Footprints on the Wasteland

Footprints on the wasteland
Sandpits of the East
Dreaming on the edge
Of the bed of human beast
I'm no longer happy
I'm no longer shy
Blood cuts through the morning
Essence of your sky

Footprints on the wasteland
Treasures we once had
Flying cross horizons
Painted in your head
I'm no longer wanting
I'm no longer young
Water turns to wine where
Jesus heads run strong

Footprints on the wasteland
Kings that court for clay
Building men and towers
Into mind's decay
I'm no longer frightened
I'm no longer pure
Days go hide forever where
Darkness is the cure

Hello to Go

See how a simple hello
Can simply change it all
To the man behind the door
Or the ladies in his show

Yeah, a simple hello, that's all
One simple hello to go

Hear how one clapping hand
Can enloud the winter band
Where the jam just never ends
We are stardust in the sand

Yeah, a simple hello, that's all
One simple hello to go

Feel the tightening of the tide
'Til there's nowhere we can hide
And the autumn flowers ride
With the driver of Mrs. Clyde

Yeah, a simple hello, that's all
One simple hello to go

"Bourbon Days"

We've been down there at the upside
Upside of the down
With midget ballerinas
Gaiety girls and clowns
Safe here at the circus
Bleeding at the zoo
We've been down there at the upside
Upside of the truth

And bourbon days were bright and true
But now those days are over
No one left to cry about
Stop leaning on my shoulder
And bourbon days were sleepy fucks
Blind and stiff and sick
But are we feeling better now
Perhaps we're just getting rich

Well we've been spun in trickery
And we've been fed indifferent facts
They all went down, in sudden awe
Got buried with their supporting act
We’re safe here with the warden
Blinded by the theater
Down there at the upside
Upside of the glitter

And bourbon days were bright and true…

Your understanding twilight, ma’am
Cuts my heart in two
Sheds my lonesome blood around
As bourbons days are through

Yeah, your understanding twilight
Paints me hollow white
Wrecks my mind again
In bourbon days alive

"The Sweetest Curse"

The sweetest curse is to watch your eyes
Blow up just like mine
And to know that we really can't help each other
The sweetest curse is to watch your hands
Reach for something sublime
And to know that we never really bother

For passing strangers in the night
The sweetest curse, you’ll get it right
To love our flaw, to love our time
And see through all of their lies

The sweetest curse is to watch your corpse
Getting erased like mine
And to know that we always continue to laugh
The sweetest curse is to watch the grave
The home you’ve left behind
And to know all we've done is a magnet for death

Our lives have now reached sun
That’s one satisfactory guess
The sweetest curse, our matchstick heart
You know it just can’t last

The sweetest curse is to know it all ends
Before we can find a chance
Before all of our tiny human beginnings
The sweetest curse lasted thousands of years
Now it’s a dancing routine
In seconds it'll pass, don’t worry, there’s nothing in it

From all the strangers alive in the rain
We differ none, we’re all the same
The sweetest curse, to watch us go
Into the bright amazing cold

No matter how far we can see
No matter how fast we can run
No matter how high the moon
No matter how low the sun
No matter what's out of their reach
No matter what's only mine
Just sing your song

"Last Rebel Standing"

As the night falls down on this hollow town
You can hear the roar of a broken machine
Once a bright chrome horse for the angel man
Once a motorcycle queen for the motorcycle king

Last rebel standing on the barricade
Last rebel waiting for the night to come
Last rebel standing on the barricade
Last rebel down

All the chrome is rust now, steel has turned to dust
Streets collapse and buildings crumble down
Facts are clear now, we lost this race
Somebody save us, save us from the gun

Last rebel standing on the barricade
Last rebel waiting for the night to come
Last rebel standing on the barricade
Last rebel down

Last rebel stands for rock'n'roll
Last rebel stands for love
Last rebel lives in truth
Immortal friend, you died so young

Last rebel standing on the barricade
Last rebel waiting for the night to come
Last rebel standing on the barricade
Last rebel down

"The Naropa Sequence"

Opening of the Door

As the western lands twinkle… putting their shades divine
There, on our eyes
Famous and yellow
We stumble anew into Light
Emerging from
Mother

We pass unnoticed through people of paper
Their paper streets
Environment changes
They never do question
The western lands twinkle... we often there die
We stumble anew into Light
Beads of the Mother
Now spilled
As Night welcomes softly
Her willing apostles

Hosanna

Horizons bent low – the seed of the poor... emerging of feet
rustling through fields... Hosanna

Prescriptions go slow – the treatment of gold... there
resting aglow, spaded and shown... Hosanna

Wherever you go – the lights are of snow... there triumph ant’s
goal, singing it out to heavens of gold... Hosanna

While moon takes you higher – the body sits low – while spirits
decide the next place to go... Hosanna

The train of your thought – you’re dancing with it, it ain’t no
surprise, you’re traveling deep... Hosanna

And some of us snails – some of us snakes – perched together
to make no mistake... Hosanna

Eating each other – to crawl out alive – shedding the skin
the years
seem so wide though they’re not and they’re cold
and they’re not made of poor old... Hosanna

Horizons plant seed – for those of their greed – the western
lands wait and those who are pure, who don’t hesitate – Hosanna

Naropa

The lord is coming... the woman
Her white hair stained with henna
Eyes golden garlands, sleep, earth, Naropa

Face to face
Where clear light reigns, ceases breaths
Ceases love, cools life, there's death...in garlands of Naropa

The lions are there
As minds undistracted follow the well
The veil, the sentient, symbol, path...Naropa

The union pushes
Not higher the bliss
Her streets, her feathers, henna, leaves...Naropa

Free of heavens
More than the gardens get dry
The sky becomes a blank blue rock, outside
Naropa

Wipes away the serpent
Gratified no guilt
No leaving, no coming, the doors which she passes
So freely
Naropa
So there

The Radiant One

Lucid at birth, neither dead nor alive
Nor spoke of or heard of, the bird's feathered prison
The Radiant One, she comes

Limitless sky, no shapes of decline
Or ascension to higher perceptions of Truth
The Radiant One, she calls

The all-good Buddha unrecognized
Shelters the face, the fingers, the feet & the tongue of The
Radiant One, who calls

Cools life once again, the plains are all seen
From the Eye, not the second, the fourth or the third,
Radiant One at birth

The moon in your water drops arrows of death
Forever, thereafter, whynever, forget you, in sleep
O You Radiant One, relentless

For all that there is, you must find yourself plain
No sentiment, treasure no loss or no gain
The Radiant One explains

In sleep, go too deep, forgive them and weep
Weep for the gold and the valleys of sick
The hymns of the poor... The Radiant One
Must sit there in silence
Must weep

Samsara

The fading of birches in streets’ heavy sight
Passer-bys, wanderers, stuntmen and clowns
All live in your head and with you they die
So elevate Rain
And let them all ride
Samsara, contagious disguise

The Light only differs in N of importance
To those who choose wrong
Receive pretty nothings – and turn with the cities
Of forms there repeated – in mirrors of self
The boxes they dwell in
Samsara, don’t keep them from telling

Undead or unready, the Princess is wailing
Violins shriek, the blind men are sharing
The wise men keep open what ought to be
Closed, they never wear anger, they never compose
A sight of the door that so many pushed through
They’re not really new – and not there for you
The ever unchanging – Samsara is truth

Drinking their wines with a grin on the tale
Telling more lies, circling again, revolving again
Evolving to same, never to self, never to Name
The picture is drawn with too little detail
A shame to the blind, the Sunshine awakes
The wombs that they choose, the paths that they carve
Are never what seems of some matter inside
Samsara, let them ride

Conclusion of Senses

Receive what is yours to receive
Serpentine horns
Blow for the sun
For no-one else blow thee as well
Cut through Night, the Plight, the Fight
And leave you inside
Push “I” outside – wherever you are
Where senses collide with the sun
Where all golden wombs are one
And all you’ve become
Is all you’ll let be
Let hand bells breathe
Reign over thee
No ego
All free

Naropa (I)

The lord is coming... the woman
Her white hair stained with henna
Eyes golden garlands, sleep, earth, Naropa

Face to face
Where clear light reigns, ceases breaths
Ceases love, cools life, there's death... in garlands of Naropa

The lions are there
As minds undistracted follow the well
The veil, the sentient, symbol, path...Naropa

The union pushes
Not higher the bliss
Her streets, her feathers, henna, leaves...Naropa

Free of heavens
More than the gardens get dry
The sky becomes a blank blue rock, outside...Naropa

Wipes away the serpent
Gratified no guilt
No leaving, no coming, the doors which she passes
So freely
Naropa
So there

Lucid at birth
Neither dead nor alive
Nor spoke of or heard of, the bird's feathered prison... Naropa

Limitless sky
Shapes of decline
Or ascension to higher perceptions of Truth... Naropa

The all-good Buddha
Unrecognized
Shelters the face, the fingers, the feet and the tongue of Naropa

Cools life once again
The plains are all seen
From the Eye, not the second, the fourth or the third, Naropa

The moon in your water
Drops arrows of death
Forever, thereafter, whynever, forget you, in sleep... Naropa

"The Skirt Rest"

You a rose-bed painted skin
Me to wander waters green
Water taught us both to wander
Rest aside and lulled to sleep
Dream has never been received
Gilded panic, spoke of well
Take your flaming violin
Burn your promised neverweres
Washing down your flattened hills
Ocean's hole we can't repair
Me to wander waters green
In the rivers of your hair

Sordid details of a life
Strings without a compromise

Clasped between the breath along
Meadowed lands of all abrupt
Me to wander waters green
You to break your china cups
Skirts aside this journey's fair
Sliding up and down her legs
Spotted white upon her skin
Neath the blackest shade of black
There's that porch of liquid air
Growing dense with every touch
You a rose-bud painted skin
Me who's losing all the time

Sordid details of a life
Strings without a compromise

Sewn as one upon the whirlwind
Torn apart at flooded graves
You where men are sculpted gold
Me where journey is the man
Under skies that scream for rain
God's blue beard of no excuse
You to wander waters green
Me to rest among the news
There's your wisdom, tinged, true
There's that harp your alleys broke
You the noose above the clouds
That's the wine on which I choke

Sordid details of a life
Strings without a compromise

"Arrows"

Permissions planted as arrows
Grown away as fears
Pushed right through the narrows
Pressing up the beast
Where no-one comes of safety
And colors are alike
The spring still sings out madly
Her songs of no surprise
So wise

Rejections planted as sorrows
Grown afar as tears
Shifted through the sandpit
Crawling way out East
Where no-one stays of wisdom
And sandstorms overcome
The body we called lover
The building we called home
Alone

Redemptions planted a reptile
Grown too close, too soon
The fever's always rising
At this side of the moon
Where nothing comes uneasy
Where everything is still
No comforts for the dreary
Or demons left to kill
At will

Confusions planted as arrows
Sadly in her side
The goddess of tomorrow
Must give her death a ride
Without it nothing's sacred
And nothing's worth to live
Enough of all your bullshit
Let me now receive
Let me now collect
Let me now receive

"Because I Can"

Free as the eagle's wing, always... fine as your culprit's blues
Not always dedicated... but always, always true
You ask me why I do these things that make you go insane
Lady, because I can...
Lady, because I am...

Restless as the wind's white antenna... resting in chameleon's eye
Not always feeling good... but always in the byest of bye
& you ask me why I'm dancing on your buttered sea of plans
Lady, because I can...
Lady, because I am...

And if anyone should ask you... if I truly am your man
Tell'em I'm the wind that blows just because it can
And tell'em that this wind is always close to where you stand
Lady...it's always there... reach out your hand...
I think you can

Broken as the cup you're drinking from... or blinking lights of home
Not always there for you when you're feeling quite alone
Yet still my hand is wrapped so tight around your sleepy waist
& the songs I wrote are there for you, and I never need to rest
Lady, cause you're the best
Lady, I'm headed West...

Born as the ghost of Jacques Brel... vast in your candlelight
Not always there are tulips... not always must you lie
You ask me why I do these things that make you go insane
Lady, because I can...
Lady, because I am...

And if anyone should ask you... if I truly am your man
Tell'em I'm the wind that blows just because it can
And tell'em that this wind is always close to where you stand
Lady...it's always there... reach out your hand...
If you only think you can
Lady, cause I'm your man
Lady, because we can

The daily forest

There, in the very ambiance of being
thought-forests sterile
trees of compassion
exist
erect
their blades
on air

branches always
grow anew
explore the plaine of satin
& coal
the plaine we call our limit
so blankly
the plaine we never quite
reach here

branch lines...
why the sweetest lines
the ones that get you walkin'
w/ no shoes on
w/ no shirt but the one
of tornado juice
& first summer's sighs
lost sighs
missed ones
now pale

devastated wheelless wagons
still on fire
slaughter-headed
stale graffiti-spangled
roll on

as you
roll on

while the plain we call our limit
is just our thought-forest's
regular
daily
basis

VENICE ON FIRE (dedicated to James Douglas Morrison)

So she slipped right out of my arms
she called it a break-through
of
monkey business
sorts – June on jukebox sorts
sorta tired I guess of the hell-in-a-hole-hell's ass
casino & drinkbar
manipulated stipulations
& long-after-moonset
cafe
sway stayin'
starin'
jigjag dollface walkin'
while the city is all but alive
'cept
the bums safely stunned at the station
swarming their novel & poem excuses
for
seamless
monthly
relationship
whirls
& the winter lady hooker's
all-savage
all-American swing

this city looks more like an empty valise
a torn-apart coat
or a manic
stormy
disordered Frankie
blues
blow'd out of a slitherin' baritone
sax

de Sade sort of thing
I guess so
I mean the way your eyes
deliver
that cool filthy's whore
laid back gaze
& all your wicked
ventilator amusements...

the city locked it in so gently in you
the city amazed and locked in you in it...

we're hung so amazingly well on our tan
we're
acolyte acrobats
on the
chimney's swift
reality saber

at the Night Hunter's pen slide's end
& babe you will die someday from Miss White...

apart from the cool
anesthesia of dawn
& the bassman's ultimate boppy vipers...

apart from the sanity's final refrain
apart from the
2AM
father's death phonecall...

apart from the razorblade stunt
in the mirror
and the knife he's still clenchin'
a fist on the hiway...

& apart from the tangos I taught you
to play
& you did it
so well full of rum & still standin'
when Julio emerged w/ a broken typewriter
& said he's now writing
Arabic
only
right on his way
to the Persian dream's raptures

she the very next day slept
then took the next Sleepin' Village train
tip
early enough
I put a dollar or two in her bra
for
one hell of a
gritty
Latina
bartendress she was
on occasions
& the window I broke at her river-by-place
when no one could see it
I called her
Marrika
the true name that's written
in eye's
howlin'
trashcan
wonderin'
why this ain't
Venice

& the way she spoke of Verlaine
made me think of the
crickety summer
alcove
& pray that I was on the same
damn
train
directed into oblivion
& woodyesque
bald
disgustings

the one-man-subway-banjo-band
plays on
the rubber
band song

...woohoooooo... & the train's a-down the raildrain...

we went to the pier at the side of Melinda's cantina
we happened to manage to get there on time:
the goddam lake like a tyre
store room
a fact or fiction
perception
games for three included...

& a lost desolate post fuckin' office
stuffed w/ letters from India & China
dead postmen
& other
satorial
concerns
of
sellotape
spangled rotary prisms

the tricks she knew for the body
the means to end all
means
of
forgiveness
& put forth the biggest
sacrifice liver
 ever

she came for dinner once
left dirty plates
vapid six-year-old
coffee
chili soup
& tapers
seizin' rapists
in the white room
of Disraeli sunshine

where dyin' in Paris's the best solution
& all of our duties
come instant
resolvement

packed up the .28
jumboed
the .45
mingled like a black fuckin'
canary
sang some
James Brown
in a coma-like state
of
reservedness
& Gothic gospel
puta needles

she whispered through all of her cavities:
„too much of-a-Bogart you seem, my dear...”
„yes, and I love my dog...”
I added

„the books are a burnin'... your songs are all gone...
Petofi's all stained in
beer & semen...”

who cares for this easy Hungarian wolf
who cares
for beer
when there's vodka & Marylin...

now gone and mended at 4:56
got things to deliver
by New Year's Eve
got deals to deal
and a mean mean poker
to play durin' wartime
one hell of a bet
& a loser's
dispatch

& if all the cards ain't jokers
than my name's not
Swietzalsky
and that ain't your
deck by chance of ghost

the man I love must sleep now deep... sleep now sleep... sleep in the tub....
music boxes sometimes
gore
like a fuckin'
mantra
& go into restless stupor

choose a recorder...
the plates are all yours now...

as yours is the priest-handed
man in question...

pinch & turn
the sticky
mantrap jelly
full metal jacketly
glued
all together

the man I love must sleep now deep... sleep now sleep... sleep in the tub....

sleep as babies on butter
while they're cuttin' your head
fuckin'
off

while white death's creepin' up her thighs...
leavin' the mark
of the writer

how in the hell can the canary
sleep
here...

well, this is the story of Wislna St.
or very close
confined/confirmed

yeah, this ain't Venice fer sure
ain't Venice on fire
ain't all the time
death in Venice...

fine young men did sleep on her Islands
guided only by the rusty
crucifixes
of her
breast
& the soap scent
in the ever broken
hyacinth
bathroom

somebody said the city's a cunt
givin' birth to
one-minute
love-cracker
monsters

then swayin' along to some 11/8 vamp
jazz drummers panicked on 11/8 vamp...

the gunslingers frown for hangin' Matilda
on bo very diddly
chessboards

guided only by the spare part kindness
of her
sadistic
coolish
resolute asshole
in flutters

since 1974
five young men got lost in her tangles
of pure vapor sleeplessness
explored her back & hoped for a
sizzlin'
reward
while some of us called it a snatch

sweetie
I'd never be
the sixth
in the reptile house cruel assignments

not in my tower-of-song sort-a-thing
not when LC's
still
singin' out his aftershave lotion
& the time of the rovin's still young
& I see him at dive-ins sometime by the docks
discussin' immutely
the future of western culture
w/ sailors of seasons
& seas
too wild
to roam on a boat
even
his and/or drunk on the crappy old waltz
he delivers

voodoo dolls don't work on me
& spare parts
I got
a-plenty

you're not the Gypsy fortune teller's
or anyone's worthy confusion
daughter
you're not the tattoo
I wear
after dark

you're all tarantulas
& Diegos
I knew – dumb radio DJ's & boasted pancakes

same as the devil was
same as the devil's
got
hold
of
same as the sizzle of prudence
& gore

I traded my beercans for slipstreams of magic
for a buzzin' starlite
machine

I traded my songs for hepcat
uncertainty
of composure...

while all you've got's the TV screen sky
the passing car's
crash
puppy
Holly Buddied
love
the way-too-expensive ticket
& stolen Tibetan flip-flops

yep
the daisy dress makes it all look
more
like unlessly unusual

her body now shrieks for attention
but all she gets
are
carramba mosquitoes & flattened footballs
&
dead by mojo
partly neoned
Morrison
shithole
hotels
circa
1964

I'm hopin' one day to call it all quits
I'm hopin' one day to get paid
for my slaughterhouse
axe
& sandpaper
voice
above all

yeah, this ain't Venice fer sure
Venice's steady on flame all the time
Venice's high
on MC5
&
Magma's
meadows
of
steel

& yes
I'm the biggest
of spiders