy black-lights
Crib decorated like a dorm room at Brandeis
Still pretend I'm gonna build another half-pipe
Nevermind the Ford-era christening and pants size
Man, who could've guessed the future of abominable imagery
Would also share a birthday with Kenny G? None
The 99 cent 2 cents keeps 2 arms folded
Tuff with 2 F's
Yeah, let's do it like that
Unh I pay a guy to lean over steepled fingers
And convince me to pay him for his teas and tinctures
The string cheese dinner kid speak Cheech wizard
For the gone like Gossamer under number 3 clippers
Free, forged in various pulp channels
Even his prize horse rides a wolf into battle
Even his blood and body couldn't pick him out a line up
Or his name off the paper
It's Aes pronounced "Why Us?!"
First learned the high art of eyeing a mark
Buying nickels for a dime at the park
I learn to rhyme in New York
I learned to breathe underwater
I learned to walk with a ghost
Adidas reeking of sulfur
A chauffeur cemetery funk
When home is a bleeding ulcer
Everything you ever stood up for is keeling over
Moonset beautifying
Cartoon death catfish on the Foreman
Tuff with 2 F's
Yeah
Lazy Eye
(Super fresh)
My spirit animal comes with a pretzel bun
Troll of the treadmill
Record on the Kessel Run (allegedly)
Edgy from elevensies to megabucks
Techies with the treble down
This is how we level up
Dead meat, time travel, pressure, and disease
Ass ushered out of two fingers pecking at the keys
The coping mechanism in his LMNOPs
Went from healthy to unhealthy to a hell he never leaves
Cineplex jesus, curse at the curly fries
Mullin' over Chuck D, telling me, "Diversify"
I'm at the SuperCuts supin' up the wardrobe
Forecast looking like Ganesh on four phones
"Hello, hello, hello, hello"
Base camp, space camp
Bass in your face-f*ck, brace for the rain dance
Back in the back of the classroom
After a magical nap in a vacuum
Act natural, whatever that means for ya
Whatever that means for ya
Whatever that
Ah (Fresh)
Before climbing douchebag mountain, I was skate or die
Started eatin' kale and came to terms with my lazy eye
Puttin' on the yoga lady, cuttin' off the cable guy
Whistle while you're waiting for your condition to stabilize
AV cables everywhere, every piece of vinyl scratched
Mentholated tiger balm, Aleve with the arthritis cap
Irons in the niacin, iron choir riot masked
Unabashed privacy expanding into simulcast
40 winks, never the same adventure
Refreshing with a sing-a-long of stexicism ever
In the end, gotta wonder if it's even worth the effort
No stairways into heaven, you can step into the Escher
Some people have mistaken my allegiance for a weakness
It f*cked me up for eons, I wish there was a theist
The type that fake his death then forget he faked his death
Show up on TV, in the crowd at the AVNs, like...
Act natural, whatever that means for ya
Whatever that
(Fresh)
Sometimes I feel my heart putrefying inside my body
From diary of the dark to piety in the ponzi
On my better days and then mingle and walk off into the poppy
On my worst, work is overshadowed by the monty
Had to buy some clothes that fit me
And pretend I like agave
With a promise to his congress not to compromise the motley in him
Maybe I should kinda sorta move to Mars
I'm feeling kinda done, too many moving parts
The piss poor vision is forty percent floaters
The kitchen is a chorus of glorious leftovers
The friends you confessed all the dark shit to
Would weaponize the information before we could send roses
And they want a little pearl in how he got to where we at
I can't remember where I am, I feel it's probably a trap
Balk with the lawless, cough in his notes
Walk on even when the walls hug his coat
Oh and act natural, whatever that means for ya
Whatever that means for ya
Whatever that means for ya
(Fresh)
Defender
[Hook:]
Alex up the street called, said he saw a bobcat
Keep the pets inside, notify your contacts
New Salem
Brave new voodoo
Wave a witch hammer in a haven for the woo-woo
I'm paper china dinner, mostly picking at my stitches
The bloody hair, bad code, bunny ears, dad jokes
Bitch about Lamictal to whichever vixen listen
The skin rash, the schism, a million rash decisions
In truth, he had a 'capital-T terrible' two days
That chewed his plumage to the root
And proved a prequel to malaise
A feud he knew was brewing blew up in his face
He'd been replaying the scenario for days
With the variables replaced
Meh
Wolves are in the sky with more diamonds than the carpet from the Shining
Part riot, part Orion
We jarred a lot of lightning up
Shook a turkey leg or ten
Maybe we deserve a day of rest
Not to mention...
[Hook:]
Alex up the street called, said he saw a bobcat
Check your trash can lids, notify your comrades
I said, "I'll take first watch"
One AM defend the whole block
The coyote, summon the ghosts of blown diodes
Open to moving like a luchador with no eyeholes
Fried while the pipes froze, life goes Lovecraft
Christ pose, sitting on invisible hubcaps
Call Alex back, daggers in the basil patch
Tell him, "Maybe less badminton, more Scrabble Dash"
"Less Jarts more Rummikub," whatever
Keep the scallywag wrapped up in the subterfuge
Gussied up, guarded, and wearing the same armor as the night he argued 'til he dapped his mans up at departures
I could drive into a lake of fire
Pay the piper COD
Aware the pot and kettle shop, a little toxin equally, at least
It's probably more the kid than the kid
Either way a vital widget in the system is sick
A sea of symptoms in the hinges, hit the room all at once
All I could do was plug the roof with my gum
For now I gotta...
[Hook:]
Call Alex back, coyotes in the castle grass
Tell him, "Maybe less freeze tag, more hack-n-slash"
I said, "I'll take first watch"
One AM defend the whole block
So a third party, who is incidentally not Alex
Seen a black bear catawampus by the college campus
Soon the safety propaganda clamps breeds on leashes
No compost, bird seed out of feeders
Make a lot of noise when you frolic under the ether
Keep a hand on the pepper spray
Sneakers on the detour
They're more scared of you, than you them
Although, one of us chews limbs, and one has two chins
Leave a couple messages, vomit a couple dollar bills
Guilty innuendo romanticizing the potter's field
Not sorry, but I never really was a leader
Found money in the speaker, bought lower Manhattan pizza
You meet a few exceedingly forsaken
Sit around the cooler refusing domestication
A couple decades pass and you can't even find the wavelength you was on when you was running one AM
By the way...
[Hook:]
A third party, who was incidentally not Alex
Seen a bear put a thousand chickens in a pot with carrots
I said, "I'll take first watch"
One AM defend the whole block
Water Tower
(Vita es morte es vita
Life is death is life)
Found nothing but the feathers and the skull
On the porch like a present with a bow
Dinner's in a black earth gutted and uncoupled from the patchwork
Buried by a seven year cherub in the backyard
Epitaph and all
Disciple o' the cycles and sciences of birth in a fertilized hyacinth
Life in the vitamins invited up to cypresses
A testament to moxie in the miracle of lifelessness
It's tricky when you'd rather rot into the soil as a nutrient
Than navigate this mortal coil in human skin, dig
The nuances of putrefying jelly
Hit the levee when those feathers are a cancer in your besty
And I pick a ginger gold that's fed by a drunken uncle
One from a customer pumping that sumner blood work
Remember them ascending settling any high scores
Forty meters up with the heart of a high dive horse
[Hook:]
Paint "No Rules" on the water tower
[x4]
Impossible, impossible
(Hold the f*ck up
Who is you talking to?
Cause ain't nobody talking to you
You can't do a motherf*cking thing)
I told my ex in '97 I was falling on my weapon
Ripped the phone up out the wall
The 'Po would drag me from my bedroom
An embarrassing ordeal involving hospitals and questions
And the kinda doctors who use words like "cognitive" and "spectrum"
While explaining why you're selfish to romanticize a ruse
And watch unruly roots pull you to Lucifer by your shoes I mean, it isn't perfect but don't misconstrue the purpose
Any urge isn't discernible from community service to the kiddo
Plus she'd make a beautiful widow
But that's an altruistic ticket to a room with no windows
Hmm you'd think he would've learned back in the eighties
When they pulled him out of class over concerns about his safety
But he didn't, it wasn't cause he doesn't get the message
More he doesn't judge a man by how honorable his death is
On a scale you made up anyway
Half past out to pasture
Whether clapped or batteries in backwards
[Hook:]
Paint "No Rules" on the water tower
[x4]
Impossible, impossible
(Check this shit out here
Don't be trying to come all for me
Cause you is not all of that with your f*cked up haircut)
I had a pet lizard, he never got an obit
Fed him crickets, it was dead a f*cking month before I noticed
An older me would note that whether disposable goldfish
Or theist, we certainly become the Earth as equals in a circle
Unique until the spirit isn't willing
While the flesh is still a staple of the labor forcing whistling
It's roadkill evoking emotion his own totem don't
That's a reality you evade or grow to own
Social code broken, a hierarchy to gasp at
Black labs over wack dads on the admat
Tabby over parasite, bats at the parish
A civil war becoming of ungovernable atoms
I'm born from the guts of stars and black tar pits
Iron Maiden denim paint the devil under grawlix
Crawls out a clawed coffin to huff and puff
Somewhere in between the dust and dust
[Hook:]
Paint "No Rules" on the water tower
[x4]
Impossible, impossible
Molecules
(That's impossible)
(Come on)
Spoilers
The non bon-voyage stock weaponry and soylents
And whatever stop the voices
Colossal paranoias out to author an abrasive lore
About how war paint won't assure you ain't a painted whore, baby
No ground wires, all jaw froth
Mouth-breathing outliers climb out of mothballs
Wrung stones unsung and alone
Known to run up in the unknown "honey I'm home"
I push a bucket of bolts, assorted death in his wake
I take the hand off the thief, I take the head off a snake
Approach a pen like revolution's just a sentence away
Til then he's documenting cops and watching Heaven decay
It's not a gentleman's game it's a generation braced accordingly
Who know the differences between the cozy and the quarantine
Yes y'all the crestfallen careworn
Air horn, air horn, air horn, air horn
These awful winds
Those grinding gears
This pile o' bones
That's why I'm here
Wild frontier
(Come on)
These violent drums
Those primal fears
This pool of mud
That's why I'm here
W-w-w-w-wild frontier
That's impossible, body's still warm
Scavengers already obsessively knocking on his molecules
I'm catatonic, fat, and outta rocket fuel and ramen
Not a dollar, watching Rocky II in Donatello boxers
At some hot as hell motel in what's supposed to be his Shangri-La
More akin of angry mobs with anchor tats and mangy dogs in vacant lots
Traded any semblance of consistency to play the odds
Not even a baby doll to change his gauze
Not even a hide-away to hide up in
A side effect of sliding environment to environment
Driving isn't simply when the tires spin, try again
Departures and arrivals aren't only time in mileage
Try again again a raider break off from the phalanx
And never look back never cook crack K thanks bye
New York in the rear view then peel...
Out, til he found New York in the windshield
These cursed dogs
Those flying spears
This rancid food
That's why I'm here
Wild frontier
(Come on)
These fleeting hopes
Those vital prayers
This bag of cash
That's why I'm here
W-w-w-w-wild frontier
This was never an effective way to rally insurgents
Or really even the occupation of a rational person
When you write about seclusion and some buyers finally tune in
You get frightened finding happiness can drive away the movement
In a jiffy, just eat your food and keep the future iffy
That fruition's for the viewers who need a loser to pity
Plus an underlying message of a greater disconnection
God forbid he try to live or gain momentum
Mend or pay his penance
You'd rather see him eat a bowl of mouse traps
Surf a thousand couches
Take a jagged little down the hatch
Chowder heads
I know you love the way the failure flounder
Maybe I could be your daily downer
If his brain left his body and was headed for the door
Would you take it in and help it find its way into a jar?
No? f*ck it, let him hop around a maze
We can see who's really lost when the schadenfreude fades
These churning seas
Those quiet sneers
This box of parts
That's why I'm here
Wild frontier
(Come on)
These creepy friends
Those dicey dares
This perfect dark
That's why I'm here
W-w-w-w wild frontier
Syrup
[Verse 1 - Aesop Rock:]
The dirty dishes are becoming self-aware
Even the roaches like "I wouldn't raise my children here"
Simple syrup in his veins, dirty nails, lizard brain
Eyes wide, spine like a saltlick a pissing rain (pssss)
ASR Schroder split the rent with ghosts and bacterial cultures
Might track poltergeists prints through his Folgers (gross)
Home is where the unholy sojourn
Dead sea bath tub
Never mind his welfare
Party at the penthouse; carpeted in pet hair
Fridge full of black deli meat and dead air
Sill prefer it to the overbearing lens flair
And death stare at Plinko and an at risk ego
System, egos over peace, love and wisdom
Police shooting everything
Media's a f*ck show
Religion is a scapegoat for cut-throats
F*ck no
[Hook 1 - Aesop Rock:]
I ain't going out there, man
I don't trust no one out there, man
You don't even know what's out there, man
Man
[Verse 2 - Homeboy Sandman:]
Sick of fancies on the prowl
So I don't need to do laundry
I'll dry myself in paper towels
Can't have a decent conversation with the butcher, baker or candlestick maker
At least they smoking vapor now
Still a lot going vacate and ain't breaking out
It's such a boring scene
I found my buoyancy in quarantine
Accommodations second rate
At least it's an environment that I can regulate
Like I was Warren G
I got a phantom pocket full of ice cubes
F*ck what's popping on the street
I gotta sweep up mice poo
I waged a war against the spiders and what's left of them mosquitoes
But these blood suckers leave a bump
Those blood suckers always want to free-load
Yo, who's that peeking in my key hole trying to keep it on the d-low
Playing simple minds, my favorite simple minds
So I'm closing all the windows and I'm shutting all the blinds
[Hook 2 - Homeboy Sandman:]
I ain't goin' out there, son
I don't trust no one out there, son
I don't even know what's out there, son
Son
[Verse 3 - Open Mike Eagle:]
Yo, I got a big-ass TV and my house has four of 'em
Some of y'all is cutting the cords or mad more of 'em
F*ck foraging, I do the shit that I can sit and do
Maybe in the future we can fly by a living room
Or order from Grub Hub but it ain't no pasta left
Outside is where my distant cousins get shot to death
Plus I'm very broke, I ain't even got a buck for the ferry boat
If something dope happens throw it on periscope
A meerkat? Seen it. I ain't trying to hear that
I'm planted in my zone because home is where it's weird at
Anything I want I locate with little to no wait
Through a vast network of homies that work for post-rates
Hella spies still sitting here, so watch me rotate
Outsiders for the prize says "sugar in traffic jams"
Device charged, apps in hand, I'm a handy-man
If you want to give me some energy come and visit me
[Hook 3 - Open Mike Eagle:]
Because I ain't goin' out there, fam
I don't trust no one out there, fam
I don't even know what's out there, fam
Damn