1. |
The Smoke
05:00
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I wasn’t there at the Safeway where
Our Congresswoman got shot in the parking lot.
I wasn’t there, I wasn’t there.
I wasn’t there, I was barely here at all.
I wasn’t anywhere, but when the smoke sucked you in,
I was there.
And by the time I arrived, everybody was high.
He had the KGUN 9 live feed
Hooked up through his new Apple TV.
You were on the couch shaking and crying and barely watching.
Call it vain, call it valiant: called our parents, killed the Valium.
But that day was the start of so much of our own pain.
I have memories inside me of collecting monetary contributions.
I was sixteen, just driving, it was her very first campaign.
I never voted, you knew better. You were twenty and her intern.
You woke up sick that day, called out of work that day,
All that went down at the Safeway,
You should have been there.
That’s what I heard you say as KGUN 9 read the names
And the President said he’d shortly be there to read us a prayer.
“It’s okay to feel scared.”
There were others I knew better.
You and I were never that close.
You were on the couch and our friends rolled spliffs.
I just watched you through the smoke.
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2. |
Your Next Record
03:23
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We were young, we were dumb,
No one’s contesting that.
On a play set off of Rosemont,
A few things happened several times.
Smoking cigarettes our teacher bought us
Before she got caught,
Still don’t know who talked,
But she never taught in Tucson after that.
There were two swing sets,
“One for children, one for smaller children.”
That was the joke you made.
Six months later, we were taking acid and you asked me
Why I’m laughing.
This is memory, this is memory.
That’s another story.
By that time I wasn’t living on Calle Vista de Colores.
I guess we were each other’s first time a few times.
Pretty weird to see you here in New York with your new band.
I brought my girlfriend, you guys always got along.
We were young, we were dumb, we were never in love.
We both knew that, but I still felt bad
Because every time I used to see you
Something would happen that we wouldn’t plan to.
Something would happen that we wouldn’t mean to.
Like trying acid for the first time on your bed,
Or that party at Arthur’s house (but I don’t talk about that).
I’m not trying to cosplay glory days because now we’re friends.
I don’t know why
When I thought about my house on Calle Vista de Colores,
The first thing that I thought about was you
And how I cannot wait to hear
Your next record.
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3. |
Kasey's Song
03:39
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I’ve heard everyone’s halcyon days, no matter the place,
Come and go.
I know you were worried your poetry told me too much.
I’m tired of reading, tired of breathing the stale
Desert air.
I know you were born here,
And you know you wait for monsoons
Or graduate into a honeymoon.
You collapsed on my bed and you confessed
To an inherited sense of dread.
You talked of the grief horse your dad bought you
The last time it felt this bad,
And then you never talked about it again.
Where did your horse go, Kasey?
Where did your horse go, Kasey?
You’ve had such sad eyes lately.
Needless to say, you never made it back from winter break.
Where did your horse go, Kasey?
Where did your horse go, Kasey?
Who went out riding when you dropped out, got married?
There are pictures of you in Guam, two babies.
There are poems I saved from the halcyon days.
Are you happy?
I guess I wouldn’t know quite how to tell.
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4. |
Goff's Song
02:41
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There was that summer you had the get-rich-quick scheme:
Buy up some bikes,
And fix them up on Sixth Street.
You went down to the auction.
The place was pulsing with policemen.
And with my seed contribution,
You went all in. You went all in.
You bought all thirty-five broken bikes.
Suffice it to say, that summer slipped away.
The autumn, the winter, both did the same.
The morning he shot her,
There were bicycle frames strewn along the staircase,
And chained along the fence was the one you’d fixed
With no brakes.
When we recovered,
You went out riding
Down Euclid
Towards Sixth Street
And another day.
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5. |
Escape From Biosphere 2
02:42
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See you soon.
There’s a light leak in the last sealed roof
Of Biosphere 2.
I’m waist deep in fizzing uncontrolled photons
Frying flora like only Sonora can.
Golf ball of the highway,
Fairway of the 10.
Data’s in the trash can,
In the rough again.
I swear I’m leaving,
I swear I’m climbing out the roof.
Just give me ‘til the glass gets cleared.
Give me 2.2,
I guess I’ll see you soon.
Give me 2.2.
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6. |
Vigil On
02:25
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I’ve been to Strawberry Fields.
I’ve been to Hank Sr.’s grave.
I stood in line for a day and saw Reagan lying in state.
I’ve seen the look on your face
As April recedes into May,
Your brother’s birthday.
In the absence of faith, I saw the light on your face.
In the absence of faith, I saw the light on your face.
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7. |
She Loves You
03:03
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It was warm the night you first met:
Your grandma’s car behind the Target.
The window fog you’ll never forget,
And how for two years you really loved her.
Stocking up for Patagonia,
The motor stuck and that’s when you ‘fess up.
That was the fall she was to follow you to college,
She was enrolled and packed up.
“Alex, I don’t love her.”
I said, “She loves you, yeah yeah yeah yeah.”
“And with a love like that…”
Two years gone, and it’s cold in Flagstaff.
You took her call inside Bookmans.
She was stranded so she called you,
Yeah you got her, got to talking,
All you remember’s how she told
She grew up with the shooter.
“It’s strange how people change.”
And so she exits,
And she thanks you,
Yeah yeah yeah yeah.
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8. |
Linus & Lucy
03:26
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Another life. Another time zone entirely.
Those of us who up and left,
Never to return again.
Who could really blame us then?
The local scene was dead.
Lovers, friends, parents, and Congresswomen.
These are whom I leave behind.
Celebrated in my mind
For carrying the desert’s weight
Until it breaks.
It will break.
And when it breaks,
You may not break,
But it will break.
It will burn.
We’ll return,
And we will thirst,
And it will burn.
Smoke will rise.
We’ll catch our flights.
From the sky,
I’ll spy the Mission
Burnished white
As the palm trees fry
And the cacti cry
With everlasting life.
But the homes down south weren’t so lucky.
And the lives up north weren’t so lucky.
Your folks on the east side are tending their property,
And my mother is in the backyard feeding everything remaining.
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9. |
Winter Breaks
07:27
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When you turned twenty-one, I left my house late.
That’s just like me.
A little warm for March and a bit too far to walk,
But here I come.
We ran out of things to say by winter break of eighth grade.
Then we dated, then we didn’t.
Took a year for me to look at you.
But you, you waited.
When you turned twenty-one, we all did shots at the Auld Dub.
They were on fire, and so were you.
We were tired, but you pulled through.
You always manage to.
When you turned twenty-one your night did not go how you planned.
Your night did not go how you meant it to.
I was long gone.
I left your party early.
That’s just like me.
One last winter break, not quite twenty-two.
Took me nine months to hang out with you.
We collapsed and we confessed our numbers,
Yours one higher, that’s just fine.
You never saw that coming, you said.
You told me about your birthday, you said,
“I always figured it would be us two.”
And as the cold breaks, here is us two.
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10. |
The Sky
02:15
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I try to remember when I was younger.
I cannot. I cannot.
I try to remember driving my car home.
I cannot. I cannot.
I saw the stoplight fade in the flicker
Of candles and voters crowded in vesper.
The KGUN 9 ‘copter slowed to a shudder.
Shatter.
Recover.
On Swan Road.
“So peaceful.”
The sky over Swan Road, guiding my car home.
So peaceful.
“So peaceful.”
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Trochee Trochee Brooklyn, New York
A chilly midnight jam in a young Michael Stipe's basement, we've stayed in the country too long.
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