Texas
Copyright 1987, 2008, 2011 Ernest Bloom.
The sun comes up and the sun goes down
On all the deserted oil boomtowns
There's only a trickle where the river used to flow
Oh, down south that dust does blow in Texas
Baby, baby, baby, back in Texas
They gotta sky so big you can't believe
They got it rigged, you gotta leave
Texas
The earth is hard and the clay is red
It once was wild, now everything's dead
The storm comes riding up from the coast
To blow away every miserable ghost outta Texas
Baby, baby, baby, outta Texas
They all lie so big you can't believe
They got it rigged, they gotta deceive you in
Texas
Then she'll come walking in like your wildest dream
Then she's gone in a flash of green
And for a while you feel torn in half, but
Later on you can only laugh about Texas
Baby, baby, baby, about Texas
And they can cry so loud, don't have a belief
Then they walk out proud, you feel relief leaving Texas
Baby, baby, baby, leaving Texas
They can cry so loud
Then they walk out proud
Walk outta Texas
Tyche
Copyright 1987, 2008, 2011 Ernest Bloom.
Balloon drifting early morning
The air is chill and still
Fast cars paint the desert
The mountains breaking early purple
Corona of light like burning spears
In the arena soap bubble spheres rise and wobble
Bursting in colors and weird music
And a blind woman with a dog
Holds the wheel intense in silence
The dog teeth sharp growls low
Turns it spinning
Turning quiet turning clean
She sails the secret seas between
On a sandy beach in Mexico
Bright bags come to life along the shore
Embers of fires still yellowing
Mellowing coal-glow
White courtyard brilliant sea dove
Colorfully puffed planes triangle overcoated blue seas
Fine brown feathers waft in slow-draining tide pools
And empty long-necked bottles emblems yellow and green
Recall guitars gently weeping yawning sleeping
Steak rare and tender love
No one remembers what they could not rise above
And a blind woman with a dog
Plys the seas an underwater queen
Waves rise in silence part divided plover wings
Who knows the things she's seen
Sailing the secret seas between
In New York City
It's more than you know
In New York City
In New York snow
In Washington state
In Washington D.C.
In New Orleans
It's so much more than it seems
In Brazil in Australia
New Zealand Portugal Wyoming Tierra del Fuego
Duluth Moscow Perth Singapore on the moon
In the month of June
On a train in a tunnel
Just before the lights go out
Then when absolutely nothing's seen
She sails the secret seas between
Horse ranch dust and Texas skies
She minds the foals
Looks along the long fences and thinks
Of places that she's been
She remembers long-lost friends
People that she's known
Miracles she's seen
Mistakes that she made
Prices that she paid
And a blind woman with a dog
Turns the wheel intense in silence
The dog teeth sharp growls low
Turns it spinning
Turning silent turning clean
Sailing the secret seas between
Wooves
Copyright 1987, 2008, 2011 Ernest Bloom
Howlin' again at bitter moon.
The light is green, nothing's seen,
Nothing's heard but wooves.
The Aztec sold his warrior soul
To white man's rock and roll, but his spirit heart
Was ripped apart by wooves.
Howlin' again at bitter moon.
The light is green, nothing's seen,
Nothing's heard but wooves.
The young mother on the elevator
Felt her blood chill, the car stop still,
Smelt copper blood spilt by wooves.
The Aztec sold his warrior soul
To white man's rock and roll, but his spirit heart
Was ripped apart by wooves.
Howlin' again at bitter moon.
The light is green, nothing's seen,
Nothing's heard but wooves.
Oh, blood.
Oh, blood.
On blood they prey.
They prey for pain.
It's the jungle law.
Oh broad, scarlet river gush.
Oh God, deliver us
From wooves.
Howlin' again at bitter moon.
The light is green, nothing's seen,
Nothing's heard but wooves.
Eat Meat
Copyright 1988, 2008, 2011 Ernest Bloom.
Eat meat - cabbage thoughts.
Eat meat - flower thoughts.
Eat meat - clean your plate.
Eat meat - carnivate.
Eat meat - we lowly shrubs are immanentized too.
Boiled flesh and scalded blood in a pot of stew.
Or a Texas barbecue will really hit the spot.
Eat meat - come and get it while it's hot.
Eat meat - and have mercy on my fibrous soul.
Eat meat - though I'm just a lowly vegetable.
Synchronicity made scientific.
Paranoia is ultra-addictive.
Corruption keeps itself in check.
Botanicals deserve your utmost respect.
Eat meat.
Eidolon Ascension (Sudden Death)
Copyright 1988, 2008, 2011 Ernest Bloom.
I wrote a new song for acoustic guitar.
My producer said: "Make it electric, it'll carry you far.
Sell off that old pick-up truck and buy a fast car."
I wrote a new song for acoustic guitar.
I didn't mind the chicken moving on my plate.
It's no worse than the last moments of a first date.
I just wish you'd been more cryptic about what you love and what you hate.
I didn't mind the chicken moving on my plate.
So you crossed the River Jordan before your time and took
A suite at the Motel of Lost Companions where the greatest late artists reside.
You were on the brink of super-stardom, but they told me you suddenly died.
Now they'll give you a star.
You're a friend of mine wherever you are.
I'll drink an unvoiced toast to you and shelter you in memory.
I'll bear you like a shield when this living leaves me tired and lonely.
And if I had the chance to tell you one last thing only,
I'd thank you for the road you showed us, the dreams you walked in and the stories you told us.
And when I'm feeling blue, in dreams I'll walk with you.
I'll play out the scenes only in my dreams.
Only in dreams,
In beautiful, beautiful dreams.
Now I wear these shades of blue so you can't see my eyes.
They may be cheap and dirty, but it's a useful disguise.
It's eidolon ascension, ruin on the rise.
I wear shades of blue so you can't see my eyes.
Majesty #1
Copyright 1988, 2008, 2011 Ernest Bloom.
In the misty shades of dusk and umber
And the rumble of distant thunder
I watched the eagle soaring through
The summer's evening sky
In the silence like a holy stone
The visions seen are not the visions shown.
The harvest grown springs not from the seeds sewn
But you don't think to wonder why
All the bleary buttes melted in shadow
Wild erosion sculpts a mesa-tapered plateau
And the river's a silver ribbon when
The last light hits it right
All the canyon faces turned to pink and rust
The skeleton oak shivered in a gust
Of a canyon breeze. I knew I must be
Seeing beyond my given sight.
And the night spilled across the land then
The Milky Way spanning the canyon
The cool breeze lifting, gliding,
Flying above the boulder and the tree
And the eagle's floated down to her nest
The world settling down to rest
You always suspect what you'd never guess
Pressing back the curtains of majesty
Eater of Souls
Copyright 1989, 2008, 2011 Ernest Bloom.
Eater of souls
You devour my blood
You befoul me in mud
You slink back to the shoals
Clutcher of breath
You wait in a dark place
You anticipate my face
As you embrace me in death
Master of ghouls
You love your dank swamp
Where your victims rot
And your minions drool
Maker of evil
Taking delight in the terror
Are you the sin-bearer
The Egyptian boll weevil
Now your black flag's unfurled
Tattered white hair blowing
Your black maw is growing
To swallow the world
These horrors I dream of
Did I finally discover
An authentic dream lover or another
Vampire of love
Everything
Copyright 1989, 2008, 2011 Ernest Bloom.
I came crawling across the desert
My lips were black and cracked
The Arab with the curling beard
Smiled and handed me a golden cup
Of sand
I passed within a dream
Where you waited at a golden oasis
And you gave me relief
You are everything to me
I can see the geometry now
Underpinning our relationships
There's a satellite turning in the atmosphere
There's a laser pulsing underneath your skin
There's a spider stretching through the miles
On his silken skein called heritage
There's a smudge of blood on your cheek
It's a crimson tear when you blink
We were bloated on the high seas
Dead bodies where the ship went down
Sharks were tearing at old flesh
Sun-baked
Bright shining hummingbird
Lift us up give us new life
You are the angel in soft leather with iridescent wings
You are everything to me
I can hear the silent music
Backbeat of the world
There's a waterfall of crystal velvet
There's a gentle rain on your face
There's a cave beyond a gravestone
There's a crypt that's shot with treasure
There's a fish that walks among men
There's a wish that keeps us going
There's a sewing woman with a big dog
There's a frog prince with a golden ball
We were falling up into the sky
Riding on a sparking fountain
You were spinning in a white dress
I wore a white tuxedo
A magnetism of mystical proportion
Archangels sounding silver trumpets
We beheld the four corners of the world
But of all that I could see
You remained everything to me
And we can taste the nectar of Heaven now
Honey on our tongues
There's a delicate bone that makes the new phone ring
There's a dinosaur that creeps invisible
Flux and flicker
There's a zipper that protects the stars
There's a bar fly with both wings broken
There's a ruby jewel you can walk inside
There's a demon with holy light in his eyes
There's a trigger and it can be fired
There's a hired killer who can't find his prey
There's a day for the two of us
There's a night of trust that's coming
You will meet up with me
There's a hinged moment when you'll finally truly see
You were always everything to me
Felinity
Copyright 1989, 2008, 2011 Ernest Bloom.
She comes to me when
I Least expect it
And the city busts open
Leaves me disconnected
Priestess of the earth
Renew the birth of our union
Offer communion at our reunion
Light up the tall tiara
I've butchered cattle fresh from dreaming
Scheming mildly in fallow fields
The unconscious river yields
A monstrous new catch
I'm a cat
Cat's eye
You pry
What you saw
Cat's claw
You're a rat
What it ain't but
What it seem
Pyramid slaves scream
What you thought you seen
Did ya did ya
Ingots of gold stacked
In the sun's heart
Like junked cabs or
Clumped crabs
I'm mystified
Hostage lover
Flag strips bind your eyes
I'm free to foment dissent
Chaos spring from the white noise heart
Of blood and dark
After-hours critics
Why don't you write your own tickets
In neon crayons along steel canyon walls
Or with your leaky fountain pens inside your garbage bins
Coiling spring in the darkness
Is there no savior now among us
Whence springs sorrow there founts hope
Tightening spring tension building
The determination and the danger that you bring
So the thirsty pattern's exploding
In our genes
Fire shining blue guns for
Succeeding kings
Or for hire and you know
Surely what that means
The motorcycle loner done us
No hero's now among us
Just a giant with a broken jaw
Who knows what he saw
Scrapes my throat raw
Just like cat's claw
She comes to me
When I neglect the sparking fountain
She's an angel from the hollow mountain
Egyptian goddess be near now
Take my sorrow and don't cry
She sighs and wipes a tear from
Her clear blue cat's eye
Fighting Fires
Copyright 1989, 2008, 2011 Ernest Bloom.
Me and my attorney got a special relationship
I'm the dog he's the tick
I call him up when I get in a fix
Man he knows some clever tricks
This snake's for hire
We're walking on a wire
This snake's for hire
We're walking on a wire
Me and my attorney got a special relationship
I'm the dog he's the tick
I call him up when I get in a fix
Man he knows some clever tricks
This snake's for hire
We're walking on a wire
This snake's for hire
You throw money at a fire
Holstein Dream
Copyright 1989, 2008, 2011 Ernest Bloom.
He woke up with ice cubes in his lungs today
He felt the sun was far away
The years hung like a stone at his neck
The brave bull's beautiful life was a wreck
And the sky crashed down around his head
Smashing into his king-size water bed
His wife rolled over and asked him
What's that that you said
He tried to recapture the days gone by
The fleecy clouds the pie in the sky
But the pretty clouds that he'd seen
Were nothing but a holstein dream
With country kitchens and checkered curtains
And barnyard plays and fishing days
Just dead brown fields that never grew green
Nothing but a holstein dream
Like a pig in a poke with a sharp stick stuck down its throat
It was nothing he could hope to joke about
Like a young man of wealth who's been stripped of health
Or a surrounded general overcome with doubt
Like a ship at shore when the tsunami hits
It was much too late to sail away
The gods he'd prayed to were hypocrites
There was no time to learn a new way to pray
And no place to go to get away from it all
The attraction of the mall was just too big
And the country boy was a city pig
No roof to raise or trench to dig
The country boy was a city pig
Oh my God where'd I go wrong
All my life I tried so hard
To do the things I thought were right
This role of Job is a bitter reward
For a life-long struggle against the night
My wife who seemed so satisfied
Is leaving me to find herself
My son and heir has lost his mind
And married a tramp who's after his wealth
God I only want an empty field
To lie down in and hide my face
In Gaea's breast I'll make my shield
I've looked many places but in every place
I see visions that can only mean
My life's work was a holstein dream
Was the milk just clotted and not rich with cream
Was it only just a holstein dream
And the brave young bull was hollow and old
And his fervent heart broke and turned cold
And the quiet realities of relationships he'd denied
Became a cage to confine him 'til his cold heart died
And the cows out in the alfalfa and clover
Grazed stupidly as the cattle trucks rolled over
They loaded each one meek as a mouse
And drove them to the slaughterhouse
They bred them for timidity and efficient yields
To yearn for fleecy clouds and fertile fields
But the pretty clouds that they had seen
Were nothing but a holstein dream
With catfish jumping in the river
And warm campfires when the night shivered the trees
With a bitter breeze shadowing the silent spring
Nothing but a holstein dream
He woke up with ice cubes in his lungs today
He felt the sun was far away but
He smiled and touched his young wife's neck
The holstein dream's not over yet
King Boogie
Copyright 1989, 2008, 2011 Ernest Bloom.
Are you the King babe
The King of rock-n-roll
When you died tell me
Baby where'd you go
A matter of pride
Or something you don't show
Are you the King babe
The King of rock-n-roll
Should I maybe kneel
Kiss the ground at your feet
Are you an angel
Or some jerk off the street
All your magic power
Could not save you from defeat
Should I kneel before you
Kiss the ground at your feet
You must be spinning baby
Like a top inside your tomb
Is it crowded in there
Or is there plenty of elbow room
How's it feel to be immortal
Did you gracefully embrace your doom
You must be spinning baby
Like a top inside your tomb
They use you to sell tabloids
You must be shuddering with pride
You once had the Midas touch
But you were a slob the day you died
You're a warning to your inheritors
Who came along for the ride
They use you to sell tabloids
You must be shuddering with pride
You've got devoted disciples now
Baby you're on a roll
Too bad you're beyond their worship
It might have saved your soul
Throw away the sequins
But it's a belated goal
Are you the King babe
The King of rock-n-roll
Safety
Copyright 1989, 2008, 2011 Ernest Bloom.
I used to want to see the world
But I never liked to fly
I was too afraid of falling
Down out of the sky
Safety safety
Build me an iron suit of armor
Weld me in real tight
Life in the modern world
Doesn't feel right
I took my family to the mall
To buy them imported toys
They deserved a special Christmas
They'd been good girls and boys
Safety safety
Sears Roebuck blossomed in a fireball
The wounded were bleeding everywhere
If they don't start doing mandatory strip searches
I won't be taking my family back there
I'd like to live out in the sticks
Watch the clouds and aeroplane traces
I'd put turrets on my country home
Shoot down strangers at thirty paces
Safety safety
It seems reasonable on the surface
But I think it might spell trouble
I'd prefer the claustrophobia but
How long does oxygen last inside a bubble
If I had a rocket ship
We could sail away beyond detection
And never be afraid of falling
When up's in every direction
Safety safety
With tubes of meat and stockpiled Tang
I'd laugh at the news on my TV
My wife and kids playing magnetic Monopoly
I'd really love my canned family
Table Scraps
Copyright 1989, 2008, 2011 Ernest Bloom.
Hear the cell song
Keep the beat and march along
You can't stand alone for long
You can't resist the cell song
I'm scribbling in the red-hot rain
Peel back another layer of my brain
So you can stick your thin steel probes in
And map the pools of social poison
I'm waiting on an aeroplane
To fly away from my native pain
And if I could I would set Estevanico's head on an iron spike
And cut Coronado into bait-sized strips and go
Fishing for northern pike
I got blisters on my callused hands
Catching hazardous waste balloons at Disneyland
I dreamed of drowning but I did not worry
In my dreams the hangman does not hurry
General Custer came to my house looking for a place
To make a stand and save some face but I
Kicked him out and barred the door
I know what he really came around for
I walk by the open doors in New Orleans
Where you can look inside and know what it all means
And I think about Sweet Jane who really let me down
And I wonder what kind of lover she finally found
Richard Nixon calls me to his table and he buys me a drink
I'm grateful but I shudder every time he speaks
I smooth the dew off my bottle of beer
Thinking how easily a worm like him could disappear
In a swamp down here
You can't quell the cell song
Ring the bell and it rings on
You can't escape the surf and roar
Or forsake the surge and debris on the shore
Emotion has a death-grip on life
You'll loathe your loyal loving wife
Encapsulated in your fading fantasy
Captivated by the things you can't quite see
You're a stone that I carried too long in my heart
I'm tossing you out I don't want you no more
You're a diamondback rattlesnake that's wrapped around my chest
I guess you're the one that I love best
Hear the cell song
Keep the beat and march along
You can't stand alone for long
You can't resist the cell song
I've got a brain that's like an onion
It can make you cry
On my big toe I've got a bunion
I feel like I could die
Mike Wallace has been talking to my friends
I hope he's not planning some big expose
All my enemies are looking at me
But I'm looking the other way
So you think it's time you got divorced
You were always a push-over when it came to fashion
No you say she's got claws in place of fingers
And her razor teeth she's been seen gnashin'
And her eyes have been flashin' laser beams
And she screams like a tiger when you make love
Tell you the truth I've heard of stranger things
When you shot the dice what were you thinkin' of
The sparks of mentholated memories bring a chill
When I blow upon them to stoke them up
Just black scenes of histories but I can't get my fill
She was the sweet hemlock in my loving cup
You can't quell the cell song
Ring the bell and it rings on
Love and anger fail as tools
To try to bind emotion to rules
You rationalize your fear of falling
In God-given talent or some manufactured calling
A child perceives only love and fear
A man feels when the maw draws near
Red crabs scuttle all over my skull
Smoke curls 'round the towers under the moon
Bleached bones are dancing around a harvest bonfire
To a snazzy banjo and steel guitar
The world is limned in lightning blasts
The glory seems fitting but it never lasts
I think of marksmen in Texas towers
And Ophelia at the riverside looking for flowers
I peel back my brain and pluck another orange segment
And pop it into my mouth for your entertainment
And if I could I surely would go back to Texas and steal her away
And ride off into the sunset singing kai-yi-yippie-yippie-yai yippie-yai
Kai-yi-yippie-yippie-yai
The Good Earth
Copyright 1989, 2008, 2011 Ernest Bloom.
He woke up he felt distraught
His life and neck in a choking knot
It was a noose he'd tied with pride
Now too convoluted to be untied
His features were sour he said nothing to his wife
She was a chain he'd lugged around most of his life
And his kids whom he loved more than he could say
Were an anchoring ball that got heavier every day
He said nothing he just went outside
To the decaying farm where he'd brought his bride
And he took it all in stride
Yes he took it all inside
This good earth is mine
This good earth will sustain me
This good earth will forgive me
This good earth is my redemption
He tried to milk his cow in the dawn's hue
He fed her corn she gave back tar and glue
He tried to shoe the horse to prevent her going lame
She kicked him in the teeth he felt it jar his brain
So he left to repair his protective fence
The barbed wire bit into his hands
Another day's damning evidence
He could not master his own plans
He was a control freak he was wired for life
He was cut down by trivial pursuits
He felt it in his temples like a knife
He wiped his head and blood dripped his boots
It mixed in the clay and around the crop roots
He thought it might put up early shoots
This good earth is mine
This good earth will sustain me
This good earth will forgive me
This good earth is my redemption
But he was no warden of the land
He was an isolationist who could not arrest the blowing sand
Or the run-off cutting down his borders
Or time assigning his companions conflicting orders
And as his focus narrowed and his anger unfolded
His vision collapsed and his sense of justice exploded
And the noose jerked him right up off his feet
'Til he was swinging high and swinging neat
And he prayed inside his head
But not to God but to the land instead
This good earth belongs to me
This good earth only I will sustain
This good earth I alone can maintain
I know its wants it knows my needs
I am soil and this good earth is me
Up came the cold hands
The hands came rising
Up rising came the hands out of the good earth
He could feel them around his ankles
The weight of the world pulling at his heels
Tight fingers clamped around his boots
Increasing the tension of the noose
There was no last wind
The good earth dimmed in his eyes and the knot snapped
It caught him in the back like a bullwhip crack
It sucked him down in cool brown loam
It sucked him down into a lonely narrow home
It swallowed him up he was lost to his land of birth
They never saw him again
Sucked down into the good earth
Up Here
Copyright 1989, 2008, 2011 Ernest Bloom
up here you can see the ends of the world
handfuls of little stars angry gods hurled down
turning on a saddle point
on the peeling surface between the spheres
i can't go on but i
can't go back
i love the jealous diamonds but i can't explain
the burning skein of pain that binds and blinds us
tries hard to define us
and fails so miserably
lost in a crowded wilderness with no one here to guide us
up here you can hear silence like a new sensation
and the sounds of failing communication that separate that below from above
and lovers from love
i'm a joker without an audience
i'm a fool dancing upon the ledge
i'm edging up to a new truth
i'm a turtle laboring in yesterday's hard shell
i'm in a hell of a mess up here all by myself
looking down on the wilderness
there's no temptation now among men
to induce me to be like them again
up here i hear the silent wind and descend
lobo solo like a monk who slipped the bars
a handful of stars enshrouded in sheepskin
White Hat
Copyright 1989, 2008, 2011 Ernest Bloom.
I'm one of the good guys baby
I wear a white hat
And if I get scared and run away
I always come back
I got a six-shooter
And a Navajo guide
I got a feeling it's time
To go for a long ride
You got a good reason
To hold out for a while
To every season
You bring a smile
Right now I'm freezin' but
I can last another mile
I shot down the false doctors
Rode like the wind for the Alps
My Navajo took their steel funnels
In lieu of the traditional scalps
A little boy in blue was holding daisies
He bothered me he was too out of place
Boschian fever tore my flesh like bullets
Now I can't forget his face
Animator Animator
He's the animator
I dreamed you let me in your room
I could smell the sweet perfume
Your big bed cool and soft like a rack
I could feel you claw my back
And in my moment of sanctimony
You pulled the rope and the steel blade
Crashed down in righteous testimony
To the oaths we never made
We got us a hide-out in the mountains baby
We're the only ones who know where it's at
We wait for the posse to come blasting away
Sometimes it ain't so easy when you're wearing a white hat
World for Two
Copyright 1989, 2008, 2011 Ernest Bloom.
We need a brand new shining god
Someone we can crucify
Something we can live for
Justify a new excuse to die
We need a new nigredo
Dead black bird
Putrefaction blind and numb
I am black but comely
O ye daughters of Jerusalem
Misty landscape of ruin and loss
The serpent is nailed to the cross
The albedo glowers in the great glass
Transubstantiation of the white stone
Moonshine on the crossroads
All flesh turns to limestone
Dark Death Valley nights
Bright Las Vegas lights
A man cries aloud in agony
And bleeds white light into an alley
Wagon wheels and skeletons of mules
Pale bones in the moonlight
Swirling curl of bauxite
Red dawn rubedo
Libation and cibation
Sublimation
Consecration
Fermentation
Exaltation
Projection
Yod He Vau He
Let us meet together at the cafe
You come to me then you turn away
And I've got to get back
To New Orleans
I've got to recover
The febrile dreams
O Dreaming City
You are not Tereu
O Dreaming City DA
You are behind mine eyes
Flicker of the pale skies
You are wise
Be with me always
Always be with me
DA DA DA DA
A world for two
I envision a world for two
And everything else is just a backdrop for our amusement
My universe is big enough for just the two of us
We are the one thing
We are the god
Alchemy transforms this power
Into the philosopher's stone
A world for two
A world for two
A world for two
No revolution that's all been done before
You and me
A world for two
Crushing Life
Copyright 1989, 2008, 2011 Ernest Bloom.
Aren't we all the same
Nothing seems to change
2000 years of progress
The suffering remains
To me you're an art-lover
I'm a nest-builder to you
Your secrets I won't uncover
My facts just bewilder you
I'm a dust mote
I'm a fly speck
You're my goddess
What d'you expect
I feel the same way you do
You feel like I do too
A neuron in the universe fires
An opportunity missed, a life expires
Just to make you smile a while
That's my only plan
One taste of your parting lips
Just to brush your hand
I'm a spark in the dark
Of the pressing millennia
I'm a broken piece of night
That can't be reassembled right
I'm being slowly crushed to dust
Under the weight of God
I might last another fifty years
If I survive your loves and fears
If I can kiss away your tears
Dark Design
Copyright 1989, 2008, 2011 Ernest Bloom.
dark side dark side
coils of fear
you are ever near
keeping friends and other strangers
at a distance
an evil sentence to amend
original sin
take this example that it
never happen again
so you're finding it difficult to get close to me
i'll hand you no excuses there's more here than meets the eye
i contain and control a hurricane
product of a dark side
with more moving parts engaging
than i'd ever have designed
had the design been mine
raging silence
mad to control
mental assault
psychological dismemberment blow by blow
shut up shut up
hold your tongue
the peter pan curse you shall stay
forever young
most people can escape it
let it slide though it rises now and then
but i can't subjugate it
it's central to my self-knowledge
believe me when i tell you
i stand before you without defense and powerless
don't fish too deeply beneath the surface
you'll catch a monster eager to devour us
coiling spring in the darkness
is there no savior now among us
whence springs sorrow there founts hope
tightening spring tension building
the determination and the danger that you bring
to die to sleep
to sleep perchance to dream
ay there's the rub
for in that sleep of death what dreams may come
when we have shuffled off this mortal coil
must give us pause
there's the respect that makes calamity
of so long life
pulleys gears springs and levers
a complicated dark design
behind a paranoid fleeting glimpse
severed young from self-confidence
pitiful soul-carvers with notched knives
pre-empting lives thrust futures aside
leaving blinded men with patchwork plans
to construct self-destructive dark sides
Get Away
Copyright 1989, 2008, 2011 Ernest Bloom.
It's time to get away now baby
From the complicated noise that surrounds you
There's all these faces
In all these places
Monitoring every gambit you pursue
It's time to get away now baby
From the values these strangers embrace
There's a woman in fine clothes
White line under her nose
Laughing at our lack of grace
It's time to get away now baby
From these angry streets
Horns are honking
Nothing's more shocking
Than my list of defeats
It's time to get away now baby
The party's much too phony for me
The beautiful people I trusted
Have corroded and rusted
Under thin veneers of piety
It's time to get away now baby
Before they throw us out of here
Makes 'em feel so smart
Pulling us apart
Their motives are much too clear
It's time to get away now baby
Better split while the splitting's good
My spirit's fading to gray
Time slips away
You know you said you would if you could
It's time to get away now baby
Guess I gotta chose a track to ride upon
Don't dreams always come true
In ways mysterious to you
Tell me baby whose side are you on
It's time to get away now baby
Chisel some rules to guide us
Come along for the ride
Baby stick by my side
There's no future that's denied us
Inside Out
Copyright 1989, 2008, 2011 Ernest Bloom.
how do you take it
you take it inside
when there's no place to run to
take it inside
shuffling your deck of faces
take it inside
but when you're out in public
you're laughing on the outside
shriveling like a prune inside
we're not like those other people
we're strong enough to take it inside
maybe they know something about love
but we're blue chip certified about pride
the hard kind that shelters you inside
slip into a shark skin shirt
and smile so they can see the teeth
infect them with your own rotten doubt
turn their secret nightmares inside out
world's a deadly place deadly place
gotta take it inside
no one out there you can trust
take it inside
don't show no emotion
anything you say will be used against you
though sometimes the loneliness might seem too much to bear
the worst sin you can commit is to show you care
suck in your gut and bury your doubt
or your weakness will turn you
inside out
Quietude
Copyright 1989, 2008, 2011 Ernest Bloom.
Ignorant armies clash by night
To alter the face of confusion
But tonight in recession I begin to perceive
Accomplishment as time-compressed illusion
Waiting in a dim room beneath my chair
I can feel the silent blue falling sphere
And the years starlight spanned steel-ice space
To slam into my balcony rail
With no one there
So please hear me tonight
Let me in don't question me
Let me near you
Don't fear me
I'm too tired and too detached to fight
I'm too numb to your quick observation
A cloud in a spoon with no sensation
Meaningful matters bear me no relation
I'm not out to make you happy
I'm looking for no saving grace
But I would crawl six miles across the sun
Just to see your face
Big silent sphere roll on
Hollow church bells toll on
Silent melancholy mutating patina
The filters are gone
The soap film has all blown away
Tonight I want to hold you but I
Want you in this slow way
And I, the solitary scarecrow in a friendly disguise
And you, the only God I recognize
No other faith I keep
Now I lay me
Down to sleep
Texcoco
Copyright 1989, 2008, 2011 Ernest Bloom.
I come to fight
I come to die
Flashing obsidian swords cut the gray sky
Singing slicing up the wind
Calf-deep in black mud
The long feather-worked banner
Shimmers like a hummingbird
Quetzalcóatl
And thick-spurting purple blood
Coils thinly in the sucking mud
I've seen all these places
In another time
Lifeless blocks of stoic faces
Priests in filthy robes with knotted hair
I've lived this better life somewhere
I've known this seductive dream of better days
Better times and better men
Other disasters and other ways
Every dream must end
Lightning licking overhead
Rain and mud and blood and thunder
I come searching for
A new wonder
Battle cries over my city
Sacred city
Mighty city on the burning lake
But the gods forsake my city
My city's torn asunder
The white-skinned infidels plunder
Leveling the past as the
Feathery serpent foretold
A curse to kill a living dream
A fever for glittering gold
Road to Heaven
Copyright 1989, 2008, 2011 Ernest Bloom.
The whole place just blew bloody up
Who do you suppose planted that stink bomb
Soon the cops will come running
And firemen still pulling asbestos jeans on
Some moon-jumping cow knows how
If she don't know how then she knows something
We were twisting at the reception
The band playing a pretty lame version of
"Changing of the Guards"
The world fell five feet away from me
I trod on your train and caused a big stink
But you give me a wink cos
You know what I'm thinking
Plaster powder's raining on the groom's family
A mini-series riot right out of NBC
There goes the punch bowl see the yellow peach slices splashing
Those ain't no peaches babe but no one else is laughing
You can catch big mouth bass with bait like that
You know where it's at
The bride's maids are all rolling tumbling down the aisle
Stick around you'll see the Pied Piper in a little while
Honey your groom's off trying to take control of a difficult ordeal
I've just about got the window open so come join me on the sill
Now here comes the best man with your garter in his hand
Some things you're better off not contemplating
How much longer you gonna keep us all waiting
Now some kids are looking my way
The road to salvation's hard to follow but my route is shorter
This situation's getting too dangerous so
Here goes a roll of quarters
Riding to Heaven on a Guernsey
Sometimes your irresolution just burns me up
What's up pup
Where do you want to be next June
Where shall we spend your honeymoon
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