1. |
Fake Jive
04:38
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It's just a painting, it's just a song,
wonderous plate, miraculous rag on
holding the promise of happiness high,
beauteous speck in a dilated eye,
O you draw yourself a little leaner
and you sing like somebody meaner than you are, don't you tiger
of paper? A many false windowed thing,
A kite in a lecturing wind
awaiting intellectual strike, cast the pens down in the dome tonight.
Have you read the poets lately?
They don't get a weekly, monthly, bi-annual,
Now you may cry but I doubt you will.
Ten years is all it took, ten years in thrall to a lickspittle crook,
now you don't know the crooked lay of the land,
you don't trust any man to shake your hand without
taking a thumb or a finger,
how the vilest scent will linger while the sweetest
pass away so swiftly.
On this patriot day sound the national band,
sweep the plain you sunburnt and bland,
And I'll pollute the perfect stanza for music
in a deft show of hubris unplanned,
Hitch a skiff with a dusky daughter,
sail down a river of grey water musics,
Keeping the drain alive with all this fake jive.
Life is a painting, life is a song, it holds the promise of happiness.
I could tell you where it goes wrong
as good as tell you why the longing long,
you the poor painter, average singer,
maybe you never went through the ringer enough,
or loved it so you came out wrung.
Like a cracked bell I continue to tell
the same sad tale and toll all my failures to hold any note
or I quaver and cast about for the bluest port
in a black and white storm,
O I've got lots of advice, never listen to any advice,
be a pole, hoist your own flaming petard,
and when you blow, blow hard.
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2. |
Mephistopheles Perverted
03:51
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Once long ago there lived a Flea
Who kept such a fine, fat King,
Not that he held with royalty,
But the appearance of the thing,
And gave his Majesty to hold
(Such pageantries are far too few)
A sword of ruby-hilted gold
That might hack a cheese in two;
But lest this glory might begin
To prove the regency too far,
His thunderbolt they made of tin,
And changed his godship for another Star.
Thus when the Monarch drove abroad,
With stars like buttons round his chest,
God-fearing Fleas would all applaud,
And grudging Lice be so impressed.
Such relics every Flea must flaunt,
If only as the final trump
That mocks Materialism's taunt,
There’s more to life than Suck and Jump
Once long ago—but not so long—
A King went curing scrofula . . .
The chorus of this charming song,
is Ha, Ha, Ha.
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3. |
The Third Drink
04:03
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The third man is a film revered
And a very well regarded scent
The third eye is a heavy heavy brow
On a Hindu cow in a worship tent
But the third drink
Is a prick in the universe
Anchor and balloon
Fierce flame and a cold spoon
A Guarded moment
At the change of guards
Which ushers in the imp, and the whispers, and the weeping bards
(singing Two Minutes to Midnight)
And asks of the senses derange
Be unbound and
Ripple and be above all strange
Unserious now, do frolic,
Improvise, vivid alcoholic.
The third drink is chaperone
To the flood
Who, once asked to dance
Gives more whim than any fool
Ought chance
The third man suffers not
Over time it only grows its plot
The third eye reads bovinely polyglot,
The third drink gets me into troubles
A lot
Oh the third drink
Is a prick in the universe
Anchor and balloon
And the wire in between on fire with a dying tune
we’re gonna blitz it all, leaving only a black tawdry mark
The third drink is a light, leads me into the dark
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4. |
The Long Wait and See
02:50
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In the rose bowl, rose petal water,
Long gone poison,
I’ll drink it if you will.
Handsome women, hand me down clothes,
But I’ve heard you walk on the billionaire rows,
They are cocks and crow
“There’s nothing to fear!”
Stop what you’re doing and come outside the house,
It’s forty two degrees, it’s eight PM
or thereabouts,
It isn’t the end, just the Long Wait and See,
And nobody knows just how long or how terrible it will be.
Oh you unborn, stay as you are,
Will them that rut, pull away, before it goes so far -
An unpopular art no?
Most coveted part of the knowing animal,
That makes its own hell…
Stop what you’re doing and come into the yard,
There’s smoke on the horizon and the wind is blowing hard,
It isn’t only fire and foulness of the air
But the many people dying and I don’t think I could care.
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5. |
The Heaviest Stone
02:48
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It’s the heaviest stone to throw
Being told that it’s nearly time to go
When you know that just beyond the shroud
There’s a gala going on but you’re not allowed
For the first time in your life
It’s the last time in your life
It’s the heaviest stone to throw
How many ways can the world say no?
When all your tickets got punched long ago
There’s little left but your ego
All the women do the government
While the men disappear in the fundament
The bold and courageous thoughts of youth
Seem silly and ridiculous beside the truth
But when you gather up to do the sum
They’re better than nothing now you’re having none
Rash and reckless boy
Temerarious young man
Everybody gets a sunset
Everybody gets ruined
Everybody gets to fall apart upon the stage
But you rarely if ever get to choose when…
It’s the heaviest stone to throw
When you can’t even laugh on the gallows
When none of it was worth it and they really let you know
You barely even cast a shadow
You never really cast a shadow
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6. |
Bootikins
03:33
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You’ll die and be not happy,
This has ever been the score,
Some of you for want of nothing,
Some of you for wanting more…
Little boots did bind my painted toes
I coddled your devotions,
Now I’ve nightly conversations with the mountains and the oceans…
I’m the lake, I am the loon,
I’ll take your eye with a spoon,
I have swords as well as islands
I can make you feel your dying, try me…
A perfume from a foul disease,
From here to there I walked the seas,
But even feats as bold as these
grow tiresome and dreary,
I have felt what love can do,
Love can’t mend a broken shoe,
O I don’t covet love from you,
You would better fear me…
We’re a scar that was a wound
and puckered too soon,
I have swords as well as islands
I can make you feel your dying, try me…
“I understand it all - that is my trouble.”
Bring the poets from their brew,
March them to me two by two,
Have them know the theme is death
Then let them sing it new -
the well of wisdom is a fast latrine,
The tree of love is sappy,
Have I told you ever darling
how men die and are not happy?
When the last holly blooms
I’ll fornicate with the moon,
I have swords as well as islands
I can make you feel your dying, try me…
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7. |
When I Am Old
04:42
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When I am old, Not if, but when,
ailments will derail not end,
laments will fail not to upend
my later years which I will spend,
alone, when I am old, alone -
what is the male kind of crone?
old lonely men dress for court on their own,
nothing suggests I will not be alone when I'm old.
When I am old,
There will be no more lions
Only in prisons
Product of aeons of
bestial poems never told
Fire that does not rage is cold
Cold flames are the tongues that sing dying
There’s no point in lying about being
old men dress for the mall in the morning
nothing suggests I will not be forlorn when I’m old
Not if, ifs and buts, but whens,
I’ll take a wood load at roughly ten,
measure the hours by some Bushells blend,
read the papers from start to end
alone, when I am old, alone -
what is the male kind of crone?
I’ll give the obituary special attention
Which of my neighbours has earned a mention
When I am old
There will be no more whaling
Oh you cannot go whaling
When there are no more whales
in the tepid sea
my instincts have always been dull
Not that I ever listened at all
If I lay in a burning bed
I waited for the rain to fall
Old men see what they’re leaving behind
and thank small mercies for going blind
When I am old
I will have no companion
No mouser no spaniel when
all I could do is
to leave them behind
No spark to depend on my dithering lick
Sputtering sickly at candle’s end
No love to address
No missives to pen
When I am old
I’ll take heroin.
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8. |
Tomis
03:16
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The highlight of a low life in the city of rock and rain,
Being told by some new emperor how to better clothe my shame -
Six years to put it together, six more to pull it apart and
I won’t go back but I haven’t left yet,
If you set your mind there’s many ways to get to…
It’s a hot headed mountain wears a cap of cooling snow,
An agent of calamity that stays the domino,
The ground is cold and stony here but I can make it grow something,
Happily no vision of me,
No rosy bed, no weed, no tree,
A calling of time on this branch of the line,
I hopped the train and shuffled down the lane to…
Nobody tells you which way to go,
Animals leap across your shadow,
Makes a change from the preening shallows where you’re lucky if you know
One son of a gun among the sons of bitches,
One white witch in the coven of witches
Who won’t tell me what I deserve to get,
Who’ve bought my shoes but haven’t paid for them yet,
Or walked a metre let alone a mile,
Who chose to thieve, I chose exile.
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9. |
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Only two short stops to average Melegnano
I had a house and a family and a yard
Though I did not know them and did not mow it but I lived somehow oh
I woke up in Borgolombardo
In a bed that I’d never made
There were saplings all down to the pretty rivulet
And fish in the cold water there
What freight of dread was my train of thought each new day in Borgolombardo
I woke up in Borgolombardo
Like a game I’d never played
What strange cordials propositioned me to taste
And whose underwear would circle my waist
And how would the shade seem to me when alone or when standing in it with my wife
Till I knew it was coming to me
To awaken in the house next to mine
But not before living in many more houses
In many more times oh oh oh
over many more years inside many more feelings and in many more minds oh oh oh
I woke up in Borgolombardo
And I wasn’t the same anymore
For I was to live every life of every man who was strange like me oh oh oh
And how quickly the dizzying dread turned to glee
And I was untrapped and trapless as can be
Mountainously free
in Borgolombardo
Mountainously free
in Borgolombardo
Mountainously free
in Borgolombardo
And every day would have its own history
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10. |
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Cushioned, my hair, returns to a modest helmet
But always rough ridden with new hidden rents and tears
Inside is my toxic Bohemia, and nightly its rotten circus, tours its fetid underground, which is fairly enormous
I feel I must be a sad nazi somehow
I feel I must be a sad nazi somehow
I see young mother nature, and I want to defrock her
I hurtle back, to a conservative locker
With pictures of Marine and Rand and Lady Thatcher
Blu-tacked to the door of my tinny dream catcher
I hurtle back, to a conservative locker
and sleep the sleep, of a stone cold winner.
All of my emails are from Russian females
They put me in mind
put me in a hard soul kind
of heart murmur
I get firmer when I give them my replies
None of my emails are from Asian shemales
If you will be mine
I will love you long time
If you will be mine
I will love you a long time
I hurtle back, to a conservative locker
I need an alpha, I need a beta blocker
All the booze and fags in the world
My playground keeps increasing
I hear death cries from the night skies
I don’t care what little lives are ceasing
I feel I must’ve arrived
at the end of the race
Nobody can keep up with this alien pace
I feel I must’ve arrived at the end of the race
Nobody can keep up
nobody can keep up
I hurtle back, to a conservative locker
I see young mother nature
And I want to defrock her
If you will be mine
If you will be mine
If you will be mine
opiano opiano opiano so divine
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11. |
Bitter Clingerzz
05:12
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Why don't we say it 'fingerrz'
Like other words like that?
the greasy glottal
On the g
When others like it lay flat?
Like they got taken to
By some alphabat
Swinging ringer
Some bitter clinger
With an appetite for claptrap?
Someone sort it
Bring us fields of level
Play
Replace the rover with a winger
like all the singing
Sounds the same
Like there’s a demon
Ringing
Bells inside your skull
Till you're insane
Bitter ringing in your brain
The time is ripe
Hark the harbingeerrrrz
all good fellowzz
Do not linggeerrz
While you're at it
Imprison all the chingerrrz do
Or pretty soon there’ll be nothing left to cling to
For all you
Bitter clingerzz
Marry principal
Lower your ring upon its fingeerrz
there it is!
Now clench and pray
It doesn’t make a fist
Oh the shrieking in the mist
of Pestilential Mire bringerrrz
Presidential plague slingerzz
Bitter clingerzz
Bitter clingerzz
Bitter clingerzz
Why don't we say it finggeerrzz
Like other words like that?
the greasy glottal
On the g
When others like it lay flat?
Cos it's a finger and it's permanently raised
Are you so dumb you confused it for a thumb?
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Augie March Melbourne, Australia
Over the last 25 years, few Australian bands have enjoyed a synergy of critical and commercial success like Augie March. Their songs are heard on almost every radio format in the country - with gold and platinum albums to their credit - yet they remain iconoclasts, perennial outsiders. ... more
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