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Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of 8 poems from The Humming Prole, La Pánica, Through Flames, Through Flames - GoCopless (maxi-single), Artax, Stone, Cat Child - c-t ch-ld, Child of No Nation, and 9 more.
1. |
flat yoke
04:15
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i can’t light fires off the songs i swallow before each meal each day won’t ever drown in a puddle of love or go hungry screaming for mothers and things inherently allusive to wombs and open wounds
will your dead god rob his own egg of trick questions
do you steal other robot’s (battery money) internet connection
see a tree still burning 30,000 (light)years after its been cut-down to install a 2nd moon a zero gravity shopping mall my granddaughter wears its advertising logo tattooed to her forehead
who kills science hangs queens nails evolution to crosses this brainstorm shall be sacrificed in the middle name of dependency and psychiatrists overthinking thinking recipes and sheep counting
for animals don’t do math the same way a wind really doesn’t blow
keep trying to sing down brick houses and put out water i lost my bullets in a president’s head got molested by capitalism my manifest mutations all breathing outward in some imbalance of unison
the symmetry in a car accident or the perfect sense in laughing
we hung ourselves like paintings all night throughout parking garages and bar bathrooms
i can’t throw neurosis off achievement peaks steeping in a cup of feverish anticipation like a mountain in a warehouse with my burnt tongue blowing smoke in people’s faces music without corners dries up in air like cigarette smoke won’t appease my leash out of breath and longing for my moving parts my decision appliance and formulated dream film i can’t watch tv off sturdy ballads and no unconcerned push cart not even off character charity or standing in line emasculated
i can’t light wars off the books i feed wandering and repeating paying to be unbound what the ball of holes is trying to say holding a topic like a hat in a drawer looking for a purpose average encounter with her awareness sanded down says something about strange weather
i can’t develop without dieing won’t stamp shirts or carve legal trees for a 14 bedroom void of regret or go starving breathing my unexpectations
but i too carry my medicine
i’ll take my dead tongue’s specific strut to strange and new places with its tailpipe trailing its 7thousand definitions and need for exact numbers let the spectators sweep the smog off the streets and into files
you speak differently to everyone
well you don’t play a trumpet like a drum from work to murky sofas sleep and back again if i’m not intoxicated i’m delusional or deceived work grain indicating an entire forest antiidle bubble bursts only half through its life span moral wing we’re the wind
moral wing we're the wind
the strong scent of soap can be as laxative and rousing as spilling a poem over the long rug of a piano thick from wall to wall
with me tangled in it suspended in a chair like a spider web facing the corner of the room
i’m coming up with too many words for this cave
(as of lately my confidence and clarity (self-image) have been much like my beard) –
(imagine me mirrorless)
i can’t push fire on already lit rooms drying up in a puddle of love
won’t dream in a gold bed ever die out in the sun i’ll take my playing song to its end
i can’t sell fire to already lit rooms scratching in a dried up puddle of love won’t dream in a white mansion ever die out in a bucket full of gasses i’ll take my affection to silent fields to sing along with me
i can’t push flames on complacency convinced of love proper without a puddle or its own reflection won’t aspire mansions in mansions ever die in atoms i’ll take my dancing to the beat
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2. |
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traveling back from the fire
the deputy carried my burns
parading his better-bones
i didn’t pay for the train
and turned myself in
reflecting on a skyless window
(window waive the sky) or dollar store moon)
i held the next day collateral we hitch-hiked a bum creditcard across the vanilla folds of a nother indexed cemetery under-construction and supposed hill to the light we left on in the rent
traveling back from the fire i helped carry the hoses still trying to put out the siren a passing-bell lead me back to the town a hinge in the suit of a king marooned in a high hedge where the drought begins
i brought stolen water and the sun as gambit
then looked for shade so we could remove our hats
shaking my pocket for the key to sing home i tried to sing it without all the crows on a second floor in a levied room
in the ossuary
i put my legs up
my arguments wander looking for the blank to rest their bones
a shovel was needed to move forward
the only way out was down
nothing in our dialogue jumped high enough to break earth
we couldn't get any closer to dieing than we already were
all of us tried
some of us with pianos and moving straps
some of us with boxes of wood and nails
we each held death in ourselves
some on a tire swing
some in handcuffs and moving straps
some on several tied together bungee cords
the conversation never jumped from its branch
we were all the same brand bird in one tree without leaves
each a different amount of sky away from flying
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3. |
forty&eight
03:56
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there was a boat out of her sickness
an ocean under the facts
the last fisherman caught yesterday’s dinner
again the medication bell stay-put-wetback-dreams jumping sequence i earned the shovel and pork fat greasing down a minute hand cut-off pant and growl wasn’t the doorbell jumped beaten down dream overdone off-track run-on box-car logic hopped-up fence and 4-car-garage-equality all the water you want my teeth on a running-away utter all the gold-receipts you want my teeth on a missing tit escaped ride-cow black/white graze-cow sugar on the bland moon 4th cup incoherent burnt tongue speak-less-clear easy go and come-down parachute-sun skydiving-day hard-to-fly turkey in turning gun’s keyhole broke-in fit-like-a-glove plenty and sleep lo-tech reach for the carrot good-for-you star in your broken-in-to eye watched the boat leaving didn’t believe the ocean of facts out-of-stock-hard-to-get clearance-dream last deep-sleep fisherman caught a fence in the knee-d- down-must-act next sheep on-we-go no-parachute jumping the-races-have-begun-gun gone-off-track sheep in the grays and blacked out drinking from the grease-pan formal egg and dead chicken-out cook your own caught and remembered dreams not a boat out of the illness no un-chartered ocean under the math 4-teeth-left pulling-on-the-stop-chord pitched-off chorus-ant red and biting the blackened-gray-can’t-remember just wave to the see of facts a whole see of concrete and brick-for-brick-go-along-anthems goose-down-dream singing out like a feather-gone from a dead swan soon all lake all allege and fish caught in the boat-wreck go-along-grab-a-plank-equal-opportunity-won’t-share-holder works-for-us-math symmetrical noose and bow-tie floating-bell ring-around-the-neck climb-upstream color-in-the-lines-tongue and hooked-cheek life-float dead-man’s-face-down caught in a crowd of well-dotted-eyes ordering chicken around a corner out of a half-loaded-window asking me for change done-well over-done once-again under-passion over-charged next-minute-down-parachute and miss shotgun sawed-off dream hold-up broke take (/) hold-up the next minute-hand shaking in the mold and allege incoherent-tongue-feedback-dog-waiting-for-bell-crack high-price-high-pitch-mayday-and-night-sold-out-sucking on the pork-grease-fumes high-level-algebra-side-effect oil-feather- down-dream-equality chorus-ant well red and biting back at the blackened out when-did-we-lose-it where’d-it-go next-minute-contraction broke hold-up-labor off the books on the tubes sewer-dreams resuscitated-take-it-no-more flush-away and restart 4th glass-and-not-counting-math pass-out-sleep-for-everyone-work great-opportunity-equal-and-sweetener-union no-think-straight-lace-hole-in-the-sole fly like shoe time like cannon shot-down-dinner bell flopping around on deck broke big-hole-in-the-boat-out
there was a worn hole out of her sickness
a lost-its’-see under the preserved thoughts floating dead-man’s-lite across the top of my head like a forty-and-eight across the track-marks on a strung-out-plain-and-once-again here-we-go-jumping-parachute next-minute-down-cloud and miss works-for-us-subtraction symmetrical loose bow down and pick-up hitch-hike-floating down the climb-up-stream and looped there was a worm-hole out of her sadness a box-car out of her war
a fresh-water-ocean under the hope thrown at us like dogs like ropes like trained-teeth on ropes around cut-trees a whole see of must-be and maybe un-brick-by-brick push-along all the space under the stars all the space under the stars like the see under the facts like the unseen under the ocean we are records of ourselves and each other live-man floating on the cracked-bell wrung out like duck in the window reaching for a plank from the boat out
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4. |
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she was bored
she did this in a past life
i fell out of a (no story) window again
hoping someone would hear it differently this time
i poke at the me i see in the computer
this is about communication
we created ourselves
she was in the yard
putting an addition on her memory
i try and climb the barb wire
there because i see it
his eye ran out of ink
they walk him along a wall
a general becomes more
his battalion marches out the tempo
selling buying more
(selling buying more)
the dollar falls over dancing
the air laughs under its breath
a free spirited slave falls over to work falls over all the way home
he got his thoughts on the black market
we got our food rations from the general
i try and climb the monitor
but fell out a window again
(considering too loud)
this is about communication
she learned the word for blue after she learned the word blue
red was already red before it was read
i bite a light bulb
all on a burnt dream
glitching
i asked the money
she sees no barb wire
we shut the window to muffle the bliss
the yard spotlight sweeps over our bed
and the threshold of my dream
over the sadness
through all the drives
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5. |
saddest rifle
05:39
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saddest rifle on the trench line
plow pulled by buffalo
melted down to knife metal
i was sold as topsoil
paying for the plant life
only to be eroded
rented flowers on my powder-horn
sang steady with the gun-shots
thought it was a shofar
reaming at the tree bark
banging at the fruit rind
sold us zues’s goat bone
next moment: in grown bullet at the bull’s-eye
pulling for my trophy-teeth
hope they become piano keys
dream behind next door
greener always blank yard
empty house rem sleep
ghost dinner hoof-step
resold vegetable-ivory value
couch-elephant rifle through the buttermilk
saddest subservient oxen on the tipping-line
crying eye push-off
tear at the edge
plow on the waiting line
melted down to cutting-metal
saddest penny in the rifle-clip
hit the target’s heart like alarm clock
out of its’ head on the mark on we go
but the buffalo nickel i rode in and back home
wearing its’ fur and interest-rates
wasn’t the only gunpowder in my loose-fit-musket-ball-sadness
the only all killed color in my flat wheel
it seems the sadness shines independent of the obvious cloud –
it hovers always there –
like a tied up bison
or modern already shot hollow tip bullet on a string –
(on display)
(on a string) –
like teeth-
like teeth
pulled or not
always there
like my organs my heart
like teeth
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6. |
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this is another poem waking up
the dream the other poem forgot
upon waking ,all my thoughts were bird calls
couldn’t tell if they were from whistles or had really happened
most of me lays dead so it seems it was the hunter
or was it only my dreams
i wake up in a half cut tree on a limb off a brain stem
couldn’t taste my simple fruit or sweet gum
called myself numb stood in line to get pinched
still couldn’t tell i was dreaming
most times waking up i can taste the whole world at once
goes right through me like beauty or chain(ed) food too big to hold
i’m only the filter
in a salty fish tank full of dreaming horses
not concerned about birds
the worms stuck left in me swallow too much
eating themselves out of the morning
upon waking all my memories were heavy sacks of cotton (were overweight on a treadmill) were buzzards on their way to cages were sitting ducks in an air current or jet engine’s ingestion were on bird strike didn’t know if it was a dream couldn’t tell if they were supposed to have their feathers on
wanted higher skies and trees and fruit they could taste with no tongue holding their nose
waking up i was stuck out like a dead but still sharp bent upward ingrown house nail
where i hold together my head i’m caught on all the sewn together moments at once swelling and panting like cheap blinds looking outward on the carved block exhaling
(inward) it breathes in like the street vendors opening their meat coolers
only for seconds never vending within 20 feet of a dream
upon waking ,all my thoughts were bird calls
couldn’t tell if they were from whistles or had really happened
most of me lays dead so it seems it was the hunter
or was it only my dreams
i wake up in naturally fallen tree on my own limb trying to believe my eyes
couldn’t feel my fruit or tongue only heart and head thumping like an axe on the
dream
this is the root or seed
this is the root or seed
(chopped down to build houses for land birds or was it the rotting fruit buried underneath
or was it the seeds to create poem metal or new feathers like a thousand tongues on one (new flavor) dream on a stick like an ingrown tree
all its birds ,from hawks to bought house ducks
stuck up a dream )
(the dream )
(this is the root or seed)
(this is the root or seed)
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7. |
to back (feral real)
04:00
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they cut along the edge of the counted upon like an orange from a fridge- yellow and red said in short or slang we wore our handcuffs on the top of our heads it was drawl for who known it or who needs an astronaut (to know we're) in space we were in spaces in between lines part of the page waiting for words to describe the ineffable the white to know something else is blue the black of knowing it all (blind)
tear gassed tripped over the pot of gold it was in their eyes on a search team for themselves they cut along the (discipline)must-wait like hidden gift paper like an apple from the neighbor’s tree because you know it’s all yours red is in the sun no short or slang to stand for it they wore their heads cuffed like pants in a flood wet money and in debt red blue green and yellow too much color they couldn’t see the tv didn’t really need to it’s like the food you’re eating we chewed the hand-out fed up and talking about it the cut wasn’t made with a knife nor anything sharp our oranges slit themselves open for us already come mixed with yellow and red we each wait in our own fridge pricing our own toe-tags gnawing on the beauty don’t know what we’re eating
digested as sinkhole , as depression blue and black said in shorts or a skirt from her eyes to the ground they cut the wool out of the heard it from the rest of them
all wanted to be shepards heard it from the sleep and the wind through the fences and every one counting in their dreams and every one counting on their dreams and we never hear them cut us open in the echo of the room never hear the echo of ourselves the way it is sawing on the corner in a room down to the next morning obtuse (pointless and round) cuts along the edge of a forgotten dream like canned sun or jarred half moons in oil always knows it’s own ingredients can recite the yellow teeth on the dream grinding away (its way back home) if your leash was time if time didn’t exist outside of counting it outside of counting on it the ceo shouts cut over the line of plywood props and filed down extras they cut for the door like skips on a dvd like sun through the trees like leaving in slang like a short way to say goodbye asking for their money (their paycheck - their cut)
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8. |
cut-in-half-bomb
05:58
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7-30-06
a cut in half bomb with its rings being examined is chopped down
to make paper and thousands of last pages (blank)
a blooming ideology blinks each blade of green grass wild on her plains - a weighted trigger which takes some seventy years to pull i cut my hand trying to rip up a marigold (she was the lip of the impact (of the quiver) waiting for a bandaid)
a patch of humans between a sidewalk and a building being fertilized and fed in a fenced in section of their head standing on their morals
a (dreamless) bird standing on its head
maybe we’re like ostrich and other bird which can’t use its wings (or wick) wind in a bag a black-eyed summer sky in a basement tied to a pipe and a beam
rolling like a picture wheel like a universe in a jar (like a bomb on a highway)
his piano was heavy and moving …and on a slope
Part B (hidden poem) :
broke flying kneed down hawk preying on food church
trying to trade or sell the rings around my eyes (to those who already have em)
pawned my chain they wouldn’t take the ball in my throat circling like hawk(up) back down into its drain pinball stomach sinks for eyes i stole the scrap metal and pricey-copper out on my head down to its piping and bone to get(thru)the security check
(pawned the reward out on my head for the bullets to collect myself) sublet my skull for a corner to sleep in (sold every door for more wall) killed the content for more room in the belt (less things to trade with the indians) i sat somewhere in my electricity like the last great brown-out watching the stars change color the culture dive in (the ideology slowly losing its breathe)
black-lung-lincoln-greened-shadow-mint-breathing down my neck
shirt tag wearing tracked bird
broke flying beak down crow perched on its caw an arched roof two ways to wake from a bed of eaten flowers dear eaten words dear eaten words
sit on the outer edge of my licked mouth like stamps with out enough ink(to write) or postage(to send), cents in my clattering tongue hung from my mouth like a shirt pocket busted wallet on my heart
consignment dreams on lay away day sleeps through the awake fake sleeping giant in the schedule booked solid (hard) indefinite sentence never ending stalk bow down and cursor through the dollar bill beak down in the mud of what it’s trying to say
i’m saying i’m broke yolk (panned head) still trying to run from its center (like blood)
cooked flightless kneed down buffalo wing roamed to church sweating bbqsauce
pawned my castle ,my goat’s favorite dreams -ahead acres worth of popped pills and medical fields
green as money picked with white gloves (churned to margarine) (i can’t believe its not money) broken dove
down into a pigeon to pick from the bread crust falling out of the bags around some-one’s torn open eyes -a self storage garage - looted
wiped the kneed down scabbing dream from my flowery eyes
then traded them both in for (their) rings
to spin like the rest of the debris
in orbit around someone else’s hawked up(in)ward eyes
stolen planet i’m the pawned moon only half 14carrot tonight the rest is fool’s gold and ice-belt cap-guns ,embalmed money and passed on coin like language like eye-holster ,like perspective -the currency lost in any given exchange ,our body language was a mistranslated poem he stood there holding his eye lids like where to stand in the bus-stop line i rode free flying kneed down pigeon-colored-dove praying on scraps of bread
my money has preservatives my stomach has the morning
hawked it for lunch money (my alcohol has its yeast) (hawked its risen up nickled and dime problems up (like still bouncing checks) pawned my overdraft head for my next- space on the board -i stayed as darkmatter -the one who said less ,we all never stopped looking at the last square but avoided endings
but avoiding ending like page torn books and life-sentences avoided endings like tracked birds like missing hyperlinks like lazarus taxa- dollar for being spent cross eyed and been been pennied 5 cent worth of times worth of eyes, ears knows, touching my tongue pen to the plowed out backwoods -avoiding end in paper and bookshelves avoiding end like broke past not working like gliders - flying tow on the closest dove down into the foot of debt -avoiding end like parachute umbrella too big to fall giant on the camera stalk bottom line’s the sky
-avoiding end like caught in the wind risky bird wings on a payment plan without end like nothing without end like nothing really is or can be too big to fall too big to end
kneed down bread
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9. |
fog belt
03:45
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fog belt (empty lot songs) (new field songs)
we saw brick on top of brick
never realized the building we were building
we took turns working the door the revolving hackbut the musical saw
someone had to keep their foot in
i felt like the pepper-box in a stick up
wearing my own stock and bonds (as mask)
they all took too long to reload holding up their own tropes
it was owed money first and obvious questions last
never a full stop
we stood handing out street signs to each other
no one had a dead end
everyone folded with boats
and started holding up banks
we were all drought or drowning river cards
ordered onto rocks
we each wore a war president's mask
the right amount of sun or overcast over our face
slandering our bricks
i don't gamble nor breath only gasp and gulp
in this overdrawn gulf
i buy gloves
and someone to kill without looking
she held me up (with) her eyes half closed
i felt like an emptied register
setting precedence
every president's a war president
(every mask an extension of (or outlet out of (and back into) ourselves)
we hold up banks each time we deposit a paycheck
stilts on the house over owned land well known to flood over
we floated like anchors only for second in what we were able to see
brick on top of brick (we curse the high-card) (please) blow a hole through my next breath
put plumbing in my waste
build me a door i can lock
the walls we build around nothing
the walls we build around nothing
my fort was myself
all elaborate parapet
the West Bank's very first wall
he wore pilaster crown molding
trying not to turn blue in the antique chair
i snort my dust hand a bump to the (right) lane next to me
everything was worth slowing down for
but instead we chose to crash
i took the floor
let him hold down the couch
it was gravity this culture
weighing us down
some wore it as gold around their necks
others ninetheenth century slave iron or steel
stolen from our outer space
(can one hit dark matter)
stolen from our float
stolen from our floats
drowning in the winning river card
drowning in the bridge over a river now dry enough to walk
i was every flame
every missile bringing us down
and did it
ducked under and down comforter
i hold all of you in my heaviest arms
loaded into my A-134 gatling gun
every breath too heavy to hold
(every hand too broadway to ever fold)
i don't bluff or gamble only breath and know one day i won't
(don't buy in or play) (only check or call)
(don't drink or hunt me down without a chaser)
(i drown first thing each morning)
(buy (steal) your swimfins) (your conga line or slave chain for anchor)
(crippling ourselves crippling the deck)
i know nothing of the game (can you tell)
the parts of me lose
even if they don't know they're playing
breaking down the door card
no hand to knock
blown off arms they knew i only had a candy bar (or capgun) i still hold all of you
way down in my throat (down as far as my heart)
weighing down my throat
every next brick added weight
we sawed till there was nothing to see
(down to the last ring around our ever dotted eye) (down to the last chip in our (ever shrinking) head)
(and down to the last seen dust of ourselves)
i asked for the vaccuum
as my way out
(had saved seats on a closed line)
(how to kill sticker bushes in your yard)
all the bricks try to breath
can't all at once
the building never knows it touches the sky
even though it was and has always been from the very first brick
(the empty space was garden dirt)
(we dug down into the time in a straight line)
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10. |
tuck in my own throat
05:26
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never meant to have regrets
never meant to
never meant to
never meant to
never meant to
never meant to have regrets
never meant to draw on the drawing
never meant to hurt in my battery
never meant to die on the road
never meant to take this exit
never meant to hurt in my glue
never meant to aim with this sun
or shoot with this lemon
never meant to eat it with you
never meant to let it eat me
never meant to have regrets
never meant to smoke the flowers
never meant to bring these clouds
never meant put them on you
never meant to have regrets
never meant to hurt in my glue
never meant to aim with this lemon
never meant to squeeze into this box
never meant to draw the lines
never meant it to be a black box
never meant to go down this sky
never meant to go down in this sky
never meant to have this weather
never meant to paint on the drawing
never meant to hurt in my battery
never meant to die on this road
never meant to blame the car
never meant to take this exit
never meant to drink the paint
never meant to have regrets
never meant to smoke the flowers
never meant to brake the yard
never meant to cloud it with walls
never meant to measure tape my mouth
never meant to hurt in my ceiling
never meant to destroy anything
never meant to hurt you
never meant to
tuck in my own throat
bring me down in a fixed-wing aeroplane
put me back in the water
where they found otis redding
bring me down in a mechanical pigeon
drop me like 3rd world groceries
where i found my missing teeth, hand to take and contact lens
bring me down light like slow-film
(clipped whites and underexposed)
bring me up in a hot air market bubble
no parachute or kite string - just drag
marks around my insight
like tax on what i buy into
flew into the tower i jumped from like
the apple stuck up the loudest tree
(fall with a bow - just what i learned)
bring me up in a bare-soil based orchard eating my way thru its corn maze
put me back in the cereal half milk half tap water (spoon in each eye)
soggy vision cut thru the yellow number five (to sleep) like (just washed) butter knives
no marks on the throat i held hostage each time i spoke (the cameras wouldn't allow it)
(only indian burns could show) (magic carpet burns on my throat)
bring me down in a crane in midtown
(ontop the court-house they through me underneath)
(for an oil change and a pap-smear)
drag me in in induced labor and tongue cuffs
like politically correct language working its way up to god
bring me down slow in an about to crash air bus
yanking on my umbilical cord like the cigarette machine’s release lever
(last stop on pass it down)
bring me down in a slow fade out on time like my head buried in the sand and glass
full head of bees buzzing around the honey
stuck in my head like top hit and battered frozen (flour) pancake to the plate - (factory abused and demographically exploited) just-married meat in the freezer
ice on our eyes better for the future
(hold on our fishing rods iou on the water (and lake)
bring me down like rain like bouncing checks in the flood of 1st stage dream
on loans and misdiagnosed voices moaning in the milking-machines
bring me down like full gulp of say cheese in all color
stuck in my own throat
like mad-cow tongue and speech tuck in my throat think-impediment joy-stick driven
and on a slow decline like cigarette machines
brought down in a dead-asleep-wing pegasus or sphinx
put me back in my own riddle
where if i found anything it was a therapeutic circle
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11. |
negative plus
03:53
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for him silence was a power tool
turned on and making its way through a piece of measured wood
a loud saw
(carrots for the eye)
for him the wood was another silent house another quiet car
a way to make the trees make breath for you
a less loud saw
(more going blind in a room full of sunlight (and diamonds)
for him constructiveness was
a priest’s telescope
picking out dead stars
like chicken bones from soup
for us the invisible(and gone off)bombs were like the morning sun
just another day
for her it was known the bombs were in silos
and also were like the morning sun
just another day gone
for her the silence was a cut-down forest
a missing tree to scratch her horns or blown out back on
the overweight carry-on (she felt like)
(the paid-by-the-hour-on-the-meter-(passenger)-bird)
the-pick-up-and-drop-off-always-on-time-hand-grenade
in a sound-proof room
for them the recommended photo was now the loud saw
up to their ear
like an ocean
talking with a mouth full of plastic
a way to mount a scope on a evolver
a way to mount a scope on a evolver
for him thinking was a check-point
pulled over painting on the pallet
patting down every last color
blue wore an extra layer
(is imagined blue the same as actual blue)
for her blue was yellow and green
mixed up symbols
never just depression
(anger and introversion)
(or only real fear and false bomb threats)
always another saw to sing
they sang it for us on high quality photo paper
like pre-finished wood
(using)the used and muffled saw
the last thing we saw was like silence about to take place
everything that happened knew before it did
like a coffin farm
washington – an outdated dream
gray wig never aged
(still with its finger up its nose)
for him inspiration was a corner drug
a cheap photograph
the quiet saw
frozen meat for the
eyes sold like (cheap)diamonds
like his own blood
for him frenzy was a manual tool
it’s all about the saw
lunch for the eyes
maybe they’ll see it more than their camera does
100th floor
gloss vision
poly tree
plastic coffin
shallow field
overpopulated dream
where will they bury
our bodies like water full of plastic
no plot left on fiction town
fake dream (fake dream)
i slept through
the fake dream
i slept through
the fake dream
for me silence was the water in a sponge
the next flood
like what’s already coming and came
silence was the alarm clock going
and what we chose to do next
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12. |
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there’s more buffalo on nickel than grass
there’s more plain on today’s fancy than fancy
more buttons on our emotions than shirt (more headdress on our private(s) thoughts) than scalp (scalped in a hat for the cameras)
more feathers in our hat than in bird (left to take them from)
more make up than late more cover up on our eyes than uncomfortable
trying to fit into this shirt
the city was short sleeves and ring around the collar
was one button and a hundred hands
there’s more fingerprint (of mine) on money than my own thumb (and money that’s not mine)
there’s more identification with value in pictures than having yours taken
more tender than there’s actual arm to give it
there’s more good in doing it without giving
there’s more gold in the teeth of those without money
what our gold used to be
(literally they used it as receipt for gold)
i change in my teeth for a way to say the next moment
to stay in the next moment
i was always in my place like a drink on tab
on the bar reaching my way for another rung
for my way around the next moment
there’s more shirt on me than skin
more cover up on my eyes than sleeping with them open
more eyes on my back than the heads that use them
there’s more wallpapering on my tongue than i can lick
there’s more lick in this pop than i can take
(Washington’s last thought is this)
capitalism licks itself down like an alley cat that just got out the garbage
we all take from each other equally
throwing the same amount of interest and junk mail on each other’s lawns
lied down like a hair piece in our throats (i cough my neighbor’s best combed hair - my coworker’s most politically correct hair day) had my sentences braided words in corn rows head amaized needle in the hayride (tire) the driver in the truck i crash face first into what i have to say my eyes were crash test dummies bored and dashing back and forth were right up against all they could see
there’s more sponsored vision in donation plates than in telescopes
more stars in my eyes when i’m asleep than when they’re open (or the opposite) (anytime but 9 to 5) everything comes in looking for a bargain - a sail to get the most out of their wind
we could hear those with motors coming a mile a away
pockets with propellers
can’t remember my dreams
can’t remember my dreams
i didn’t just say the same thing
think hard from your wallet
which cab will bring you home
i hopped the closest white picket fence following a sheep to sleep like it was drink
every glass had a crack
we look for shelter in the missing parts of her as she falls asleep
it was somewhat easy because she was always sleeping
putting paid workers in her place for a(nother) dream
we all outsourced our emotions
chain reactions on boats
paid for the extra packaging
it was soundproofing and headphones
english is Esperanto (ride the bullshit to heaven)
(every stereophonic way to say it)
my feelings multitask
with one hand taping its own mouth shut
with the other working the paper mill
(shaking every bills’ hand)
(saluting each duck as it goes down)
we hid under the closest machine
under our own hatched eggs
we still hang from
too many yokes
in one too many pans
cut the nervous break down for money
the nearest gold tree down for its rings
every planet was a finger
everything pointing at the sun
the myth of profit
she lays eggs without mating
we pull each other from the bone
(i started at her grace note)
how many instruments inside one human
how many insights into one view
the closest we come to interaction is change back on gum
(sugar pills and) bullets back on what it is i have to speak)
blowing up whatever’s stuck in our head
(the explosives sounded like drums)
let our tallest structures be the measuring stick for beating each other with
be the flash to the camera we remember each other with
(smiles as big as the deficit)
is this a complicated joke we laugh at more than think about
which chicken crossed the street
which walk sign do i fall over to
which store do i buy the prescription
she can’t hear her own desperation
it’s in the wood that was cut to be rebuilt around her
none of us hear our ancestors
hear the (dinosaur computer) eggs we were cracked from
my ear was to the pan
listening for fire
and meat to cook it to
(Speed Levitch riding a bison on ground zero)
i die before i fall off
my saddle in my mouth
head in holster
our emotions were equipped with a thousand security cameras and barking dogs
with a workcrew of others to handle our own thoughts
they carry my food chain as i walk into the cafeteria
competition in the market was like feeling up a stuffed bra
hand in the meat cutter eyes on the milk udder
tissue stuffed into my(pre-cut)eyes i used my looking muscle well built scarecrow standing head first into the crop (our flag - a scalp on a stick)
(they cropped out my frown
(put a moon under my factory harvested cow (had over how to pay for dinner)
(crouched over
over my desk)
there is work in silence
we all thought best alone
so we left
out all the details when we would speak
gave back only saw dust no rings (except on the desk wood holding our drinks)
no buttonwood with its arms out holding money
they cut off my imagination and started counting my rings
we purchased miss liberty
from a cemetery (sold grave rubbings as art)
hawked our eagles for pigeons and crow bars
broke our selves out of broke
by buying in
george washington on wall street with his hand on the wall
the only thing to hold
i hold her throat
way down where she once said it
like a
chair under me
with a rope around my neck
there’s more get off in going
than there is in coming
unless going is going(coming) back
eyes breathing like olypmic swimmers
(heart racing)
head of would
drowning in my strings
i put on puppets like socks to fall asleep in the lights coming thru the blinds
put on myself in the lights coming up for the next act
eyes like intermission
like holes
like opportunity for new real-estate
i died in chapter eleven
bunny ears and
eyes hanging out
buffalo dead on fresh grass
(every fence - a new dream to think over and out)
(to realize before you hit the back cover)
sleeping on the maps we never used
the highways became markers
for the amount of space we each had
to sleep
in
i laid there -eyes puddled hoping to catch fire
hoping there was some oil left in me
a well counting its pennies
trying to cover its eyes
we hit the back cover
(buffalo committing suicide over niagra falls)
(more funerals for the paragraph ending)
the next sorrow starts the same
i made ink for the tears she wanted to cry
but didn’t
for the sake of the flood
we all knew was a mirage
but made summer boats and inner tubes for
the alarm clock on the bed was a gun was a three legged sand bag race we wanted to be a mirage but wasn’t like the flood of time and where the water must go
like the space i store my sorrow
(like a storm sewer or gut icicle)
we feast on free soup and beds sharing each other’s measuring spoons
comparing each other’s volume
i speak so hollow i hold mountains on every side
i mumble so low i hold suburban sprawl in my emaciated gut (as if a valley)
all my emotions were inverted fat
every organ made fun of the next
my brain sucked itself in
feet thrown up
sleeping on the maps we never used
the highways became markers
for the amount of space we each had
to sleep
in
i make of the day a pile of bones and skin only sleeping in the fat my dreams peel off like tired fruit full of flies rotting from the branch like money in a bank burning my rubber eyes right in the middle of the street - a beaten piano kicks down the door waving a grace-note i curled up in a knot a ball of cello string and had someone kick me down
into the morning
alive his grandmother wants to die no one knows how to say it lacks the language
ate it all for snack his eyes were crumbs at the bottom of a bag blind rope in the sky against the (window) screen doesn’t know where to put the apostrophe
the invasion wasn’t a sacrifice we liked it up our eyes they knew it and sold us more i hope to reincarnate as a misunderstood sentence
as
the house fire as it reaches the top of my head
i jump out my intestines
never stop rolling through the day
(dropped off at the morning like (still-playing) stolen tv on a doorstep)
(the morning will wake me newspaper and old logs barely lit afire
burning down the day)
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13. |
long ride home
05:19
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i drive myself away to confront myself
my coffin in the passenger seat
a mansion’s worth of hallways in my thought out
a mirror’s worth of glass in my tire-d eyes
clunking as they roll out of the reflection
back to me like change
cut in half nickel and dime sense of self
went to the wrong bank to watch myself
keep my head above water
headed out lost like point blank
tossed coin language beats the well out of me
tongue hanging out like a bucket on a rope
the rain was small talk (the window let every word bounce off it)
the season coming had its chest out like tools hacksaw for the sun
thumbtack and staple for the four months of coming overcast
(my feelings jet-lagged still stuck somewhere in the psycho-tropics)
(fell asleep with) my head on the space heater )
pillows tied to each ankle i skip sleep over the ocean i build between us
gasping in the see-n it with my own(ed) two I’s
they were like let loose doves or homing pigeon over bread crumbs
each with a (different) letter in its mouth one with a camera to its chest (like dynamite) like paperweights to its memory bricks for each foot-print a jet tied to our leg eye like runny egg the hold on me like yoke like anchors being dropped into
the expression on my face - no wake zone (only buried bodies)
lengthy books and rope around my throat buried my cough
i never held my breath (under anyone)
there’s a wa(i)ste for every gun
we all fed from like birdfeeders the utter we’re stuck with in our mouth
the last saddle on my hoarse voice
the boot(up) stood foot down tapping to the beat
chewing the straw on my back last(sucked down)drink’s on me
comes out of my empty pocket like copper-greened ghosts
like haunted bank owned homes like(digging in your pocket for) china lint
balled up in the dust on a downward spiral
a (talking)stuffed human that just sits in place -like a cold war bomb
like an off topic - i take the road on ice away from my self to confront my self
my coughed up eyes in the passenger seat (can’t see the mirrors right)
i choke without sound (or (cl)kick-backs)
the plane out was the lion of the sky we couldn’t hear each other changing the subject over it roaring day was the caterpillar still waiting to moth a year from now was the censor light we couldn’t even get through of the private property we claim like future like claims night was the slug of the dull(ing)
hope was the hidden mine
the button that had to be pressed to keep the bomb from going off of the going off the going off was the meat the dinner we chased off a cliff we couldn’t then climb down
blot in my breeding pen a coup in my (already overthrown) mouth
i threw it around like flowers and dough like food money like
blood from a cut up wallet (down to its drizzle and drowning splash)
(we drove in different directions)
every idea was extra light pollution
another exhausted foot stomping out the fire in my eyes
for every spark plug a flat tire another swing on someone’s tree
another yard to mow another photo to crop
i drive myself down my throat to speak from the top of my head
long ride home
(my blame blames itself ) (everything sorry puts its weapon down)
(i dropped my tools on my foot) (my anchor in my mouth)
(they watched me wash up on the beach) (jumping in place in its place like a hammer on the bent nail i attempt to push into place - on line at the dhs
pen on line in a mission with its empty sugar bowl and pointed spoon pull through in line at a throw me a line hook in line at a life raft give-away
- i went there looking for water or for air to fill my float (s) )
(-we ended up using its rocks for skipping over shots of whiskey whisking me away (in the ritual) (never skipping a shot of whiskey)
(whisking me away with the barley the feed crop cooking itself room
temperature for swallow in a pot it’s all in)
(eyes in my face like poker chips tongue in my mouth like fireplace-
poker words like cut logs
-the bones of what i wanted to say(stay stored ina museum inmy head) wired shut (together) out of place -
my right foot forward backward in my mouth -my tongue on my hand -supposed to lick every shake
like a blender
dancing to the refrain fruit in the wind fruit in the wind hopefully there’s fruit on you
my words fell out of the wide blue wind in my eyes my head jumped out in front of me slipped in the fruit that
fell from you (drove myself into the stationary tree
-my drive -the high-beams blanking out each shooting star)
every idea was extra light pollution another exhausted foot stomping out the fire in my eyes they start rubbing themselves together
the way money mates
a bomb broke out on the (oily) face of my next occupied day black me out bills in the red let them bleed for me
the blood is driven out of me like highways (a mansion’s worth of polluted heir looms hacks up through my liquid filled lungs with wind ,in it ,moth and dead unsaid hawk coming up out of its coffin)
i drive myself down my throat to speak from the top of my head
(a railroad map) (tracking out the sequence of words) (laid out)
(on their backing) (ranting toward the source)
(drinking from my blurry glasses) (seeing from my drinking glass glass in my mountain blasted eye) (most of me hides in the fog at the bottom)
(of the (heavily breathed in) glass)
happiness had a gone off gun
time had a fat waste it got burnt into
all the anxiety kept smoking tucked away
loneliness was an antique cannon (that had to be dragged)
(with)no order(s)
the fleeting was a shot to the chest
every next private beat in order
with its’ hyper-perfect scars marching toward the fire
missing you has a weapon that has yet to be made
(every second a new science lab creating the next)
time (also no orders) has a bomb with a trick candle wick and a debt to every next sky (also no orders)
(we’re always with each other)
(somewhere in time)
now that comfort was the debris falling everywhere around us
loneliness was a used ammo bag for empty shells (and ash dropping out of wind)
certainty was the sand and what’s buried beneath it
(the thought of tomorrow was the gold-detector) (or unloaded shotgun) (stomach full as an hourglass)
(tomorrow was just the battery pack) (or only the saw)
(or only the glass) (to see it through)
(to see it through)
(to see it through)
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brad hamers Portland, Oregon
writer, music-maker, collage-maker,, performance-maker, loud dreamer, mental gymnast
(member of:
Through Flames, Child Of No Nation, Cat Child, Dust On Snow, Two Ton Sloth, Phlegm and Al Límite Collective)
Artist at Shrine13
www.bradhamers.com
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