1 O MUSE (To Bring You My Love & Ikes Rap)

O Muse,

You know, I sing of neither arms nor men

I’m sick of both of them

I cultivate ideas

That’s you’re with me here

Please please stop

Stop singing to me

Stop bringing these poems

Nobody wants to know them

They just curl up in corners

And then don’t want to be bothered

They don’t know you like I know you

Confused,

This machine won’t stop

Stop clinging to these

Rotten religions and notions

That there’s position in motion

Somewhere between the consolation of philosophy and the wrath of Achilles

They don’t know you like I know you

O Muse,

Don’t you yourself reduce, reuse, don’t you recuse yourself? Can you misuse yourself?

Who are you to use me?

O Muse,

Please, may I feed?

Do I please you?

May I even refuse thee?

I could listen over and over to you

What’s the use

These words are not for me to choose

And now they’re loose

This world will never do justice to you

I barely fathom you

Luckily this is not about you

O Muse

Look what you made me do

 

It only seems like we’re unneeded, baby

We’re weeds trying not to get weeded baby

We gotta make our own reasons, baby

Monsters creep while reason sleeps and sink their teeth in deep in the daylight, baby

 

2 ABSTRACT (All the Greek Boys & Poison & Trip Like I Do & Low & Punchdrunk Lovesick)

I have never been alone / I’ve got two souls

I cede my hands

To what the beat demands

It breathes commands

Forsaken, unarticulated but my body understands

These moves, these moves, these are the only homelands

 

First hunt a spirit in the forest and become it

Name it, don’t tame it, but inflame it with labyrinths, and engaging imagine-if’s

Show the thing what being loved forever feels like

Know the real treasure is to know the immeasurable never-ceasing wheel of time

While playing in the eddies below and above it

But first, just hunt a spirit in the forest, then become it

Keep your characters simple, their motivations base

The simple think the complex mocks them

Learn how to fool, not how to make a case

Your audience are not philosophers

 

Loosen up your needs for life to meet your expectations

Each possible outcome is just a different station

Eternity is our shared spirit passing through each one

To get to know each unique beauty equation

 

Those distant points of light

Not the stars, but in our minds

Are the gods that can redeem us

But don’t know we’re alive

We merge and we cleave / We warp and we weave

Best believe you distort what you see by seeing it

Now release what you are by fleeing it

I cede my hands

To what the beat demands

It breathes commands

Forsaken, unarticulated but my body understands

These moves, these moves, these are the only homelands

I have never been alone / I’ve got a pipeline to infinite souls

 

I know their undone deeds are what my ancestors bemoan

I gotta get off my ass and put my words to microphone

 

Streetnight, sweetflow

New king, silent spring

Strawberry moon

 

Bourgeoise, what will you do,

As your society collapses around you

What will you mean when you tell yourself,

I do not deserve this

I do not deserve this

 

3 ART IS THEFT (Knife Edge & Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds)

Art is theft without which we are all bereft

Art is theft before which there was nothing left

Art is theft, mad mutations of memetics

Art is theft I am the warp you are the weft

MIMIC ME / MIMICRY / MIMESIS

In a world with such diversity

Can anything really be wrong? Do any of these wild things really belong?

Isn’t every creature guilty of having accidentally evolved?

Shouldn’t everybody check out Polya’s How To Solve It?

Cynic / Stoic / My thesis

Art is taking part

The world or your own heart

Feel free to get all paranoiac-critical

But I am from the Eleatic School

Art is taking parts and

Fuckin around with it

The true heart is bereft until it listens instead of projecting

The light on Earth is reflecting

None of this, of course, is mine
The ones who made it are real gods to my hubristic Frankenstein

But poetry goes wherever you gather the right sort of electricity

I take part

I take parts from everywhere

I take part in the air

I might be nothing, not even my hair

I did not make any of this

This is lyrical karate with a bound heart

Even my body and mind are found art

I can take them ap

Art is theft

Hegelian synthesis of synthesizer sound

Humanity’s memetic midden mound

Unbound, turned upsidedown

So the worms can wriggle off the gems they’ve found

Read motherfucker read motherfucker; learn, fool!
WHAT IS LEFT

ART IS THEFT

That’s the function, creative destruction  

Community chest

Immunosuppressed

Unexpressed

Cardiac arrest

While in that Man Ray sky

Lucy cuts the moon eye with a knife edge

Hey Mack the Knife

Come back to life

Open up the world’s skin and

Drink the wine inside

Everyone will wonder where did this come from

They will hardly even understand why they want some

But if you fuck with it

They will come

 

4 IT IS TIME (Tomorrow Never Knows & Future Shock & I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead)

I exist / in the aether

Somewhere not here

Peering into a brain-shaped whirlpool in a passing river of material time

I must trust that my body is there

You will look for yourself

But be where/ware

 

It’s been a long time, it’s been a short time

It may not have been any time

We’re in the same place we’ve always been

No closer to knowing why

 

I USED TO BE THE FUTURE / THERE IS NO REAL TIME

Now I will be the past / Clouds even, paradigms

Getting nowhere fast / Going nowhere slow

Always the end / Never the end

Never again / Always again

 

I know that I don’t have time

I don’t know what time is

I don’t know what time it is

But I know that it is time

 

What / time / isit

NOTnotnotnot NOWnownow

 

I am limited / I am finite / I am in it though / I am so light

I am with my soul / I am dolomite / I will finish hot / I am not quite

 

Time never really tells

Love never really sells

What do you want to listen to?

What would you be better if you had heard a long time ago?

There are gems of time within the ore of moments

 

5 FIGHT YOUR BRAIN (Apache & Cups & Idioteque)

You are the only animal you must be master of

 love

You have to fight your brain

You cannot be the same as you were yesterday

Where am I?? What is happening??

You will have crazy thoughts - refrain! Refrain!

Civilization requires every day that ten billion apes behave

Your brain can be a weapon others will use it if you let them so you want it pointed in the right direction

Your brain is a wild horse on top of your spine

It is the one thing in life which to conquer is your birthright

I have never been alone / I have two souls

Human nature, that old song

Human nature might be wrong

It’s your problem if you expect norms

You have to be the master of your own mind and body

And nobody else’s you are not helpless nobody else’s don’t get selfish

 

6 HOMO SAPIENS SAPIENS (Come Together & High Plains Drifter)

Oh No, Homo Sapiens Sapiens

We are the animal homo

Striding forward in slo-mo

Coolly castrating Cronos

When we pass you, you join us

There are those / who do not want to know

There will be some who will not want to go

These are the barks and whines of hominids, but, too,

The spark and the shine of philosophy

God forgive our species

We are each still born beasts

Other animals may have heard we’re sleazy

If only living on Earth were that easy

Born into a dying world, we

Ferment the blood and bones of ancient lizard kings to grease the wheels of our infernal machi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yines

We all live together in the same house

It isn’t the wall calling your name out

We all live here together in the same house

Any one of us could blow the flame out

 

7 DARKEST FLAME

It doesn’t matter what your words are

We like the beat and / We like the beatings

We don’t even know what we are saying

We are not even listening to ourselves

We already know the conversation will continue in hell

 

Everyone is always

Astrally projecting

This is

A Hologram

This is a false reality

This is exactly what God has never seen

It’s what that supposed motherfucker would like to believe

But what you see only floats on the real

I know that

You are not listening

You don’t know

You are glistening

This language is my steed

I come ‘round like a subroutine

I’m down like a submarine

Underneath me y’all compete

To whip your lashes hardest upon the sea

You don’t know what I know

But you could Perhaps you should

No matter what the makeup of your culture or genetics

I mean to make you grok what I grok about memetics

Crowned fools rule our lands, and who cares

Cloudcuckooland blocks our hands from their prayers

Up among the stars there is no darkness

Just room enough between the light for sparkles

Not the same inside this gravity well called Hell on Earth

Within this dearth, our world is darkest in the flames

Remember there may have been a flame of which this world is a fading ember in the eternal hearth

 

I got a lesson on regret - to forget it - but forgot it, which I regret

 

8 UNDER COVER (Stagger Lee & Sour Times)

Mmm I want to come with you

Everywhere you go

Mmm I want to come with you

No one has to know

I accept your command

With a yes-and

I want to be under cover with you

Nobody can see us

Anyone can be us

Only we can free us

The other gods need us to do this to keep love alive

Thus we maintain paradise

This is between you and I

What if we were wild animals?

If I were a wild ape and you were a wild cat

Would we still be friends?

How would this feel then?

Now you’ve found me

Love, please, drown me

Away from the world’s eyes

We’ll maintain paradise

To the street plow thunder

You’re the cover I want under

 

9 GHOST OF A FLEA

Your wind blew through my coat

Like the Ghost of a flea in a boat on a river that

Goes to the sea

 

Could you see through the needle’s eye?

It has sewn through you;

You were its fiercest opponent and final component

Most of the time I’m already a ghost in my mind

 

Crossed the Valley of Death in an airship

Looking down on the souls below

I should be with them in all fairness

But my seer said there’s just no there there

Just do as I do, follow my lead

Follow my dancing into the sea

 

10 ARACHNE

Arachne, unweave your hubris

These words are not the world

Only with your silk unfurled can you learn that old unutterable truth

That life was earned by no one

Love cannot be undone / Love cannot be undone

Just gotta drag this bag of bones around for one more wagon load

 

11 SKPD FRGTN NVRRMBRD GN

The void, it teems.

You must resist it.

Not what it seems;

what it really is-is.

For all the poor creatures that never existed

simply for lack of the necessary niches

 

12 IS IT OK IF

Is it ok if. Is it ok if

My flow alone should give you the gist

I say no to the fist

I play Go with the mist

I do not know what this is

But is it ok if? Is it ok if.

Recall those times you saw the world at all

Not just the shadows on your side of the wall

I clothe my eyes in only logical awe

Thus my flow is in the shape of a claw

Even my flaws are by now finely tailored

I practice a philosophy of “folly not failure”

Loving behavior is my waiver for a savior, dig?

Authority never made an idea wiser

So do not be a miser with ideas

They’re the real blood of the gods on Earth

You are, after all, just your DNA

Be the way

Is it ok if

 

13 DO (IT) (Hiding All Away & PE One & Voodoo Child)

I am

Doin

More than

Sayin

I am

Not just

I am

Not just

Sayin

Doo it

Doo it

Doit.

Because you know

Because you know you don’t

Have to

Doo it

Doo it

Doit

Aanyywaay

Doin it is all it takes to become the you that did it

The threat of nothing to stop you is real

Imagine the future where you didn’t and run hard from that

Why / Aren’t / You / Doin’it?

Build up an armor of scars

Do, Please

Please, please do

Please do

It

Please, do it

This is at least a little bit about doin it this way

Like it or not you are only the now-you

Be doin’ it / Be doin’ it

Listen to YOUR self

Listen TO yourself

Listen to your SELF

Listen to yourself?

LISTEN to yourself

 

14 WHAT (Unsolved Mysteries & Princes of the Universe & Cowgirl)

IS IS IS IS IS

WHAT IS WHAT

Who is who

How am I

Not you

What is what what is what, ay

Why do I say what I say, ay

A is A, what?

What is A, eh?
A is A, ay

A equals A

What is what what is what what equals what A equals what, ay

I’ll tell you / I’ll tell you / I will tell you what

What is really worth your time?

Is getting to the other side?

You chase it cuz you know that you are lost in time

But you can never really reach the other side

What it takes

What it takes to do

What it takes

What it takes from you

What even

What even is this

Why does this need a name

Why must we each behave some certain way

Do reasons have seasons

I tell you you will wait

You will see your patience made

One way or another

Why do you bother

It has always been too late

There was never an escape

When we each choose our form

Based on what you think I think you think

Each norm is a creativity heat sink

Rethink everything everyday

These words will become just pictures

These songs will become just sounds

Ideas dissolve into memetic protoplasms

La la la

Mishear dis here

Disa ppear

Be here now

But how

 

15 CELL

Future like a quagga, you are our foie gras

Nobody dead died knowing this world that well

We are both in and made of cells

This is my prismatic attic prison

This is my prison / This is my prism

 

16 ACROSS THE FIRE

Look beside the world

Just outside your view

Look outside your world

What is left of you?

It is never lonely

Where the spirits hold me

In their arms

As we both reach out across the fire

 

NEXT TIME

Next time / I will seed the pasture

Next time / I will unreel the wire

Next time / I will kneel in freedom

Next time / I will reveal the fire

All the while, healing and dying, healing and dying

Next time / I will free the master

Next time / I will lease the lasting

Next time / I will untie from the mast and

Next time / I will be the siren

All the while, healing and dying

 

Whether gods, alien neighbors or the

Blast-painted walls of spacetime

They will say of humankind

They tried

 

Consider the expanses we have crossed

Not all who wander are lost

 

17 DO NOT ATTEMPT

Do NOT attempt

Any of the above

DO NOT ATTEMPT

To Love

DO NOT ATTEMPT

To be the one

Sorry! We have encountered a problem

 

18 DEATH (Machine Gun & Roach Clip)

Died and went to heaven

Despite my disbelief

Died again in heaven

Sweet relief / Good grief

Ooo ooo I never saw no sunshine

Ooo ooo I never had much pride

Fire-breathing lions tried to

Chaaaange my mind

But I don’t mind

Every one has died so far

And every one else has never been born

What should I worry about nothing for?

I-I-I-I’m not sayin I’m gonna die but I am not always gonna be alive!

For each of us, y’all, save the hive!

 

19 STARVATION SATURNALIA

If a thing is more than half what it’s mistaken for

Then the Earth is a gangster to its core,

As fun as being angsty is, the real work is hard but beautiful

and we are doing it together as a culture of individuals

The dragon is our culture

We’re its conscience and its wranglers

In the dusk saint-criminals do the good work

And maintain music stations just off the paved way

But your masks will become dirty husks of you

On the way to the vein your empty rituals will fail ya

Like a starvation Saturnalia

God spoke Fuck you long ago, but means it still today

It appears

Or it would appear

God got it wrong

So long

So long ago

This isn’t the song,

But wisdom

Wisdom won’t be long

 

20 I GROK SPOCK (Amok Time)  

I grok Spock, engage in logical thought,

I do not wait for the drop

I move the hands of my clock

I keep ahold of my passions and I find everything fascinating

I love a chance to wait cuz it’s a chance to meditate

What I want is irrelevant, nothing unreal exists

I know the universe is unfolding as it should

I know the good of the many outweighs the good of the few,

Or the one

This I love and have become

I grok Spock, engage in logical thought,

I do not wait for the drop

I move the hands of my clock

I keep ahold of my passions and I find everything fascinating

I love a chance to wait cuz it’s a chance to meditate

But logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end

I have been and always shall be your friend