1. |
Sudden Red Gentle Green
04:42
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I’m sending out a flash of light in the dark -
(did you? Did I? We were
glowing orbs of light, we were apricots)
and could it be frostbite making feeling hard?
(you were you, it’s no fault of anyone’s)
Her lips pushed too hard against the wall
(comparisons, comparisons, comparisons, comparisons)
Remembering dusk at midnight, eleven days after all
(she said I thought we had longer, I thought we had longer)
The photo is aging: droplets of sudden red, gentle green
crawl and close vast distances. Time has stolen
the color of your eyes on a summer morning.
Go where you will go -
it doesn’t matter when the season ends - it was a northern dream.
Memory could be a liar now -
Doesn't matter what we said ourselves
(when we were ourselves.)
The photo is aging: splotches of sudden red, gentle green
crawl and close vast distances. Time has stolen
the color of your eyes on a summer morning.
Remembering dusk at midnight, eleven days after all
(she said I thought we had longer, I thought we had longer)
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2. |
hraun2.1/Atlas I
00:59
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Nothing too strange - light
shines down on shoulder blades, dawn
unveiled - every waking moment caresses
soft, and binds - waiting in gauze.
Partitioning oceans.
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3. |
The End Of Summer
03:16
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By the tower in April, masked, and the orange city -
This afternoon, in the Charles, pink petals flowed into the bay.
I start to take out my phone but put it away.
(It’s nothing new to watch the blooming of cherries
When it was I was 21, with V, and free ice cream
And it’s nothing new to freak out about where I’m going
But not when we’d just met and you were smoking cigs on Newbury
Offhandedly said last time I was here I was tripping
Couple days after my dad’s mom’s funeral,
Forty days after someone I knew once lost consciousness
We talk French theory and how I toured but never finished Torso really
I was on the phone, trying to learn where she was and what she’d taken
You corrected my wine order and were surprised I wanted to kiss you
her mom knew the hotel and they found her in time.
There’s still enough time to do)
something - feeling foolish trying to do everything
looking at the undergrads - God, are we old folks?
You’re drinking wine and reading Kinfolk
I’m drinking coffee and I’m writing for cellos,
ironing my shirt before we meet for espresso -
you stopped to point out the marble floors.
Clocking in at the Harvard bookstore,
You were aiming for a life in
publishing - maybe not enough time left to do everything.
Working in cafes, it’s not making me much.
We’re really trying hard to be adults.
Talking about those years you spent walking dogs,
Sleeping in a living room and putting on house shows,
and to this I can smile, knowingly.
Kind of funny how we’re both also newborn -
I’m out of school and you’re new to the city. And that time -
Sunset on your porch - passing wine you bought -
Tracing your twenties out loud along some fragile thread.
With your long black hair and your boxy glasses,
the galleries you arranged - your mouth tastes like ash.
And when you’re self-aware, there’s a jadedness,
but by habit you’re kind.
And so I wonder how you see me
(as I refill in my mason jar); the doors behind us are closed.
And the future could be a nightdark tunnel
(asking myself, how did I get here?) but with new faith, we’re armed. Mandala the wind takes.
All I feel I’ve got are some books and a degree (and one record, unfinished.)
And I saw her, alive, on our second date (at that show in Cambridge.)
We were 28 and 25 -
That was the fifth time I saw you out of nine -
And you know I’ve never smoked a cig,
watching the smoke rise.
Third floor, cool wind above pregnant green dark deciduous swaying,
orange streetlights, Stony Brook rumbling nearby.
Not enough time to do something.
Maybe there’s still time to do everything.
Drawing flowers on the back of receipts -
Alain Delon, Antoniennui.
And you know, the more it seems I think about it -
I see I’m no stylite (though marble floors aren’t the treasure I’m after). Five years in this city and it’s time to leave soon -
Too many ghosts in this city and it’s time to leave soon -
Cults are based by this tower and it’s time to leave soon -
Ghosts -
Ghosts -
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4. |
Boston Story
02:55
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Clocking in - filter and gibraltar by the
pond again - sweet song in the plastic pulse.
Clocking in (sweet song) - refracted first
sip, again - refracted focus, pulse elevates
and you took care of me - after the breakup in the morning
and you took care of me - after the breakup in the morning
and you took care of me -
Clocking in (sweet song) - and years of walking through the door,
to keep our dazed fog peels away - filter and gibraltar on the
counter - fog - morning rushing line just peels away
And later on she told me most of it -
And later on she told me most of it -
And later on she told me most of it -
Painstaking labyrinths and bloodstains I hadn’t noticed -
Painstaking labyrinths and bloodstains I hadn’t noticed.
(Fair to worry when you started reading Mao
but even worse was what they’d only hint about)
But with your holy war and idols burning, sure -
Searching for a habitable head -
But with your holy war and idols burning, sure -
Anxious hammer searching for a left-open door -
With your holy war and
hanging in - hunger and vibration in the blood, again -
we need so damn many words. Return again -
filter and gibraltar on the
counter - retracing many clocks - gibraltar in the
fog - gibraltar in the
fog - gibraltar in the
fog - gibraltar in the
fog - gibraltar in the
fog - gibraltar in the
fog - gibraltar in the
fog - gibraltar in the
fog - gibraltar in the
and here, the pond is unsettled by the wind again -
wearing headphones after work.
(And is this moment running?)
And I thought I’d asked too much from everything -
(And is this moment running?)
And I thought I’d asked too much from everything -
(When all the leaves are tumbling?)
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5. |
hraun3.1/Atlas II
00:53
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I’ll anticipate
the
muted
breaths
that
whisper
you
awake -
tracing longitudes in this
solitude we share, with the
sunrise - and all that this seems,
breaching.
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6. |
Patmos
09:37
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June light, through the trees, braiding -
Displeased and sleepy! We’d left those libraries, burning.
Breakfast and swimming! Drifting pages in narrow streets; it was a teenager’s dream.
(Stop reading!)
(And when the light shines in, will it be golden or thin?
a horseman, in the morning, out hunting-town, stop
thinking
All things in time.
(Strandentwining sacraments, afloat when I was young -
open and worlding, open sky - lungs and canopies, disconcealing heights)
And once, as advent did lie empty and exp[e/a]nsive -
and before the omphalos could release us from its braid -
in a parking-lot on the hillside, I felt the souls carabiner’d to me
and knew I could earn all love, if I could bear the weight with grace -
in the rubble, stop
walking - stop
reading - stop
smiling (stop smiling!) - stop
thinking -
Two pale bodies glowing in the forest spill spit and
text from mouth and artifice -
dedication and a honeycrisp as if from seraphic bowls -
salivate for New Jerusalem, John of Patmos! And
bless that summer sky - too much, or not
enough, bowed in surrender, I
held your hand in summer.
(Stop thinking!)
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7. |
Mt. Esja
05:42
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I’m only gonna think for a minute, and after that I’m gone.
I’m only gonna wait for a minute, and after that I’m gone.
I’m only gonna wait for a minute, and after that I’m gone.
We’re glowing. Midnight, mid-21, not sure how to respond to your texts.
Still showed up. Spilled sangria on some paperwork and curled up on the
covered floor. Later, you’d touch my back as I’d recall your paleblue
(we slow-danced in the sunrise) eyes
Now I’m solo 23, pushing 24 - tryna be just stoned and dancing.
Think I’m just stoned and dancing - sea of ivy league unknown undergrads;
Oh god I don’t know anyone - am I a creep? Looking like they’re in the 90’s -
Okay, well done; I guess that you were like that too -
Also above it, though - ah, memory’s such a prickly thing.
And when the light’s gone out and I feel alone again,
I watch the water with my friends.
And when the tide’s gone out and I feel like shit again,
I watch the water with my friends.
We’re only gonna wait for a minute, and after that we’re gone.
We’re only gonna wait for a minute, and after that we’re gone.
We’re only gonna wait for a minute, and after that we’re gone.
We’re swaying. Grey light, midwinter dawn, felt sleepless and kind of overwhelmed.
And shimmering, that night, when you’d said “I used to really like you but I knew someone like you
would never really like me”, like, we pretended you were single.
All these open endless roads - intimate shows -
you got married; I’m forgetting you.
But still remembering the rental car - how minutes out
from Reykjavik, we decided this was way too much.
We’d burned a dozen cities into dust, and with the firehose,
was I thinking of that first night? How I disagreed? Or Mount
Esja looming ‘cross the bay? In fog, but guessing: tall.
But forward’s all that’s left these days.
(that I could love you)
And when the light’s gone out and I feel alone again,
I watch the water with my friends.
And when the tide’s gone out and I feel like shit again,
I watch the water with my friends.
We're only gonna
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8. |
The Rocky Shoreline
06:16
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These days, those towers are torched and bare.
Their morphologies, lanyards, and ladders are a prayer in the wind.
I stub my toe on grandfather clocks.
Our fumbling words tripping on cliffs, self-blindedly -
Colourless green ideas sleep lovingly.
Can’t quite recall just how a heart can open up
Do we forget or forgive ourselves in rupture or rapture?
When all we’ve got are attempts and intent
Every face is lit with your shadows, peeling off from me.
Clipping your hair on that bitter throne in drawn ecstasy.
Now I’m weeping the rocky shoreline, belly feels like soap.
Rhizomes, Marx, and summer, and the letters we held
Coming unconcealed were pale whispering groves.
The only models that we held were cracked a little.
The only light that crept in was dead of winter.
Endlessly patient, giving hands, devoid of interior.
God, the tide is wading out! This is no answer!
We’re glowing out of here.
(ooooo)
We’re getting out of here, and after that, we’re gone.
Crop your leaving,
our pasty half-wasted breathin’
amber stonefruit northshore seein’
all the light lets in
(And later, in the fall, in Roxbury, after I wake up at 7 and before I wake up at 8 I am in a courtyard as the foliage of 24 autumns decay like the 24 hours of the day - and in shadows or the branchings of treetops I hear some constellation of old and new friends and relations, with as many feasts of cherries and chocolate, of hand-ground beans in January, of overmulled aromatic undrinkable wine. And in some pivot expressible only through dream the courtyard becomes the shoreline where all of the sands are shifting, faces are shifting, and we configure and reconfigure ourselves in the shapes of great poets and great comedians, erasing and rebuilding lives to new records and polemics - and in hindsight the squabbles of young artists will look like the arguments of young children but (as is dreamed before entering the workforce and encountering stunted imaginations built on new foundations of expensive wine, lifestyle podcasts and new phones) at least we’re holding onto something - maybe this isn’t far from why people go to church or wage holy wars - to be young and ignorant and objectively very stupid but to at least really believe in something greater than a lifespan or government. Belano and Echevarne duel on the beach. Driving into Montreal with Patti Smith’s winding unwinding poetry over an eternal two-chord vamp. But now - this feels like an end of days but really it’s August and I have just turned 24 or 25 and behind us there’s a great burning desolate wasteland and ahead a great but terrible mystery that I (and, I suspect, most of us) wouldn’t feel compelled to even examine. Hence the expensive cocktails, the being told, in reference to a Netflix original series, “you’ve got to see it”, the flights towards academia or towards having a family - near these shores there is a storm wall where the dreams of youth crash and break and we’re all cast back into the sea - try again but different next time - until we eventually land different and wake on the shore like one particular burglar of somewhat recent literary acclaim, the grey skies and light rain, yes, but here we’re conscious and breathing and the memories of what lie behind are transmuted into strange visions, and then dreams, and might eventually disappear into the same purgatory from whence they came.)
And when I open my eyes it’s 8 and the aloof grey open rainy morning.
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9. |
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(instrumental)
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10. |
Roslindale/Taillights
00:50
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and is this moment running?
/
Roslindale taillights flicker in the smoke
Keeping this thing alive
Looking for parking
Clock-tower says midnight
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11. |
Thundering, Blissful
11:05
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Like twenty minutes out from the Lower East Side tonight.
Waited like a million years to feel the way I do tonight.
Resonating clockwork with the world and the stars beyond the clouds tonight.
If the hours whirl away, just trace the texture of a week (lost time).
‘fraid it might get Too Late(!) and the thing’s been taken from my head before it’s time.
But, for now I’m high on faith: you reached out! And the text read “hi!”.
And I’ve really just been working since that first time.
I’d been bleeding out in the desert and saying I was fine.
You bandaged me and disappeared for like fourteen nights.
And nothing major’s happened yet but I can trust it’s on its way in time.
And I really wanna sleep tonight.
And but so I feel something different out ahead tonight.
A well of patience filled up from a dozen working weeks tonight.
And to their credit, it’s not thrilling me or killing me quite yet tonight:
Making third-wave coffee for corporate coders but the writing piles up at night.
And with every sunset comes a crisis, at least most times.
A dreamer waking on the shore at like 25.
All these unforeseen doors don’t really recognize
that at some point you must have changed. Is this your beautiful life?
And which out past the meagre harbor there’s a shallow bay
where only-casual-okays are treading water today.
You think you dreamt up a great liner sailing off in the deep.
And nothing major’s happened yet, but you can hope it’s on it’s way in time.
And I really wanna sleep tonight.
Enjoy the best time of your life!
Fend off the fog with a subtle knife!
Or your phone’s flashlight!
Cut like some champions tonight!
Plan your escape!
And plan your escape!
They’re flying! (fossils burning!) And they’re feeling so alive tonight.
And past the city, that black curtain’s falling like it does every night.
and they accelerate - the purpling orange gives in to that cruel dark light
with every little death or dream or drink, in the moments they forget their lives.
And when the song ends, the ads play, the lights pour in -
Sleep and yoga, coke and coffee, oh, to see past it!
To be infatuated, waiting in the salty sand!
Why did you wait two weeks? What did you think would happen?
Then atop the dunes the software engineers all do a deadly dance
and the circling silly senators all take their advance
and any job is just a prison or collective trance
and nothing major’s happened yet but don't you fear for where it will in time -
And I really wanna see you tomorrow.
Enjoy the best time of your life!
Fend off the fog with a subtle knife!
Or your phone’s flashlight!
Cut like some champions tonight!
Plan your escape!
And plan your escape!
(jagged
pillow kiss
earlobe filmic gaze
grasping graze sound
icon grey blanket water-clock
cigarette morning now, now open
floor afternoon window open klang
periodes. partiels. us we self i prologue ...
explosante fixe... open ohio treeline you.
you open. open you.
open the softest shivering.)
but with my forehead in your curls -
and your mouth open -
barely scarleted, mewling downy immediacy and white.
The world is emptied into absence excepting the
tip of my thumb -
hypnotic ascent; hypnagogic descent,
circling, recircling your pale shoulder.
And after, everything is raw, split open
into newly somewhat early December light.
and the paleness greying afternoon
dusk pours in -
with thoughts of the world, and thoughts of people we know,
and I want to believe this is some answer; that
there’s some strange new star in the sky
and newly colored starlight, illuminating that
strange and tortured highway towards the
endless falling, falling dark.
That this could lift up me, and you, and
bear us forward with care through time.
I want to believe you meant what you said
and I’ll see you soon.
But the tap cools down real fast
as (playing white) you castle.
And is that the enormous plaguethundering future
shaking the glass?
But I still feel for the first time in years I can
handle what lies ahead.
‘Cause faith’s a funny thing, and I won’t play no games,
though I’m glad you asked.
Or maybe I’ll wait here a while, ‘cause you’ve seen the ship too,
and we’ll go buy ingredients for dinner -
cherry tomatoes, pesto and mozzarella -
and you’ll kiss me in contradiction,
and you’ll kiss me in the kitchen.
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12. |
In A Stampede
05:30
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“If I could only hold you close for a moment
and I hope it’s not too much
but there’s still light glinting on that garden we glimpsed and almost touched.”
That was how we sounded, for years, pretty much -
striving for a mirage,
in the morning, with a pen, at a basement show, and in bed -
but to believe in building sandcastles, to take the measurements of dunes! (despite the worlding world always rebirthing,
and almost slipping from your hands.)
But the wind can’t be ignored, anymore, always buzzing -
cartographers lined up for coffee like geese migrate
and the salesmen fill the temple.
(and I’ve been at it long enough to know you
can get someone off but you can’t make them love you
back.)
And it’s written Jesus turned over the tables,
and cast the merchants out, but we all know that god is dead
and now the tables are the wind.
And if a whip were in the picture it would be for different purposes indeed.
O tell me Laurie Anderson, where do we go?
O Mom and Dad, how could you not know?
The curtains tremble and we're breathing in our sleep,
the moonlight, the Harlem night unlike anything we could have dreamed
but we can’t back to that mirage.
Rushing water in the valley and psilocybin rushing in the
brain - years ago, when we walked here,
and our parents walked behind us,
cascading years around us -
(always writing).
the shifting shadows and sighing canopy.
(in those eyes, the hillside became material
the breath less an anchor than a stopwatch
maybe thankful it was only drilling for poetry
but still the question comes - “where is that son?”).
“So we may be entropicswirling atoms”, driving north, I’d conceded to Joni
(flashes of laughing stumbling by the wine-drunk Seine)
“but it's so dark to see connection as some tether; to run from love like cactus trees -
I'd rather be like Andre, setting sail past the shallow waters for previously uncharted seas.”
and so troubled, I change the music.
And so if I only could, I’d hold you close for a minute,
no hesitation or distance,
in some deal with divinity.
(Hold on, Macondo!
The wind's not blowing yet.)
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Cole Blu Brooklyn, New York
NYC.
Interested in the poetics and broken narrativities of memory.
Songwriter, producer, guitarist, composer.
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