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1. |
Good Evening
03:55
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good evening
you're a fine looking group
and your faces make expressions
that decide which songs I'm going to do
in this dark inner observatory
it's a fine night for sharing songs and stories
like this one time when I was still young
I mean- I'm still young now
but I was younger when this happened...
I sang a song that was quite similar to this one
and when I sang the words
they scattered like a flock of birds in mid-September
frightened by some shotgun blast
but no one heard me
do you hear me at all?
sometimes I think about the people in the towers
playing games on their computers
unaware and unconcerned
in the moments just before the fire and screaming
they are all up there
daydreaming of the weekend or a Friday night
at any moment we'll be dying
I've got maybe 22,000 nights 'til I am old
and I am lying in my own waste with my daughter by my side
and she is old too
and she's not born yet as I'm writing this to you
what does any of this mean?
what should I do to make these moments matter?
moonlight scatters on the ashes of this small life
I am flattered to be anything at all
sometimes I think about the day when we are parents
standing there with Hannah
looking in our infants eyes
we are all tracks on a CD of fleeting moments
this is your life so own it
it's important that you are here
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2. |
Impossible
03:20
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I am naked
and holding your hand
I will make it
not how you planned
I am impossible to know
it is impossible to exist
I am impossible and you are impossible
I am fragile
such delicate bones
invisible seamstress
speak through my headphones
I am impossible to know
it is impossible to exist
I am impossible and you are impossible
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3. |
Cincinnati
03:46
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I guess I was a bit confused
I hadn’t really heard from you since we were fifteen
and you called me
said that you had given up
cincinnati wasn’t much like your hometown
you were so, so sad to be alive
oh and you were moving in with your dad
I guess you got along better
or, maybe, if he didn’t understand you-
at least sometimes he tried to
the cold was a change from south carolina
and your mom had the light sucked out of her
when she caught him banging out his problems with the girl
working overnights at the KWIK mart
and your grandpa called
and encouraged her to move back in with them in ohio
called me from a mini-mart
told me that your brothers car suddenly broke down
from a payphone
asked if I was still in west end
told me that you’d need a ride and I could tell
you’d been crying
oh and you were back in town for a funeral
your friend Rebecca
I didn’t know the name but you insisted that I knew her
the cold wrapped around you
like I would have if you’d stayed
I played guitar those days
and you would sing your cryptic poetry
and you lingered by the window
when I dropped you off in Oakley
left a piece of yourself behind
and I pray to it sometimes
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4. |
Quiet Songs
03:36
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I was born on a wire
baptized too young
I was taught to hold a gun before I learned my own name
my daddy was an angry wasp
an impossible equation
he had a high school education and a star fish to tame
nobody listens to the quiet songs
everybody knew I was a dark kind of kid
I cut my words on my lips my peers didn’t know
and they were always talking
I can still hear them now
I was different somehow- I was born into this
nobody listens to the quiet songs
I was older when I learned that you gotta yell
and summon some hell
if you want to be heard
it is not a god-given right to be alive
you’ve got to fight
and if you play your hand well, you might get into heaven
nobody listens to the quiet songs
and I got scared when you were dying
it changed the melody for me
between the stones we threw to keep ourselves from crying
and the soft moments composed of unsung harmonies
I didn’t think that things would be perfect
I just thought you would listen
I just thought you would hear
lying their all fragile and hurting,
I imagined it different
I imagined you cared in the ways I needed you to
you sang for me
but I sang for you too
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5. |
Good Ship Jesus
03:10
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there was a knotted root below the hanging tree
I went to gather fruit before my ship came
the grass was stained & wet
I touched my tongue to it
I heard the whip crack and I couldn't help but sing
here come the good ship Jesus
rising on the endless sea
there's devils in the hearts of free men
but a savior gonna come for me
I slept a hundred years and woke in Cicero
the barrel cool against the back of my neck
a hot Chicago sun
fell down on everyone
we stared each other down until the protests
here come the good ship Jesus
rising on the endless sea
there's devils in the hearts of free men
but a savior gonna come for me
then I was Alfred Wright and I was Tamir Rice
and I was Sandra Bland and on and on it goes
there is a knotted root
below the hanging tree
it reached deep into the soil down below
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6. |
Waiting
02:55
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honestly
your honesty is poetry you write on me
your letters spill out stories like honey from the hive
I am anxiously waiting trapped in your paintings
there are oceans in between us
but I can still hear you breathe
I want to know you desperately
to find love unfolding like a flower incandescently
to show you these dry rivers deep inside of me
are flowing again
incidentally,
when you met me
I was someone else entirely
trapped in a cul-de-sac of things I never said
you were raining on paintings
bursting in color
hiding in the writing of words that can’t be read
and you said you had imagined
all the reasons I’d been waiting
I just read it in the letters I’ve been saving
and maybe it’s too soon for entertaining that it was for you
but I’ve got reasons for believing this is true
you’re the moon on my face watching stars from the ocean
you are tracing my veins with invisible hands
you’re the magical place I live when I’m singing
an infinity vase of unactualized plans
you, you, you-
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7. |
Arrested
03:33
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I laid there with my belly on the asphalt
an oil stained portrait framed by cigarettes
I was arrested
by the sight of you
standing on the corner,
you were naked in that hand-me-down dress
fountain pen I lifted from the diner
gives me free coffee once a week
I drew a picture of the way you made me feel that day
on a yellowed receipt
It looked like a fire-engine being eaten
by a tyrannosaurus-rex
but you said it was perfect
and described your unique relationship to the cosmos
in a way no ideology or philosophy had ever properly done before
oh hipster girl in the old city
you remind me of Brenda in the 60's
why don't you have coffee with me one of these days?
moonshine breakfast
rise up early
sun come up on TVA
I was arrested by a memory
talked to Brenda all day
it must have looked like I was crazy
but she hears every word
her brother Michael told me that-
he tells me that
enter winter / weeks of isolation
stores don't open, sleep comes hard
hipster girl got a side-cut
she don't look like Brenda no more
oh hipster girl in the old city
you took my Brenda from me
I'll throw words violently at you
I raise hell as you walk across Jackson
cop car parked just in between
I was arrested
by my own confusion
shot down by the police.
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8. |
We Learned To Cry
03:55
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it was dark when I arrived
cold and out of place
but the crystals in your eyes fell into mine
and gave the world around me shape
I learned to cry
the beauty of a child couldn’t mask your open wounds
and I grew up feeling angry at what the world had done to you
you had learned to cry
it seems so soon but it’s been years since you were born
just take my hand and we can make it through this storm
it’s so confusing
I am too young to be anyone’s guide
when I left that day, I lied when I said I knew that I’d be fine
and as I drove away we learned to cry
it seems so soon but it’s been years since I was born
you closed your eyes
now in a moment I’ll be gone
past the mess of powdered glass, shouted words,
bottled gas
just the striking of a match and then a light inside the blast
it was a funeral but, god, it was beautiful
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9. |
Sidewalk
02:51
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though I do not know the language,
I guess I understand
I've been watching this for years
the breaking of the man
and now it isn't just my father and the Priest
it's in my hands
they are trembling with terror
they are splitting at the ends
and growing out of my doubt-
a little faith
I was bleeding out on the pavement
at the Days Inn down on Western when the storm hit
and I watched it
through a haze from all the pills
they gave
me
bit my lip and whispered print I can't remember
prayers like road flares at the wreck in December off I40
and I can't forget the smell
gasoline down my jeans made a thin trail
to a warm puddle
my foot twitched and I switched its position
heard the bone against the gravel
and instantly, with blurred vision,
noticed the warm cloth drenched in oil & blood
laid out like a funeral shroud there on the sidewalk
saw the bumps and knew there was a child beneath
felt the memories
like fetuses inside of me
and then came the worst part
a name
and I- I spoke it
by nightfall,
I drank enough alcohol to drown a memory
then the images made themselves more clear to me
it was eerie
these were nearly the same feelings and fears
that we clasped desperately to in the moment
but there were years between us
in life you have to make a choice
between the newspaper headlines
and internal voice
get a job and a mortgage
and the more you spend, your freedom’s suffocated
but you've made it- you're a big success!
& the moral is you suffer daily or you kill your dreams-
and you still suffer.
though I do not know the language,
I guess I understand
take my place among the villagers-
it's time we made a plan
we can't be owned or operated
we aren't machines
we are men
and we have blood inside our bodies
in our eyes
and on our hands
who are we now?
who are we now?
You know us.
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10. |
We Belong Here
03:36
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just after midnight
ocean breeze
heavy heart beats me down into poem
flecks of moonlight dance on the waves like a flock of crows
the stars reflection are an accurate projection of my dreams
they’re innumerable
and in this one
you are running your fingers through my hair
in the soft light of a starlit night on the ocean
lay me down
I can hear it now
the gentle sound of raindrops
on the roof of our first apartment
and out there in the darkness that surrounds us
how remarkable
that sounds can separate and make a song
we belong here
chapped lips,
ship lists,
this rich, endless poetry of being with you
I can hear you
I can hear you breathing
in the wind that wraps itself around me
in the sound of nameless songs
howling in the beauty of nights like these
lay me down
I can hear it now
the gentle sound of raindrops
on the roof of our first apartment
and out there in the darkness that surrounds us
how miraculous
that sounds separate and make a song
we belong here inside the mystery of facing one another
here inside this endless, burning collage of color
here inside the searching, and the hurting, and the wonder
we belong
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11. |
Midway Motel
03:23
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Rachel’s head in the kitchen sink
she’s dying her hair again
I think it’s red this time- auburn-
not like when she was sixteen
books stacked by the door
to hold the table up
one leg is shorter
and it’s been that way, I guess, for several years now
when we were kids, we only did the things we wanted
now it seems we only do things we must to get by
I’m not convinced this transition was easy
but her laughter takes me back there
when the puppy spills the dye
we spent so many midnights
down at the midway motel
when the hot summer rain on the asphalt
washed the chalk lines out
we were learning what it means to be
pressed between the pages of seventeen
so many midnights of bubblegum bar fights
down at the midway motel
Daniel has a daughter now
she’s in the second grade
I helped him carve a space for cigarettes in his bible
with a razor blade
then I’m back again
in the woods behind his house
two beautiful boys with wounded souls
making out
when we were kids, we only did the things we wanted
now it seems we only do things we must to get by
I’m not convinced this transition was easy
but I am pushing through the chapters we get trapped inside
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12. |
Goodbye
03:20
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wearing your clothes
consuming your thoughts
like an envelope might hug a letter
telling your jokes
and every time I misspoke
swearing that I'd get better
life can be hard
when you aren't quite sure who you are
or where you're headed
and in a parking lot
I felt my heart burn hotter
than it ever had
and is this the plan of a perfect god,
budding and then nothing-
just an endless fog?
well, all I hear is the sound of goodbye
don't say goodbye
I watched you disappear
fading out like a ghost in the rear view mirror
and then nothing
but I am still here
having arguments with all the things I will be in a year
and then
nothing
life can be hard
when you aren’t quite sure who you are
or where you’re going
sitting alone in my car,
I felt my heart explode into an epitaph
is this the plan of a perfect God?
breeding and depleting and then falling apart
well, all I hear is the sound of goodbye
don’t say goodbye
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Adeem the Artist Tennessee
Adeem is a seventh-generation Carolinian, a makeshift poet, singer-songwriter, storyteller, and blue-collar Artist.
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