The Swamp Krewe - CD of the Month June & July 2022!

As you now surely now, I have joined The Swamp Records in December 2021 with my solo project A.J. Kaufmann, and around June 2021 with FAIRYPORT CONVENT. My experience with this label is great, the bands that are on it are amazing, and the music never stops, but now we all (The Swamp Records and the bands it represents) need your help!!!

You might not know that The Swamp Records has a great subscription deal, in which you get not only digital music, but also physical releases with many interesting bonuses!

That is The Swamp Krewe, an exclusive community of music makers and music lovers from around the world with a passion for all things underground and heavy. How cool it is to receive your favorite music for free? If you join the Swamp Krewe, and you're my fan for example, you get all my albums for free, no strings attached! And I am just one drop in the ocean of all the great Swamp Records releases! So if you're not familiar with The Swamp Records catalogue, change that as soon as possible, and become a happy member of the best swamp crew in the world!

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"May Rain" (new lyrics, 2022/05/24).

So you're leaving in the morning
Waving spells of chorus chimes
Of a brave hurricane country
That's been founded in your arms
And you're thinking of new futures
That repeat the pasts and nows
Of a brave hurricane country
That's been ball and chain around

May rain, it's always the same
In May rain

Speaking of your premonitions
Life's a mirror of your dreams
Looking from the world's top mountain
Views are brilliant and the trees

Sing May rain, it's all down the drain
In May rain
May rain, it's always the same
In May rain

So don't fear the deadly arrow
Water shoots from oceans dark
Lose your fears and life is sacred
Keep it always in the bright

May rain, let flowers remain
In May rain
May rain, it's always the same
In May rain

"Love Lions of Paris" (Complete poetry chapbook, 2011).

LOVE LIONS OF PARIS (KSE #197) is the 13th poetry chapbook that Poznan, Poland-based poet/musician/songwriter A. J. Kaufmann  has done for Kendra Steiner Editions.
That is because Kaufmann perfectly exemplifies the KSE aesthetic: he is rooted in Beat poetry and psychedelia, he knows the important avant-garde traditions of the last 150 years, he reflects the particulars of his culture/region (and also such important areas for him such as Berlin and Paris), and he takes those elements and creates 100% original work from them, work that apes no one else’s work and that has a form and a feel all his own. Yes, his work can be surreal; it can have the post-Rimbaud rock’n'roll decadence of a Leonard Cohen or a Syd Barrett or a Jim Morrison; it can have a psychedelic spiritual exuberance in the tradition of Roky Erickson/Tommy Hall or of Sky Sunlight Saxon. But it’s always 100 % A. J. Kaufmann.  Having worked with the man on three collaborative chapbooks, and a fourth chapbook that was a joint work but one where we both worked from similar prompts,  I can testify to his amazing imagination, his devotion to craft, and his dedicated work ethic, even while living a lifestyle that would kill or sideline a lesser man.

A. J. has been working primarily on his music for the last 18 months, finishing one album and now working on a second, but we are fortunate that he took time out from his recording/songwriting work to produce the poems in LOVE LIONS OF PARIS. A. J. is a European Citizen of the World, and to such a man Paris and Berlin have a magical presence, perhaps the way cities such as New York or New Orleans or San Francisco or Memphis might to an American such as myself, and Kaufmann has spent extended periods in each city, living the poet’s life, with guitar and notebook in hand. Those cities continue to live on in him, even though he is back in his native Poland, and they animate and inhabit LOVE LIONS OF PARIS. Kaufmann himself explains the genesis of this work:

“Love Lions” was written in Paris especially for KSE and it’s got a strong music connection. One summer evening I was sitting and smoking in a cheap hotel room, thinking about glam rock, space-age poets and lost loves, listening to Marc Bolan and Tyrannosaurus Rex, sketching dragons in my notebook… an hour or two later I realized I’ve sketched something more reminiscent of a lion and I wrote down the line “I kiss / Drifting love lions / With a golden smile” which later, upon my return to Poznan, became the first line of the title poem. Most of the other poems were composed while humming imaginary words with a grungy guitar accompaniment, but the melodies have since been lost as we had no recording equipment, not even a laptop, in my room. Some of my friends think I used cut-up techniques to develop these poems or “lyrics”, but truth is I definitely stopped doing cut-ups last year. “Love Lions” is, in my opinion, a glam-rock version of “Siva in Rags”, with dusty beauty gone all shiny and chromed, with once dried blood now boiling to the sound of “All the Young Dudes”.

As always, it’s an exciting and fresh and dazzling poetic trip from one of the few 100% original voices on the scene today.

“Love Lions”

I kiss
Drifting love lions
With a golden smile

I blow
Ashen poppies
Crying clear and grown

I weave
A smoky song
Starving in the vacant night

I dusk
The crawling earth
Sing with the moon fools

I trip
Thru moorland stars
Immortal wild years

I watch
Blue darkness remain
Toying the fire hearted day

I sting
The noiseless clay sky
Love lions lay at my feet

“Vine and Starlight BAND”

My shell, my moon, my wonder
Gorgeous and white
Harsh torn fruit and time
You’re waves of bitter love
Waiting for the night
Letting me smile

You’re blind alone, my love is warm
I’m stepping down real slow
Hanging on your rocks
Clinking, darkening, gone
You’re full of stars and swans
You’re the bravest dawn

Glittering bodies squat my void
With night’s electric smoke
Fear and steps of a shapeless tramp
Sporting vine and starlight band
Discovering snow in his bed
My kisses on his hands

With the quiet tissues of wind
Statues of sand and the model sea
He owes it to the track, I guess
He’s never looking back
But he’s still an angry dove-child to me
I love him infinitely

“Dead Black Everything”

Where’s the night
The hollow crickets
Young thoughts wallow in the mist
Low souls still and weak
The free men
Monstrous flowers weep

Sudden knowing
Splashing glorious
On unchanging earth and foam
Master's milk that fills my cup
Nests the moon
And cloaks the sword

Broken chimed eternal one
You’re silver bees and opium years
You in ripened woods of chrome
You’re satin bells that weep the sea

Prince of hearts, the emerald warrior
Worth the mountain and the sky
Quiet moonlight, gone and trembling
Overtakes the evil dice

Gift to soft mad girls, a promise
Deep Arabian trumpet snake
Dead black everything, he cometh
Dusty heatwave cleanly served

“IRON SMOOTHED TRASH”

Your screaming heart’s just
Breaking glass in my room
There I dance, the screen and rope
Lamps and rain world view
Black I bay, I’m heavy birds
Captured in your tar
Silver slow, I rot and rot
Try a lonely star

Meet me under streetlamps
Happy packed down face
Ache and hate, I’m a million years late
Failed, in failure great
Smelling something climbing
What my body gained
Lovely one, the saw of death
Roughly I remain

Free line forms the stars
Body blazing lights
Stop the watch, recognize your foes
Become a glassy whole
Thru cigarettes and bareness
Driftwood, powder, ash
Windblown in pain’s moment
Iron smoothed trash

“Hippie Dream”

My face is dead, it’s a wasted whore
An eyeless cloud of futile blood
I crushed my name and restrained my soul
Drowned the prophet in me in a coffee cup
Was so easy to grow, even easier to fall
With a terrible shriek of ecstasy
Now I cough out fear and agony
And I miss the days of a naive hippie dream

I watched satellites and I cried for sun
On a storm night long like Sonya’s drink
I was stripped and wild on a punk rock stage
Was a cage of ruthless apathy
I was prisoner to murder, servant to lie
Obsessed with possessions, tortured with dusk
Trashing my mind in the endless flow
Of comfortable chairs crushing hippie souls

Bloody fireflies of death and forsakenness
Ate my soul alive, fled the earth when it crashed
I guess a little bit of friendship will do for now
I try to be your lover but I’m your favorite cash cow
You’re a theater girl, I’ve your words recalled
You gotta be perverse, if you wanna make it work
Take a long deep breath, it’s your chance to scream
It won’t happen twice in the hippie dream

“SEPTEMBER”

Death is a friendly bridge
Leave, everything’s ceased
Mingled with wine and loveless
September page and lazy windowpanes

Seas are crowded with pain
Soft as flashing waves
There’s nowhere I need to walk
The firmament is red
Everything slips beside me
All the men I love
Withered feelings laugh
I’m making the final step

To awake so strange, so suddenly
On a funeral long ago
The sky moans what have you done
For those already gone
To be alone on sand, so low
Aimless, whispered thru
Quiet, deep and done
On an island, watching you

Idiotic ships and paper clips
Crumbs of pirate bread
Endless was the day that cut me
When I awoke all dead

“MADHOUSE VISION”

Sneer vision dark
Snow these phrases
It’s a cabaret
Lions roared against the straight
Whatever I meant by that

Drinking god’s wine
Why you’re shouting
Hopeless case, you must be blind
Veins of Greyhounds
Take you nowhere
The unspeakable surprise

Catalogued or left alone
There’s the gleam I long to see
Perfect white in my heart
Merchant crystals on my lips
Shoes walk coke
And body spits

I am vast immortal steam
Age long deserts in your head
I’m still thinking of the red lawn
Yellow globes that drive me mad
I’m still painting lonely airports
Dripping shark sparks, wounded gray
Killing diet swollen cushions
In the madhouse where I play

“PAIN ROAD”

I’m on the pain road again
We go to the point, you and I
Just jagged wheels full of mud
Shattering the sun

I’ll give you this new-made ring
Try love a poor, ragged clown
The liquid beauty of sticky city
Could now be yours, divine

My bed cries on and on
Catch the wink, cause that’s the strip
Across the slow felt disgust
Against our sky dragged wheels

Against the dim and the waiting
Cold sank sun, cruel light
We’re holding hands and licking wounds
Trembling, whispering good night

Sea, the night flesh
Iron dew
Rain – a thought
No more

Face, dress
Thigh, silk
Tide, moon – a word

“NOISE OF DRIFT”

I retire to the black, to the great out
To the seas
Clear me out and beautify my dreams
Sun me up, I’m kissing death
The epitaph of words
Black the wave and thundering
Pagan drums below

Back beside the poetry fire
Single candle flame
Dark glass veils the angry face
Heavens yawn again
Hours pass, I feed myself
Indigo agony
Pass the cup, I’m racing death
Vibrant infamy

Torture stretched your pretty soul
Smelling sky, the low, the bare
Heart drained word, it’s laughing cold
Leaving black sparks everywhere

We drift in noise
Young and ice
These are our favorite hours
Dream crowds breeze
The strange visage
Anonymous rooms and plastic flowers

“VIOLENT GARDENS (PARIS)”

Immortal shadow drops from a common floor
A certain sweet taste hovering
I’m before romance now, dry gardens glow
Spreading tentacles of minor purity
Over bearded cannons like you and me

That’s her blood, moonlight alive
Paganini undone, just a horror face
That’s her dream, little eloquent bitch
Getting her kicks where bearded cannons play
It burns my life, madam, but I’m willing to stay

The town clock cracked, it’s forever webbed
In the prison wind, with the diamond fools
Violent gardens, can you finally take me there
Far from confidential eastern quietude
Where a fat French dragon
Is devouring my solitude

My heart is formless bones now
Wax lights strangling pain
Let me fade to crystal years
Warped unlike my fate
Candles, friends and wings
Kisses, tears and larks
Warm ominous void
Of Parisian eerie thighs

"Via Alighieri" (complete chapbook / poem, 2009).

I was sitting on this European 1950s bed
composite
sick little girl
who wanted
everything, hurt
to occur
everyone, hurt
to be there
dancing with cormorants
seagulls
running with wild rabbits
listening to the stars…

I wanted a radar
for everything hurt
the hair, the eyes,
the throat, the ears
industrial silence
and star empty music
hurt, too


…I was sitting on this European 1950s bed
wondering if I should use blue for the walls
green for the ceiling
knowing nothing about
ceramics
needing those other people
people I’ve loved,
like a wall…
intended to go only down
running up for the difference
learning to love
readjusting to
civilization
a lucky machine
transparent fish
steam & silos
thinking about those ceramics
I knew nothing of
people I’ve loved
like a wall

collapsing factory grounds
judgment
cohesion

always tired
I hurt
selling the things
keeping nothing
but worn out shoes to run
hair to hurt at dawn
eyes to scratch out
wide open, at night
readjust to the desert, between
dance with the early stars
the cormorants, seagulls
hunt wild rabbits
learning to love… again?...
ships anonymous
the sea, the land
circles of plague
pandemic waves of fog
flags caveat
no one aboard
music of the all-white
majestically docking
ships
stared at through bedroom eyes
anonymous, hurting
with one prerogative only
wharf, helm, the sea,
the land

…I was sitting on this European 1950s bed
moving on quicksand
sinking
disturbed
in terrible shock
afraid of streets, factories
colors, people
afraid of sound,
of rocks like flesh
even of walls, anonymous
ships
sirens on shingle, now look –
that quicksand took me away
faster than cormorants did
flags weaved still on hurried fog
sheltering our modest cabin
vomiting
the little black egg of wisdom
we took by mistake
while she was the sea –
we, merely pale
curious
ornaments…

fragile to changes and return,
we all are alike, a wall
of friends
handicap family
of things and stars and beaches
an endless brick graffiti
returning, returning to changes
learning to love
to forget… to abandon

…the rocks looked like flesh
the beach was completely deserted
but for one sick girl, who wanted everything
all of a sudden, a voice
near, far from the sea, then from the sea
circling around, no, not a voice - a coma of voices
plague galore
universe in a shell, beautiful…
…and everybody was singing
I carried no suitcase
no photographs
I was out there with the cannibals
just sink… sell the things
let the waves overwhelm you
I was there with the cannibals
I did not care for much besides
a pair of shoes
and cigarettes
also, the business

I wanted a machine
a moving bed, not on quicksand
all by itself, by the wall
taking me to prominent bedrooms
away from the vast hospital hall
by my will only,
not by quicksand
or cormorants’ wing
alone

industrial units close
poisonous vapors hit the winter sky
high chimneys, machine guns
to the little birds
awake in sludge of the freezing sea
aware and tortured
punctuated by chemical
arrows
transparent fishes die, cook
wild rabbits
white noise follows
those birds impaled on red pump sun
as cruel dawns crawl slowly by
to sleep by the sick girl’s side
on this European 1950s bed

I think I’ll paint the walls all green
the ceiling blue
so I’ve got an illusion of sky
every time you’re away
on business
an illusion of fields
while you’re walking
on the flesh of rocks
singing with everyone, aborted
above deserted sands

her worn out shoes marked
beauty
sliding down
always about to drown
a flag on fog, her moving bed
the quicksand dream
terrible shock of birth
people she loved, like a wall
ships anonymous
cormorants, seagulls, wild rabbits
silos, steam,
industrial units…

relax, the sea won’t reach you
with its anemic slum fingers
the city takes care of its prey
magic sleeps on deserted beaches
the girl’s still swimming
naked
irrelevant
free
orphan night in splendid isolation
finally sinks the bed
allows you
to copulate
with factory void
quarantine flags
all-white ships
gigantic
all in the skin
of a friend
pleasant radios
star music fantastic
deeper and deeper
in quicksand vortex
cannibals sing with the sea,
the land, wild rabbits
cormorants laugh
of sacred
return

and as far as I’m concerned,
I, the voice of the beach, everyone singing
we should all open a ceramics shop
at Via Alighieri
and learn to love:
abandon everything.

"Solar Angel Kisses" - selected song lyrics 2019.

Hotel City

In here the days float on like wine
In Hotel City we've got the time
In different scenes the ages roam
On cosmic vibes we twist the foam

The sacred goal is out of reach
So on and on the children teach
The preachers preach and reachers reach
We're all the colors of the peach

There's chicks galore
On the cutting room floor
And tides and sparks on cores
There's chicks galore
On the cutting room floor
And tides and sparks on cores

I guess that time does pass inside
On Alexandra's U-bahn ride
And someone smokes a big cigar
So lazy...
The streets of dirt
Where thinkers think
And drifters drift and alleys blink
So hazy...

Hotel City queue
What else is there to do?

Trieste Chicks

In the open door she's standing
She's reading olden books
She knows all the sisters here
In the Brooklyn neighborhood
But all I really want today
Is a trace of Trieste chicks
The taste of green grass growing
Is the one thing I really dig

Time is of no meaning
In this cosmic realm
Streets are glowing lightly
Like Sandoz in the Rain
And dawn is never fading
Madness trips the dusk
Sun is acid eagles
Circling earthly dust

Darker moons are rising
Strings draw underwater
Sisters of pure joy
Cosmic kissing daughters

Storm clouds over snow moonlight
Melted like sunrise
Floating over fresh ice
Streets deny the 9th mile

Solar Angel Kisses

Twice I walked the London town
Once on fools to taxi rounds
Rock'n'roll the bitter cure
I never cared for pictures' fuel
Time was drifting on my strings
Vibing continental pings
For my lady bright and fair
Blow so sweet oh winter air

Blowing like the final horn
Waiting for the Mayan corn

Twice I bathed in the breeze
Of my woman's bronze lit lips
I never cared for earthly things
Look out what your aura brings
Someone put me on a cab
Said there's danger straight ahead
I was thinking upside down
Solar angel's growing crowns

Glowing like the final chord
Waiting for the final word

Tribal worlds collide within
Atmospheres so far from sin
There I feel a bird in time
Floating, glowing all around

Solar angel, here I come
Message reached your earthly throne

Alptraum

New eyes shine on the prophet highway
New arms hug the American freeway
Roses bloom when you move your lips, girl
Tires shriek when you drive your car, man

Talking to nobody cause nobody hears me
Loving only love cause only love can free me

New dawn rises on the heavenly body
New stars shine on the drifting horizon
Silent steps on the stairs to wisdom
God creates what we call pure freedom

Music is pure key, notes so young and free
Soaring clouds so steep
Sailing oceans deep

Where are you brother sweet of Alptraum
Who am I, sailor strange of seasons

Kings and Queens of the Road

Life is better with a friend
If she has your soul and hands
If she has your eyes and lips
Heaven waits on seven trips
We have music, we have wine
We have everything sublime

We are kings and queens of the road
We don't care about the mold

Love is better when it's quiet
Time floats better with your talent
So we draw and so we write
We are angels, we are knights

We are kings and queens of the road
We don't care about the mold

Death is sweeter in a garden
Of Arabic female wardens
What's subconscious stays this way
This is all I've got to say

Pyramind

I walk the walk
I talk the talk
Inside I feel so happy
The city opens
Like a neon fist
I write it on my napkin

I don't know what's happening
To the streets I knew so well
Seems like all my friends
Are going through hell

Drone sounds erupting in the distance
King's clowns sweetening my existence
Good vibe carry the night away
Just when I thought it would stay

I don't know what's happening
To the streets I knew so well
Seems like all my friends
Are going through hell
Through hell

Echoes of a future past
Echoes of a past future
Feeling like a warrior
Outshined and so futile
Ain't no reason for me to just stay inside this dream
I'll be leaving soon to catch my favorite movie scene

Seven angels sigh
Crystals in the sky
Bowls of passing tears
In halcyon years
Future calls the man
Here among the damned
Death waves high its flag
Life reduced to red

Sometime World

Sometime world
Don't bother me
What realistic people see
Was something treated seriously

I thought of you in many dawns
And moods and colors
I spoke to you of many roads
And errors

Your constellation brought me down
On UFOs and crazy sounds
I often dreamed Atlantis tales
When green skies broke
And sound walls fell

We never spoke of why
Because or future
Perhaps the tracks we took
Will lead us further

I sometimes thought
Of olden times
And ashen lakes
On crystal pikes

Time and Miracle

When rushed I ran
And neutrons boiled
I stood barefoot on foreign soil
Canaan was far in sight and smell
But Gypsies told their stories well

Space the endless corridor
Love and life the only cycle
Soft eyes the only answer
Good will the only sparkle

And cards told hell
Some tales of gore
The queen sang tales
From mouths of sore
She whispered I am of no use
In houses yellow
Of living blues

There's nothing on Earth worth saving
Unless it's time and miracle
Until it's time and miracle

So if time remembers
An Autumn word
I would gladly trade it
For a Cup of Swords
I never win and I never lose
There's a trace of jazz inside my shoes

Golden Rendezvous

Lipstick on the pyramid
Shadows on the Louvre
Tires on the sidewalk track
Bitter fallen youth
Working for the other firm
Feeling insecure
Hope they're gonna cure my heart
With another you

Endless replays fall in love
Searching for the butterfly
Crazy games for crippled children
Take their lessons far

Energy enough for you
Super trooper star
Lebensraum was not enough
Something seems alright
But spiders always crawl
Amnesia is way healthier
Correction sucks in the door
Proves my heart is wealthier

Starslide shine day
Door day May day
Joyce choice starfall
Night breeze snow call

Evidence of breakdance
80s velocity
Dancers and romancers
Tell me what a pity

Pawns and Clowns

I guess I got lost in the streets today
And the pawns on the sidewalk had something to say
I tried to speak louder, I tried to be quiet
But silence was drowned and somebody said
Oh my god, what a clown
And tears kept on falling
From a cloud in the sky
While a pure solar lady
Whispered „never say die”

I think time forgot me
And so did the folks
But pale rural landscapes
Edited my words
And love was the weapon
And life was the bomb
For doers of good
And shadows of wrong

Atlantean

There's only one Atlantis
Pure oceanfall
And lovers meet there glowing
Where water meets the cold
I miss the tales of glory
Told by sages sweet
Who live beneath the waves
And call our heaven streets

Underwater love is true
And words are sweet
Underwater love is true
And words are sweet

Where beauty has no model
Except eyes icy green
That strike the silver fiddle
For Neptune's sunken dream
I miss your heart of wisdom
Weaved of pink sweets
That stream new songs of beauty
For old Atlantean streets

Kings of ashen times
Never will return
But tales of golden days
In poet's blood will burn

I sink beneath the waves
Reborn from earthly woe
I sing for mermaids young
Who grace my life with song

I am a stellar body
And so are you my child
You dive beneath the glaze
Of an orange deathless sky

Neptune

Practice what you preach
Colors of a peach
Simply driven lines
Sentences of crime
Supermen are dead
Souvenirs of bread
Hippie times long gone
Messages hit home

Vaults of father time
Isles of flesh sublime
There is nothing new
In the book of you
So rewrite your part
Try another start
Darling what's to do
Waves will swallow truth

The Day is On

Some people travel
Lightly on leaves
Greek sculptures draw their fire
As they sleep
And thank you for the sorrow and the pain
The satisfaction
Journeys will remain

Trash the door
Kick the camel floor
Light is fine and the devil screams for more
Will you believe when
I remain a man
You're hotter than a bullet in a tin can

Once I believed somebody took the drain
Until I met the story and the pain
We will remain

Book on book
Like tides have always flown
And I am blown
Like my shirt that's torn
Where people never die
And are never born
Seven circles around
Seven streets from home
Alright, the day is on

Walking Clouds

Clouds on the horizon
Tears slowly arising
Life passing you by
Love as wide as the sky
Walking clouds...

Storms circle the bright eye
Dawn repairs what was done by
Death and thorns on the altar
Stealing from gods
Walking clouds...

Seems like nobody is watching
Solar angels approaching
Vril ships of India, errors of time
Walking clouds...

Argonauts and astronauts
Ships confused and people lost
Art of skies and lullabies
I'm eleven again... crying shame

Walk beside me not with me
Try and set my spirit free
That's the door to fantasy
And doves... ancient love

Best Bargain in Town

The day won't stop, it's tired now
The sun is blinking upside down
He studies life and keeps his head
Above the level of her bed
Where posters of his beauty hang
And someone says, man, you're a drag
You know you need it upside down
The jargon thief, best bargain
In this town

Coffee costs a trip too much
And I hate stardust fake blue touch
I copy things and try my best
To put my fingers to the test
Where earthly creatures stay to rest
I tie my bones to Medusa's mast
How dare you call me a dirty clown
There's life of panic all around
And tears are falling from your gown
Still I'm the best bargain in town

I try my best to stay the same
And leave the life of tears and pain
But Dalai Lamas can't complain
He's wiser

50 million Buddhist monks
Praying in the rising sun
Can't help but turn around in frown
It's over

And someone cries a dragon's tear
A pretty lady that's so clear
And pure and wise and she's alright
My baby

She always has some work to do
Down on dirty avenues
She's never been somebody's fool
So pretty

Her tactic spoils the preacher's son
Best bargain in a miner's town
She's prettier than the rising sun
It's London

To Survive

This is not my kind of scene
Psychic warfare and Vaseline
Roaring tigers and rock machines
Drugs as fuel and men obscene

I just need your love to survive
I just need the smell of your eyes

These are not my kind of dreams
Nightmare shocks on terror screams
Lady dune on poet's wings
Women bards, electric schemes

I just need your love to survive
I just need the smell of your eyes

These are not my kind of pipes
Hashish smoke, jam session nights
Munich kisses in disguise
Poor Ursula selling lies

I just need your love to survive
I just need the smell of your eyes

No TVs

Yawning clown don't bring me down
With your talk of fallen gowns
Try to focus on your dream
With a big cigar of steam
This is living cabaret
Be yourself but place your bets
Wish I was a party beast
On a freight train headed east
Bringing thoughts of love's rebirth
Upon lands of war and filth

Don't you play your hand game, pawn
All I have for you is scorn
Brought me down so many times
In the hiss of Buddha chimes
I don't know what's sweet and free
In your TV fantasy
Camera eyes on me they stare
I don't know who's really there
Lyrics aren't my concern
Free them from the forms they spend

Rock'n'Roll Office

Everything served on time
Every note, every rhyme
Every lover in my bed
Anything those lovers ever said
Ants on pages full of dirty pants
Definition of a rock'n'roll romance

Rock'n'roll office
24 days
Working for a penny
Changing my ways
Thinking of a lady
Pure as daybreak
She's my golden rider
But I think I don't deserve her

Every car repaired at once
Every engine sent to the stars
Every star a light of its own
Every saint and sinner moans
Dolls on pages full of empty calls
Definition of a mountain rock'n'roll

Every stone cast twice to roll
Every door once opened to control
Those behind the hurried sleeping wall
Baby don't you try to spell the word
Everything you get are broken worlds
Baby, that's my swirling rock'n'roll

She Brings the Sun

In the rain when the day is done
She's my girl, she brings the sun
When the mushrooms disappear
She appears and has no fear
In the moonrays of the one
She's the clouds that brings the sun

She's a rainbow Gypsy ray
Without pain and without death
When she smiles around the void
She's the light the blind avoid
Poets old and poets young
Write of how she brings the sun

Dervishes describe her moves
She's the time and lips of truth
When she lives she makes me run
Walk her long, she brings the sun

Dawn Birds

Dawn decides for you, baby
Interests explode
Dusk denies the filter point
Reality corrodes
Someone sings of broken pens
Virtual and frail
Deviants of frozen pearls
Decorate the days
And if you say alright, baby
I won't ever deny
Cause you're as pure as sunlit snow
In the summer sky

There's something in the way you are
That makes the twilight shake
And someone in the neon flash
That turns the night to flakes
And if we're done with starting points
Beginnings drawn from scratch
Well we could fight the evening joint
With one more swollen match
Then we could sail the frozen sea
Across the brilliant waves
And try a bigger, softer touch
That could describe our fate

The beach is white and phosphorescent
And time is of no meaning
I can't hide I'm inspired by people
And there's no deep trick in it
So I love everybody like I love myself
And there's no love within me
At least that's what I said
When sails tried to receive me

Cosmic Belief

Storms can't hold me
Eyes are lonely
Birds are flying home
Tears are falling
Tears are failing
Streets of endless dawn

And I believe in you
And I believe you too
And you're my guiding light
Throughout the cosmic night

Seas contain me
Vision fails me
Drawing tracks on snow
I am cursed now
But am free now too
And that was my goal

I could offer you endless satin
Sapphire and velvet blue
If I were to choose Arabic foam
And heavy horses too
But in the streams of camel's eye
Prophets lose their trails
And then forget the taste of you
Behind the falling snails

Mystics think they lost their mind
Heart and spirit and soul
This is poem number 6 thousand 1
On blank asylum floors

Brightness guides me
Darkness fails me
Seasons try their best
To change my mind behind your love
But this is not a test

Swan Balloon

Life surprises me each day
While you sleep
Dawn denies the sleeping hand
While you weep
So I go into my room
And bang my drums real loud
Dawn surprises me each dusk
When the sun goes down

And when it goes up
I get on my dream machine
If you know what I mean
Take things slow
She told me, man
There never was a bigger plan
There never was a day too soon
So we could ride a swan balloon
And sleep...

Love Was Deep

In the distant hum of being
Someone told me child
There is nothing I should fear
When the tide goes wild
Sin will always cover me
For the things I did
Peace will always guide my way
Back when love was deep

Years will never mend my soul
Heart or face or ass
But I can stay forever young
Living half full blast
Just remembering tired faces
Makes me wanna puke
Love's for living sandy vibes
Not orgasmic nukes

Clyde Von Klaus & A.J. Kaufmann - "Saturation"

Clyde Von Klaus is a doomy garage rock extravaganza. Elements absorbed in the blood stream from punk,occult,doom,70’s,stoner,grunge,psych,death metal,hardcore,new wave and many other contaminants that cannot be contained or restricted.

Clyde Von Klaus is also a really nice guy, and it's a pleasure an honor to be on the same label, The Swamp Records.

Since I am discussing the release of "Bard's Woman in the Cool of the Summer Breeze" on CD with The Swamp, I messaged Fuzzy (the Boss) and asked him if he's familiar with any artists that might want to contribute something to my new solo album. He suggested I contact Clyde, and so it all began.

On a "side note", I think that "solo album" is now an inappropriate term, as there will be too many guests to mention! Of course, I will mention them all and co-credit with all the input they put into my raw acoustic tracks as captured by Patryk Lichota. Clyde's track appeared today, and he joined other friends and artists like Blessed Studio, Sound Animal, Ralf "Gypsy" Bevis, Izabella Schoener. So, the album now has contributions from Indonesia, the UK, Germany, Berkeley USA, and Texas USA.

Clyde is in Texas, just like my brother Justin Jackley, and I really love the Texas vibe as present on albums by 13th Floor Elevators for example, and I found the people from Texas I met to be great, friendly guys. This time the artwork won't be by Justin though, at least the front cover - it is by Spencer Robens, a Hamburg based artist.

Clyde had lots of fun recording drums, bass, guitar, organ, and vocals to the track (a true one man band indeed!), and with great talent as his it was quite easy for me to mix the tracks for the song, and present it here for you:

The Strange World of A.J. Kaufmann · Clyde Von Klaus & A.J. Kaufmann - "Saturation"

Clyde can be found at http://clydevonklaus.bandcamp.com/ - and I strongly encourage you to buy his releases - the amount of talent on that guy is amazing. It was an honor for me to be able to work with him on my song, that now is ours, and yours to listen to.

As soon as I heard it first I got a "Seeds" feeling out of it. Maybe it's the "pushin' too hard" lyrics, or maybe that organ sound. Whatever it is, do check out and support Clyde as much as you can!

Speaking of the album, I have also began working with the Munich, Germany based artist Burkhard Mahler. I am waiting for the green light to release his rendition of "Aurora", recorded first for the LP with Sound Animal.

Keep your ears and eyes open - here is also "King of Kreuzberg", the first "single" from the album, on YouTube:

2009-06-22 - Antiquewhite Rain (Complete chapbook).

Now that he’s back in Poland, re-emerged from the underground, and returned from his travels in Germany, France, and Morocco,   A. J. Kaufmann has been on fire. We at KSE want to do our part to capture and document this poetic energy-burst, so we’re proud to present, outside the regular release schedule, the 45th entry in the Sound Library Series, ANTIQUEWHITE RAIN (KSE #139), inspired by German rocker Inga Rumpf’s 1975 album Second-Hand Mädchen (Inga Rumpf may be best-known to Americans as vocalist-guitarist with the early 70′s band Frumpy).
10 new poems. Nightmarish German Ages collide with primal rhythms while a sharp-toothed Antiquewhite second-hand Berlin mädchen plays with her Kiwi eyelids, summer passes, the jokers wait outside, and we all continue the search for Ray Charles’ America.
ANTIQUEWHITE RAIN by A. J. Kaufmann…it’s exactly what you think it is, except higher proof and higher velocity.
(Bill Shute, Kendra Steiner Editions, 2009)

Deepen the distance

storming culpable American bars & cafes
bride & curse of midnight boogie guitars
singing out life in whispered lo-fi spasms
highways of ready-made boys in her scarf
stage imminent angel-hawker
in silken runaround alphabet hands
waves of deafening staccato
loser/poet eulogies
sleeping long in the wintertime, under her hat
longer in the summer, even, in her umbrella
butterflies do this, she said – they also cry out, habitually
when they write my new set of lyrics
often when the burgundy lightbulbs dim
all unimportant lights exit stage
& songs projected on ego screens
manner & deepen the distance we shared
you lowdown poky apostle

German ages

phone booth hands calling the wolves at sunset
musician beggars stumbling melted
proud electric ghosts of their movement
puzzle boxes & honey angels stuffed inside together
breathing in the insane olden room
glass top coffin gold-flakes
cracked antique cuckoo clocks
tropical underground rivers covering champagne deserts
mints, Zippos, dehypnotized drag queens
U-bahn tickets & cardboard saviors
snakeskin jackets, crocodile shoes
invaluable relics of all German ages

Chicks left home

typewriter’s white meat
I’m black
chicks left home
boring death plateau
to watch some Fellini
wax-tax faces
Summer snow
banging cracked pianos
all nite long
in pure
vaginal
monopoly

Thingless (Antiquewhite rain)

mirror of moon
who are you when thingless...
a poor sharp-teethed Berlin girl
stark red whisky
hole-in-the-sky bone cold motel
some kind of von Stuck
anorectic Dietrich incarnation
le "Milord"
four bare walls of redemption
blunt ventilated horizon
carousel madness unveiled
Hashishin's journey come-true
G-d’s secret bookstore
footsteps on fog
coats on invisible hooks
warm Americana sound
or antiquewhite rain

Mallorca

still hanging round those one-minute beatniks
making love for an hour or so
blowing their out of tune saxes
feeding you random lines on affection
dreaming of perfect confusion
where skins & woods birds dive
sketching your ideal graffiti on water
expensive hot Spaniards
serving rare breakfasts
in the last year’s 50 mark sun
African paintings sleep
baby oceans breathe
swarming china poems
in white beach sands
under the second hand surface

Longest cigarette ever

smog black tangerine ghosts
fashion her European breast
play with kiwi eyelids
redhead moons
corridor voices smooth talk
entered moonshine apartment
jokers waited outside
creeping up gelatin cobwebs
audience broke all the ice
accustomed to rotten blues
bored artistically speaking
spitting out pieces of lungs
waiting the longest
cigarette
ever

Every heart a house in your city

one-way burning windows
trapped in laces of gold
time flying secretly by
bopping up and down
Cage wake fingers play
outlaw numbers shown
drunken above as below
fate in curtains
thieves of fortune
liberty natures
silent pianos
nightingales caliber
lyre fools
worms
kraut wine
& divas:
every heart a house in your city

Second hand girl

kneeling my latest human beauty
they sketch the Wherein
from pencil  soul
resurrection’s light
blessing her
where lilies wander
prayer kiss stands
ancient vision
jasmine virgin
Madonna face in a bar-sale mirror
where the breaking meets divine
my lovely
second  hand girl

Draw palms

remembering SF scene
John Wayne films
Johnny Cash songs
X-Ray cowboys
American postcards
rock’n’roll drummers
gather in the murky green toilet
of Hotel California
a hotel which quietly
stereo-types life
draws palms in your younger eyes
paints dusk in your younger hair
& then we can dance to Ray Charles’
America
wonderful
hurt

One rhythm

the way of rock’n’roll
is such a boring one
decadent tones crashing used cars
rust proceeds to form rainbows
incessant eyes never close
we’re watching over
cold zones of world
hot zones of world
there ain’t no choice
we’re golden
notes transposed from G-d
in self-made tools
of chaotic
despair

Signs

speaking of signs
she found a warm room
dug in
made dinner
moved her rusted arm
kissed the crystal
sugar cube
floor
took off my hat
filmed the humor
of outside worlds
phoned mother
sketched Alexander the Great
found a smoke signal
highway
repainted her VW pink
made green tea
opened up all windows
let in
the American
cool
spoke to her favorite rivers
played cut-up
with night
over a simple 4/4
rhythm
thought of inertia
sadness of leaves
Summer passing
unborn children
while I walked around the room
tempted
by the sun

Forbidden games

a nameless little girl selling roses “Under the Angel”
drunk on Cassandra
reminds of Berlin
streets of no importance
slum city jungles
fields of death
prostitute fingers
vacant airports
secret airplanes
winding lanterns
cannibal dogs
Mayan hearses

she moves on into corroding weathers
letting her roses
dance with the candles of dawn
leaving me at my table
writing a song for Betty
the one I can’t finish
for seven years now

waiter brings ’54
Californian
wine

I wait for my favorite whore
while dawn naked travelers
proceed to burn their belongings
sing anthems of freedom
lynch G-d
playing
forbidden
games

Forget the whole

It’s not your time
not your alley
not the night
made of ice
it’s not the husband
not the chair
not the day
out of plastic
melting faces increase
take your pills
not your confusion
forget the whole

Peripheral children

children wake up too
it’s unbelievably hot
city cracks open
we’re singing songs
lulling us back to sleep
airy weeds
creep up little noses
can’t breathe
burning squares & steppes
children wake up
to the peripheral trauma
of birth
old man sits on my stairs
every day
is born out of
his
perfect
desolation