waiting

porcelain
city of blue tile figure in ceramics where we reach out grab for porcelain but it's too fragile to hold and it shatters in our hands in time the seasons will seal these shards into the slits that denote your wrists death is the answer to calculations composed of motions that are the same and different and secret (secretly the same) a missing alphabet with a message for us when people die they take a piece of us with them and holes in clouds are minutes passing rescind this line and sever all ties the skyline unfolds into explanation that sometimes words give up and silently walk off the edge of the page and here the cry opens up reveals the word inside the crack in the porcelain the silent line of sky lit eyes show deaths up there shine more brightly than lives down ere try and live

this side of brightness
i sewed it up stitched all these dead end streets into the sewn up seams of my heartstrings unwind (unwound) like a petal pulled from an open flower surrounded by fields where children sigh but don't make a sound and don't break it off this searching for what we may never find and that says it all i hope we will make it through this heartbreak that comes with just living through one day all the good times that pass and all the friends we lose in a lifetime on our way here in this life we seem so lost on this side of brightness we don't know where to go i hope we can make it through this night

ian curtis
we listen to the open sound your voice projected on the radio dial lie with me i said and lying's what she always did and always will all these thoughts keep coming back to him (there are no words in songs) and no signs from cinema no city skyline no paper scraps and no unfolding at five o'clock your voice skips as it always did and always will it's the light from your sunless room scattered in pieces all around you recession of these thoughtless forms reciting every line as a way of life and a way of death in time we heard ian curtis kill himself again in your bed in these 24 hours we stretched into a room filled with heart and soul this is the way step inside and march in the procession of empty hearts love has torn us apart it's a part of me a part of you in time we're falling apart together

introduction
no words....

streaks in the sky
it's just the southern road that you leave by and open windows in your car its the breathing of the city that says leave me behind forget tomorrow side with the open road pulled apart for you in the window unlocked and left open for the rising sun taking you back home if we ever meet again it would be too soon i'm glad i ran from you and now my life's a mess and i'll have to admit that i have made a mistake and every path that i take has lead me right back to here and i never should have left it's the second chance that i dreamt of when you took me into your lives but there's a peak we have to climb over so get a running start sitting here waiting a year hoping for something to change your mind and in this time i'll see that this is all we have before i leave i'm opening up that door in my house to face the ones i've left behind portrait of a man who stayed his face is folded up and greyed but there's something in his eyes that tells me this is the life for me

in transmission
this sunlight cutting through the open fields can't be communicated by radio waves and through this flashlight keyhole memory receive a thousand signals and can't respond so keep your hands to yourself relay the message to your friends that nothing's wrong reverse reception on this lifeless satellite push this button end the transmission so keep your hands to yourself in this transit station reconnection to our lives in transit like my voice cutting through this line it's the same old song broadcasted on the radio saying i'm not worth your time end the transmission this absence is making relations come undone it's breaking air waves i'm losing you in the transmission

dying in new brunswick
you told me on your birthday all the things that this place had done to you and in the streets you walk you hide your face because they don't believe that it's true they say it doesn't happen that often but its happening right now i'm writing you this letter to let you know i'm not alright the streets are paved with hate and you cry yourself to sleep tonite because there aren't enough love songs in the sky you counted down the days till you could say bye bye city bye bye you're walking down on union you see the roads and know they're a part of you they say it doesn't happen that often but its happening right now i'm writing you a second time to let you know nothing here has changed will you look back on this night as the day that ruined your life will you look back on these city streets and say oh god where are you in these city streets i hide my face i turn away when you look at me and every night when i try and sleep i feel your hands all over my body you stripped away the street signs and shot out all the stop lights if you smashed away the buildings what would you have left

the dotted line
the angels sing of someone coming down to wake us from a sleep that's broken deeply won't shut up again must be some sort of sign for us that things are going to change it's hard to dream well you'll try hard in this half hearted minute you sleep alone it's hard to dream if you're a ghost it's only a matter of time before we fade out the phone is ringing in my head again i'm too scared to pick up the fear that this is the call i've been waiting for could be some sort of sign for me that it's time for me to change it's the turning clock that happens every night and if we don't stop soon we will never wake up again computers lie they keep us in our lives if i'm paranoid it's because they're watching us the phone is tapped

where the circle ends
mountain ranges morning red bathed ridges stab up at the trembling blue horizon grey slides lazily off rooftops lands on the incandescent ground and dies a flock of little men touch down on the thin surface of porch light dawn's foot soldiers return to march twilight across our faces skylites ignite and explode scattering shards of april around the room but no one ever lives here we're too busy crashing our cars every morning into the same house paving the same roads unwilling to walk them and even when we extend ourselves its only to be included in a moment that stands still so often we don't struggle to improve conditions we struggle for the right to say that we improved conditions and so often we form communities only to use them as exclusionary devices we forget that somewhere people are calling for teachers and no one is answering somewhere a man stands walks across the room and breaks his nose against the door and somewhere these people are keeping records writing a book for now we call it the book about the basic flaw or the book about the letter a or any title that a book about a man that no one cares about might have and as we turn the pages we call out the sounds of a vanishing alphabet standing here waiting