1. |
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The Church of Nothing Matters
As much as nothing matters,
nothing matters as much as
Nothing.
I don't go to church,
this is how I searched for peace,
and found Nothing.
And found...
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2. |
Gazing At My Navel
07:59
|
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Gazing at My Navel
Inevitably all my molecules dissolved,
and then my problems
were all resolved.
I spent a lifetime deciding which ways I should go,
and now that I’m gone
I finally know.
I know that
I have always been
exactly what I’m supposed to be:
nothing more or less than
Grandpa’s answer to mortality.
Imagination thinks of itself as Reality,
but it just imagines itself to be.
The greatest use I ever found for mine is traveling time
by throwing myself into
The Sea of Imagined Infinity.
By just staring at my hands and picturing them decomposing,
feeling my existence as a ripple
on an endless ocean.
Not even a drop,
I will take no substance with me
when I’m finally gone.
Because my body is the same as the Sea,
and this consciousness I think of as “Me”
is nothing more
than the imagined
separation
between
things.
Dying while you’re still alive,
suddenly you open your eyes.
It’s only when you realize that you’re going Nowhere
that you finally arrive.
I saw myself dead, in my head,
and it made me breathe
easy.
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3. |
A Small Life
10:24
|
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A Small Life
Living a small life.
Lost and afraid,
in a safe,
familiar place.
It’s boring here.
But when the world
graciously offers to change,
I hope it stays the same.
Spending the daylight dreading the setting sun,
because I slept too late,
and the nights dreading the coming light,
because the dark feels safe.
Reading an old book,
I walked through an ancient house
alone,
pleasantly surprised
by my own familiar face,
sketched in dust
on an empty mirror,
by a long gone hand.
I laughed
and
disappeared...
Suddenly bursting from the earth,
calmly inhaling the fresh night air
in a dimly lit graveyard.
Walking out into the world,
covered in dirt, feeling clean,
being guided by the light of a long-dead star.
Feeling grateful for my leisurely chores,
at ease,
enjoying life at the grocery store.
Floating just above the heat of the crowd,
untouched but still attached,
both feet on the ground.
A balloon bouncing across the ceiling…
dragged by my three year old hand,
affording a comfortable feeling,
everything according to plan.
Then it hit the light,
and I heard the sound of a bubble bursting
and I hit the ground.
Age 9, a Mel Gibson fan, screaming “FREEDOM!”
at the top of my lungs,
jumping off a high dive.
And then age 25, saying,
“Yeah, but what’s Freedom mean without Risk?”
Locked in a safe…
(Chickenheart.)
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4. |
The Nonexistent Distance
04:12
|
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The Nonexistent Distance
As long as I’m alive, I can never be saved.
Buried in each exhalation:
“My body is a grave.”
And as I survive, am I just a slave?
Cells eat the air I feed them,
they multiply and I age.
Trying to envision
the nonexistent distance
between my Self
and Nonexistence,
I hold my breath and listen...
This heart is just a piston.
This body is a mission,
accomplished
at the moment of conception.
And this “soul” is an accident
of cognition.
I take another breath,
and I give it back.
I take another breath,
and I give it back.
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5. |
The Imaginary Tone
03:10
|
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The Imaginary Tone
In the same way the sun hides the stars all day,
even though they're still there,
that’s the way that my
paralyzed, frenzied mind
blinds itself with its own glare.
I’ve spent my life afraid of the Dark,
but I haven’t seen anything.
I’ve been trapped
in the atmosphere.
And it towers above me
for miles,
and it wraps my perceptions in foam.
And my ears
can’t hear anything
but the imaginary tone
of my own voice,
talking endless shit.
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6. |
Being Nothing
03:04
|
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Being Nothing
I think, and so I am.
But all my thoughts just say:
“You are nothing.”
I don’t know shit.
But I still exist.
I’m tired of wasting all my time
fucking hating it.
There’s an untouched gift.
I don’t open it.
It doesn’t look big enough,
so I throw a fit.
I’m tired of wasting all my time.
I’m tired of wasting all my time.
I’m tired of wasting all my time.
Talking the same shit to myself,
over and over and over and
over and over and over again...
Then a light came on.
And before it shut off,
I noticed that the words were true,
just not the way I thought.
Now that I know
what it means to be
Nothing,
I can finally imagine
what it is
to be Free.
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7. |
A Warm Recollection
02:18
|
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A Warm Recollection
When I’m in bed with you I don’t give a shit
about brushing my teeth.
I don’t give a fuck about waking up for work,
or about getting enough sleep.
Fucking hard on my soft bed,
I feel an intimate connection to the dead,
countless, unknown people who came before me,
my entire ancient family tree, back to the trees.
Picturing the stone, and the embers of the fire in the cave,
and the straw mats and the feather beds,
of the dead kings and the dead slaves,
and then the car seats, and the couches,
and all the centuries of sex with no protection,
my body fills up with the wonderful feeling
of escaping rejection
and this warm recollection of ancestral affection, uh huh...
Somewhere in the deep unwritten future,
rich people overcome death.
They spend their endless lives time traveling backward,
just to watch us have sex.
They don’t have bodies anymore,
breathing starts seeming like a chore,
after a few thousand years.
There’s not much excitement in a life without fear of Death.
So they wish they were us:
Bumbling through selfish lives and selflessly returning to dust.
And having good reasons to love and to hate
and to hope and create
and to lust.
There’s even less meaning
in a life without rust.
|
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8. |
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A Platitude
I scream
for ice cream.
And when it comes
I feel sick.
With guilt and regret,
for throwing a fit.
I bit the tit of The World,
but still got fed.
Fed up with myself,
I scream
for a new attitude.
I’m hateful.
I’m hateful.
It’s shameful
to be so ungrateful.
I lack nothing but that.
I’m lucky.
I’m lucky.
I’m lucky.
I win.
I’m lucky.
I’m lucky.
I’m lucky.
I see:
There’s plenty.
There’s plenty.
There’s more than enough for me.
Go ahead help yourself, it’s free.
Go ahead help yourself, it’s free.
Go ahead, help yourself,
good luck.
There’s more than enough Fuckups.
A Final Understanding
“I finally understand!”
Over and over and over and over and over
again and again and again...
And I start to make plans,
based on my newfound perspective,
but it doesn’t work out,
I freak the fuck out too soon,
over and over and over.
So now, what can I do?
Trapped in these seemingly separate lives,
and trying to get on the right side,
and failing, and hating myself
for being dumb enough to try.
I’ve got an angel and a devil
perched upon opposing shoulders
and their coaxing and opinions
poach attention from the center.
And I’m staring at the mirror saying:
“The center is where my head is.”
And in the center of my head, I feel the root of Imagination,
and I focus my attention and watch my facial features fading,
and I hollow out my head
and kill The Myth of Separation.
And those formerly sworn enemies crawl into the husk of my head,
and embrace in dirty fucking, and my body is their soft bed,
and there is no dirty talking, that noisy train has left the station, bearing words which serve no purpose but to kill communication
with the actual world of actual satisfaction
I’ve been chasing like a tail...
And I finally understand.
Over and over and over and then finally
it’s over.
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Bad History Month Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
5/18 nyc miguels baby, 137 w 14th manhattan
5/19 meriden ct 50 high st
5/20 somerville
library - 40 college ave
5/21 troy ny - 42 4th St
5/22 ithaca ny - 115 E State St
5/25 pittsburgh - Blood Garden
5/26 mansfield, OH - mothership
5/27 kzoo mi - Recreation Collective
5/28 Chicago - The Apartment
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5/30 state college dm it baby
6/1 - bartrams gardens philly 2pm
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