Track 11

Buck 65

 
This collection of sketches, rough and scattered, is arranged by instinct. There's 

entropy at work, but mostly it happened by accident. Sure a story goes with this, but 

for it to make sense you'd have to be me. And, for it to make dollars I'd have to be 

something i despise. Don't ask me how I manage. No one gets paid to make change. 

Every morning I salute the flag, turn, grab the fingers of my left hand behind my back and 

continue my search. I'm wondering how I got here. Who beside me is responsible? I'm not 

the young man I was when I first wrote the code. Now i don't have it in me to fuss over much. 

I need sleep more than ever before. What remains of my violence is so precious I keep all 

of it to myself. What frightens me most now is my gradual loss of hearing.  So i'm guided

 more and more by vibes. I shield my eyes from flickering images and document my dreams 

with as much detail as possible. I figure I'll write my book when it's all I can do, but I 

don't know. Do you have any idea how hot this sand is? Yeah, I come in contact with the odd 

scavenger here and there but those encounters rarely amount to much. I just gaze at the 

same few black and white photographs. Distant loves, long lost souls, diamonds of my 

most glorious moments. I remember the gold rush. It makes me laugh now to think of 

the risks I took. The monuments will remain and that's all that matters.

 But, the question always becomes, Am I happy?


When young we mourn for one woman. As we grow old, for women in general. The tragedy of life is
that man is never free, but strives for what can never be. The thing most feared in secret always
happens. My life, my love, what are they now? But the more the pain grows, the more this instinct
for life somehow asserts itself. The necessary beauty in life is in giving yourself to it 
completely. Only later will it clarify itself to some coherence. 



I wandered the fields and listened for the sound of drums
the colder the ground becomes the closer i get to home
the planet's not fit to roam
what with all the chaos
And when I saw the savages 
I played the law of averages
And when the river splits in half
I start to loose my wits and laugh
And cry at the same time 
there's nothing I can do about it
Even though I wouldn't doubt it
if the winds began to blow
and carried the sounds of my voice
to the land below

So I put my hands around my mouth
And holler to the sunken city
that wallows in the filth of its own drunken pity
And wait to see a signal
but a signal's never seen
Eventually fatigue builds inside me exponentially.
And so I sleep and dream that I am able to fly--
They will respect a man with wings.

Later I awake in agony and learn
that while I was sleeping the city had burned
Shrugging my shoulders I pause and gather thought
Think twice about staying put-- then decide I'd rather not
So I press on with my agnostic pilgramage
knowing that I can swim deeper than the grim reaper
ready for whatever sea creatures may abound
when the water swallows me and not the other way around.

The Survival saw me through the mechanical district
Starvation leads to being canabalistic.
I've had to rely at times on silence and on talking quick
defending myself with nothing but my walking stick
I've never had friends, and no parental guidance
I'm wild at heart, and weird on top and feared non-stop
even though my rage has worn out
my life's a book with several pages torn out
I just climb trees and look for rhythm everywhere

I used to be the town crier in a city of stone throwers
until my soul was laid bare 
and displayed in the prune square
and ignored more than a lot, not less
no one understood my thought process
I was gagged and bound over noise complaints
but comanding the resolve that destroys constraints
I found my escape in a melding of memory
the next thing I know I'm rowing this boat
and blowing this note
on an old tarnished trumpet

Ever since then I've been wandering lots
watching the sky and pondering thoughts
Strange angel, music box genie
behind for some time now
and blind in one eye
and how this happened exactly will never be known.
My thoughts take the shape of the hangman's house.
It never fails that time travelling salesmen visit