1. |
NO MORE METAPHOR
07:34
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I still recall every moment, the aura of the room after he’d left it
The smell of him on my bedsheets, his after-work stench that he’d leave
He had that messy smile that made the metaphors all suddenly make sense
I thought we were in love, but he said "please stop naming it”
Now the snot trails he left crying on my favourite shirt are dry and
I lost it years after to another boy who tried and tried
To seek out odds and ends and trainwrecks, he said he was unable
To be so in love so young, so he left but I stayed grateful
There’s a shape in the bed where your body used to be, I don’t know how else to describe it
Maybe shake me violent, more violent, maybe leave the stove hot
Maybe horses couldn’t pull me away even though they should have
Have I let a metaphor become a crutch to keep me up
When a scar is what gets carved into you so that you’ll remember next time
As I dig for novels, vowels, verses, ways to be quiet without silence
Replacing syllables with the history I used to know
Night rearranged and the dreams came back, animal boy blue moved in and out of rooms
Like he'd never left my head, like everything he ever said
Had stayed with me in my body, echoing like a melody
"Why do you analyze so much, doesn't your head ever stop?"
The dreams are getting worse, they stay thick and heavy hours after
You say words like love and laughter, words like holy and forever
I wake up and I look through every line in every book
I gravitate to the same page, it says: "Your body will never be familiar"
As we scatter randomly, the details become dull and colourless
But I know there were never enough warm blankets in her house
So I slept under the coats, curled into a ball, waiting for morning
Waiting for a warning but life gives you no warnings, things just change
I took a bus to another town, she left for the coast to become a ghost
Or at least that’s what she became to me, someone I only see when I go to sleep
But even when it’s a bad dream, it’s always nice to see you, dear
And so we sing and swing on tree branches, we have no patterns or lines
Or time signatures, just vaseline and vinegar
Kissing in the practice room, I remember a time when once you used to love me
In the garden so briefly, "hey it's not the end of the world"
No one said anything as we gathered again for a last sunrise
We couldn't find words for goodbyes, some of us laughed some of us cried
Distance is the same as time, it distorts as it defines
I don't care if I'm remembering wrong but your eyes were never bluer then
The earth hums with an ache that it carries, drowning out our tiny bodies
While we beg for a meteor or a messenger or at least a word
Or at least a way to get through the day, and the night too, even if they
Are not the same for both of us, so we grasp and clutch to the ones we trust
And let's get drunk on our favourite colours, waste our way through another summer
Then go off on our separate ways, living separate lives again
Maybe things just come and go, isn't that what started this
(Do you think wounded people can help wounded people
Maybe wounded people can’t help wounded people
Maybe wounded people can help wounded people
Maybe wounded people can’t help wounded people
Maybe wounded people can help wounded people
Maybe wounded people can't help wounded people
Maybe its just like she said: "we're all the same different people")
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2. |
THE CITY WE LOVED IN
05:41
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We were just two young queers
He said: your music and my beer
We met in the city and fell in love in the city
While the water rose around us and we kissed and got dizzy
He said I’m as happy
As anyone with a conscience can be
I felt like your song
I felt warm, safe, veiled in Cohen and your naked arms
Under soft blue light, past midnight again
Though come the morning, the song was gone
But I said I’m as happy
As anyone with a conscience can be
He read books in other languages
I could hardly speak my own
He stormed through the thickets, entering
Then recite his favourite poem
I would say well what does that mean to you
And he would take off all his clothes
We were as happy
As anyone with a conscience can be
Two homeless queers
Finding home in each other's bodies
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3. |
ANOTHER STORM
05:47
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I cut the cord
Left leaves in all the books I read, of course
And ran ragged screaming songs from your house
I was without
I was without
You lost your head
None of this makes sense now, you said
You fell into the sky
Like rain on rewind
Still you’re on my mind
You’ve been on my mind
Your throat crackled like jam jars rattled
A song sung somewhat sparse, but parsing it I
Heard a whimper, a threat, and a quiver
That spoke of a somewhere you’d rather be
You said needn't you worry, I’ll be back in a hurry
Went off like a light switch, I sang out in strained pitch
That places are static, but there’ll be ghosts in the attic
Regardless of which roof you’re under, my dear
With a flint, you lit a fire, but it was fleeting
And you flinched as my hands felt you, freezing
Our brittle bodies huddled close for safekeeping
Til our fervour fueled the fire we’d been needing
Still, I cut the cord
A fire’s not enough to keep me warm
With us it’s always been another storm
But you’re on my mind
You’ve been on my mind
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4. |
COLOUR MEMORY
02:54
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What was the light like?
Was there a colour you've begun to associate with the memory?
Can we paint our nails that colour?
My left hand went numb
I went searching
I found a set of keys I did not recognize
You were trying to get me to speak louder
I shouted something at you
And you shouted something at me
And the sun stopped going down
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5. |
PLAY THE HARP BADLY
04:55
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I caught myself talking to myself
I regret I regret opening my mouth
You would do better
To cut out the chatter
Take your secrets to the grave to the grave to the grave
It’s fine, they’ll never never never understand anyway
But sometimes you have to play the harp badly
Find something to dig into with your body
What good’s a gut for if not for getting that gut feeling
And what’s a throat for if not for sometimes screaming
If I keep dwelling on what I've lost
Will I lose will I lose what I have left
Have I set a boundary
Around my body
A cage of grief and shame to keep people away
It's not fine, it only causes more heartache
So sometimes you have to play the harp badly
Have your hurt heard so that it's out of your body
Letting people in may even bring you some healing
And even if not, then at least you'll be singing
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6. |
SPIDERWEBHEAD
03:39
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My head is like a spiderweb so full that it collapses
Just swaying in the wind: a weird tangle of insect corpses
I've lived my whole life in tiny rooms
Filled with things that I've collected, attached to
Each a memory or some heirloom
Scrapbooks and photographs
Drawings and scribble scratch
A spoon from a diner from that week we drove to rescue her
A dog collar
Paper flowers
Letters from old friends
Maps and loose ends
Lost plans
Documents of how its been
Just a clean hard reminder that it will never be again
Oh well, oh when
Another thread to keep pulling at
My head is like a spiderweb so full that it collapses
Just swaying in the wind: a weird tangle of insect corpses
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7. |
HOT BURNING STONE
07:22
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I watched his body
Fall to the ground from
The floor above me
His head cracked
Open and bleeding
Helpless screaming
Filled the air then
Sirens blared
The blood was pooling
Even though they
Arrived in minutes I
Found out later
He’d been declared
Dead
And it sat in my gut like a hot burning stone
As I walked home
I didn’t even know him
Why can’t I stop thinking about it
My family kept getting smaller
I carried coffins with the men
I didn’t cry until he did
I tried to hold it in
But you can only hold it in for so long
And it sat in my gut like a hot burning stone
Every night after work as I walked home
People come in and out of my life like thunder
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8. |
AMSTERDAM
04:08
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I got trapped at first
The police came and laughed
Swarms of bodies that I didn’t see
But I felt them close to me
You arrived and we got lost
I felt safe even amongst all those walking hard-ons
Was it because you were there
(It was because you were there)
Was it because walking circles we became swans
She sat on the bridge
Playing her accordion
She asked "which one of you is the girl?"
I was only too quick to answer: "me"
She played us a song and as we walked away
We blew her three kisses
We went out and got lost
I felt safe even amongst all those walking hard-ons
Was it because you were there
(It was because you were there)
Was it because walking circles we became swans
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9. |
STILL ALIVE, SINGING
03:53
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He taught me roads rivers run
So I ran and I stayed gone for so long
Sharing secrets doesn't undo the wrong but
It started to feel like I belonged
I sang of my sickness
That’s what he called it
Coz I didn't fit
Coz there were bandages on my wrists
He taught me map maybe make
So I took off my clothes and jumped in the lake
Where the wounds were started to ache
And I felt so alive and so awake
But he said
Don't romanticize it
And just like every other man I ever loved back then
I let him say it
I am I am still alive still alive, singing
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10. |
TWO OCEANS
03:29
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There are two oceans on either side of me yes
I touched them both yes
I kept moving because
Home where home how
Home here home now
I watched the trees change colour
And the hair on me get thicker
And I knew I knew nothing
I woke up in the emergency room
Not knowing where I was
I tried to laugh it off
I closed my eyes, put on a disguise
Said I love you to
All that I met who
Didn’t just take off my clothes
What does it mean to transform
In the middle of a sentence
To say no after yes
To say yes after no
It was there in the snow
I fell in love again
And once I said it
I could not stop
Nor did I want to
My conscience said to put it away
And forget that it happened
Because you can’t keep it all so close
Yes it was terrifying
An ocean on each side
I’m in the middle
Failing you and myself
Again and again
So enough of this language in the book
What I mean is that I miss you
What I mean is I will never not
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11. |
TEMPORARY/WILD
08:11
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What wild of ourselves we were
Aching, archiving, arriving at a precipice
With arms stretched out as if to reach
Walking through the broken streets
Counting cracks in the road, ambling aimless
We lived in the glory of gold branches in the backyard
Littering leaves along shortcuts which have been built over
All we wanted then was the streets and the sound of it
To hear mouths that sang full-throated and sunlit
Searching for some proof that you and I and all of us could be coherent
But still when you spoke, I heard gibberish
We spray-paint manuscripts onto the bricks
Catch our consciousness as it plays tricks on our sense of time
We rhyme and rue, what can we do
But rendezvous and follow through
Wrap the trees in swimming pool plastic lining
As if with trash we could make art to find our way in the dark
Leave our own little mark so we’d be remembered
Or at least we’d kill time in our small town every night
While we dreamed of escape, as if it was our birthright
Once I left I became transient, temporary
Cautiously curious, as was customary
Leaving blood in ballrooms, floor-sleeping
Forgetting medication after I felt his weight on me
Still loving everyone with all I could until I couldn’t anymore
Mountains rising between us and tides pulled to the shore
Now I’ve become an island with words rattling round
And I still carry doubt from years of being unable to trust myself
How do you sleep knowing that the times we’ve had
Are gone for good, there’s no coming back, there’s no coming—
I feel like I’ve been in this life forever
And like I just arrived
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12. |
REWRITE THE WORDS AGAIN
04:19
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Could cuss, could not, could count my caesuras
Bawling ballads, losing balance, but better off
Lost in books as I look for my catachresis
As if the words that I’m without are somehow a weakness
You stay close, tuck your clarion into your nape
Say: bibliophile, just stay a while, let’s lose our shape
I ask you straight if you can explain the etymology
Of words we use like familiar fruit to name our bodies
What word would I use if I had to choose just one to say
What word would I say if I had to explain this disarray
I’ve looked through each page to find your name
But it’s not in this text
Nor is mine, nor is theirs;
Not in any of the books I've read
We must make some repairs
Rewrite the words again
Rewrite the words again
A word means what it does until it doesn’t
A word is a warm blanket, a cobweb, a low sunset
A word is a worry, a warning, getting lost in a cul de sac
A word is unheard, a word is unlearned
It's living and it's loving and it's groping for warmth
So stay close, suck smoke
I know you’ve got some tenderness
Buried there, underneath
Like a word that doesn’t have meaning yet
So we sulk and avoid, bury all of our coins
And ask to be grown anew
But it’s hard to change, it’s so hard to change
It’s so hard to change, will you?
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13. |
NO MORE TRAUMA
01:46
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I don't wanna make art about my trauma anymore
I don't wanna make art about my trauma anymore
But what else can I do if it helps me to get through
So here I go again, another song from me to you
I don't wanna make art about my trauma anymore
I don't wanna make art about my trauma anymore
Let's find pockets of pleasure, celebrate in them together
Build a future that is better, can’t do nothing bout the past
Let's find pockets of pleasure, celebrate in them together
Build a future that is better, can’t do nothing bout the past
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jordaan mason Toronto, Ontario
a confused human being singing songs about being a confused human being
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