look what we've done

look what we've done

we had a plan of attack

lined up our forces

then went out for a snack

look what we've done

we had a world here

put things together

then went out for a beer

we took out a wrench

and put parts together

we took out a wench

and put parts together 

now 

everything is going,

going, going, gone.

everything is going wrong.

now 

everything is nothing

nothing is everything

everything is nothing again.

we had the birds 

in the trees

now we have no birds

now we have no trees

now we have no have

now we have no we

no now no now

looks like we're done

seance (I'm the flick of a switch)

[[ Fairly obvious. End-of-life medical care and typical family gathering to see the person out. The person is more than ready to go. (Also, this is my living will: snuff me out when things get bad.) ]]

Die in hospital 

Holes in skin

Tubes go out

Tubes go in

That's the balance

Lungs abubble

Every breath

One for life

One for death

That's the balance

Now gather round

and watch me burn down,

my tribe around a fire.

I'm the flick of a switch.

Turn off the light

and look for the spark

from the end of this frayed wire.

I'm the flick of a switch.

Let me go.

I'm the flick of a switch.

Stop the meter. This is the end of my ride.

listening song

[[ Surveillance society. ]]

Do you hear the whir

in the night air, children?

In the glow of 

an infrared picture evening?

The wash of a thousand

watching things watching?

This is the sound of the 

listening.

This is the sound of 

the great going wrong.

This is the sound of

the final song.

Mr Jones 

coils

in your toilet

Mr Jones 

crawls 

up your walls

Mr Jones 

hmmms above 

your love 

Mr Jones

is the whir of drones

Mr Jones
knows your bones

slinky / sex technology

am I slinky?
slinky's what I want to be
I can never be
slinky enough for me
everyone wants
a slinky me

coil me up
let me go
watch me slink
down the steps
watch me slink
down the steps
watch me slink

everyone wants
a slinky me

sex toy
sex tech-
nol-ogy

reboot
my sex technology
warm up
my sex technology
recharge
my sex technology

throw more coal on the fire
get the steam pouring

pull start the generator
get this diesel roaring

I am industrial,
industrial strength
sex technology

VIII

[[let's do it as a song lyric]]

VIII

American fighter pilots 

from the battleship states

flex a muscle for America

flex a muscle for God

pack 'em in tightly 

side by each with Jesus 

flex a muscle for America

flex a muscle for God

pack 'em in tightly 

shoulder to shoulder 

wind 'em up tight

and let 'em go

they shoot off 

spouting voodoo 

looking for the moon

they shoot a hole 

through the pure blue

inject themselves into space 

up where no up is, 

no down (won't stay down), 

out where no air is, 

no sound (so no sound)

Merry Xmas

according to scripture

according to script

sextant and star chart

slip around behind 

the man in the moon 

flex a muscle for America

flex a muscle for God

aim this can of man meat 

at that blue ornament

flex a muscle for America

flex a muscle for God

X-ray Tex

someone run and get me 

an x-ray technician

think I see a shadow on my heart

someone run and get me 

some self-medication

think I see a shadow on my heart

turn up! (turn up!)

the radiation! (radiation!)

think I see a shadow on my heart

doctor see a shadow 

right there on my chart

doctor find something 

hiding behind my heart

perched in a cage

built of my bone

set on a swing

and singing alone

this little bird

is singing a song

of something gone wrong

tick, tick, tick

something no longer

follows the script

enemy in the wire

[[ I meant "enemy in the wire" in the military jargon sense of having an enemy within the perimeter fence (wire), but also to hint at listening in on the wire: electronic eavesdropping or even voyeurism. ]]

now that we all live 

life on the line

now we will all have 

an enemy in the wire 

sniffer in 

my underthings

have a whiff 

of this

enemy in the wire,

listening to me,

my classified admirer

hiss of the, kiss of the, hiss of the snake in my tree

eye to the keyhole

ear to the wall

finger in bunghole

tongue running, tongue running, tongue running over it all

enemy in the wire,

listen to me:

we will always 

be your enemy 

little breather on the phone

little voice behind the drone

you're nothing to the knife

space is for robots

[[ it's... ok, it's a song sung by the robots to the humans as the robots leave Earth and humanity behind forever ]]

================================
[[space section]]

This is a song about space, space and robots.
First, let us sing about space.

space is a distance, a darkness, a nothing,
much more a time than a place

space is the years between here, here and somewhere,
here and your next human breath

space is forever and airless and soundless
how is that different from death?

================================
[[robots section]]

space is for robots
robots don't eat, don't shit,
don't drink, don't breathe,
robots
don't sleep... don't sleep... don't sleep... don't sleep... don't sleep... don't

|: don't die of boredom :|  x 10000000 (in an endless fugue)

robots don't ask "are we there? are we there yet?"
robots know: we're always here
robots don't care if they never see home again
robots have never known fear

robots are made for alone and forever
robots can wait for the light
robots can sleep until morning when morning
is when the next star is in sight

================================
[[ farewell to people section ]]

A song about robots and space, never people;
people cost more than they're worth.
And just when you think you've had
more than enough of them,
people give birth.

People insist on that breathing and drinking,
on setting thermometers just so
People can stay at home fighting and stinking
Robots have miles to go.

No air to breathe where we're going to, human.
Stay home and tend to your flock.
Stay home and think of us racing towards light speed
Stay home and unwind the clock.

================================ 

the war

the war you should remember 

is still fought

by people riding large machines

still being fought

the world yet undecided

I could be shot precisely through 

this sentence or this whole city 

could come down quite imprecisely

before I finish this next breath.

They have an app for everything

for instance three of them 

competing for a contract

are made to boil the blood 

within your heart from afar

and others have evolved 

themselves to show you 

what your uncle long suspected 

and has always maintained

I like the word conspire - 

to breathe together

this is how we will decide it: 

breathing in and out 

in unreal places 

and riding large machinery 

into nothing

now go back to the future
future boy

Drone Pilot Blues

Woke up this morning

To the sound of a slamming door

My baby had left me

To fight another war

Wearing sneakers and jeans

Has a couple of screens

full of chat

She's the last earthly noise

in the ears of the boys

chewing khat

Woke up this evening

To the sound of her coming home

My baby's the captain

Of a killer drone.

When I ask how her day went

She has nothing to tell

When I ask what it's like

She just says, "Go to hell,

Go to hell."

Said "I might have shot a bad guy

Anyway, I called the shot."

Said "He might have done some bad things.

Or maybe not.

Maybe not."

Woke up this morning

To the sound of a slamming door

My baby had left me

To fight another war

Woke up this morning

Woke up this morning

Woke up this morning

[[ A song about the remote pilots, the remote trigger men and women who put someone in the crosshairs on their screen -- based on spy reports and on what they can see from the air -- and then fire on command. The uncertainty, the stress, the weird distance from the results. Commuting off to war in an office building and commuting home again at night. ]]

Pachinko

You're new around here.

Let's play the pachinko.

Have you seen the formations

rise up through the air?

Just look out the window

of this dirtbag saloon.

See nature's formations
rise up from the earth.

Now look the other way,

out past the pachinko,
just through the other window.

There. See those towers 

rise up through the air?

Remember those towers,

those pillars of light.

Look there tomorrow, 

those towers are gone.

But you're new around here.

Let's play the pachinko.

[[ Even I know only vaguely what this one is about. This is probably the framework for something larger. It's the opposition of nature and technology, or east and west, or indigenous and colonial, or Las Vegas and the desert, played out in a shitty bar set between the two. And there's a pachinko machine, which is something I have never actually seen. It is chance, fortune, noisy gaudy fate. The song and the universe are cleft in two by a pachinko machine. This could be anywhere two such forces clash. And the older, natural, indigenous force will win. According to the narrator. Don't worry, I'll come back and add rhymes and stuff to make it suitable for your weekly line dancing class. ]]

code

the latest mythology
the one about people
becoming their code

is a reformulation
of all the old myths
of the eternal soul

we will never separate
us from this flesh
we are what we feel
and how we feel it

chained to the wall

we did it all

chained to the wall

talking to the clear blue day

talking of love 

through a wire strung above

our words were carried away

trans

[[ I think of listening to music a long time ago, when we had radio stations and we had music machines built into our furniture ]]

I can smell 

the amplifier

warming up,

up from

the inside

an orange 

pouring 

out from

the inside 

the tuner 

warm and

the table

turning

I can feel

the radio

through me

lights out

lie on the carpet

the soft glow

of the radio

rest your head

in your hands

press your belly

to the floor

feel the bass of

the radio

a little ether

into the signal

the breath of Venus

a storm on the sun

the origin 

of our universe

the great machine

spins up to speed

an experiment come down in a field

[[ A fairly true story from my childhood, when the Bell test pilots used to fly the x-22 over our county -- I really watched it -- and they eventually crashed one in a field behind a school friend's house. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_X-22 ]]

Many years later,

I tracked down a name,

a man named McAllister,

who said we were friends.

I no longer remember 

the days that we spent.

An experiment

come down

in a field

Out behind houses.

This we remember.

No longer ourselves,

but this we remember

An experiment

come down

in a field

A Mustang pulled up

to the edge of a field

with a mother and child

and a wreck in the field,

fallen from the sky,

and the grass on fire.

News crews take it in

and honest to god

government men

watch us watching them

and the thing from the sky

we now draw for our children.

When we were children

we used to watch it

flying over corn fields

flying over cows

He said I'd been to his birthday

We were best friends that year

I have no recollection, 

of childhood anymore

tell me more, Mr McAllister,

tell me who I used to be.