Note: All material in this file is copyrighted material (c) 2007, by Martin Warren, and cannot be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the express written permission of the author. Infringements are subject to applicable laws and statutes. ***************************************************************** MARTIN WARREN: 'Gleaming Splinters' - Writings 1985- I'll save my guile for the preface to some more 'cohesive' future work. Point of fact, 'cohesive' is not an easy word to apply to the times represented by this collection. This has been assembled from the sides of coffee cups, scrunched-up paper towel, cardboard, taped performances & demos, computer diskettes, and, of course, regular writing paper. This includes both the lined & the unlined varieties. For a long time, much of this resided in a dusty box, lugged from apartment to apartment. Then it was placed into a suitcase & transported from city to city, along with some of the bits of electronics & packaging which also had originated from the box. Then I found that a diskette was more portable than the suitcase had been. 'Academic experiments' will remain what they are, 'songs' are always better sung than read, and many fragmentary scrawls are only momentarily amusing (or infuriating). At times, a rhythm was meant to be kept on paper, using words that were "yeah, sure", but memorable for me, and the music was lost, but the words remain. Some things had to be reconstructed from memory years after I wrote them. Many people have contributed to the writing of much of what you read here, and these contributions range from the 'inspirational' to the 'financial'. I've tried to say 'thank-you' to those still in my life, even to those whose 'inspiration' was unintentional. To those who unknowingly or unwittingly helped form an element of characterization, I don't necessarily know or remember who you are, but thanks anyway!!! The "works" are dated at their individual conclusions. This allows for a chronological ordering, should you want one. -Martin Warren, November 23, 1998. Rockviiillle, IN. USA *********************************** ADDITIONAL NOTES FOR THIS EDITION A lot of material has been added to this compilation since those months in 1997 I spent unpacking that decade's worth of boxes and dusty luggage. Most of the new stuff is lyrical, and maybe a bit "wizened" in comparison to much of what went before. But since I'm trying to include everything that can be included here, I can't scale the book down. Some of the reaction I got made me feel like I had to explain. I'm not going to do that, any more than any writer of fiction who was worth their salt would. Part of the fun of reading this stuff for me is trying to remember or figure out what made me set pen to paper (fingers to keyboard, voice to tape, etc...) in the first place. Who am I to deprive anyone of their speculations? Like I said in the original preface, sometimes things just sounded cool, good, funny, spacey, bizarre, wretched, or whatever. Sometimes I was just bored, ecstatic, and/or messed-up. Sometimes, making people speculate was (is) half the fun. I make no apologies either for the naivete of some of my early work, (although I reserve the right to inwardly cringe!!!). A furrowed brow shows itself now and then these days. These and other states-of-mind found voice here, and I'm thankful to a Higher Power for enabling me to articulate them to the extent that I was able to. The fact that I'm still here "producing" boggles me sometimes and is itself part of what has given me the strength to go on. Inspiration feeds on itself. Since moving back (again) to my adopted hometown of Ottawa, the writing has kept going steady and has been a labour of love, despite appearances by times. This city has given me a needed balance between visual sense and visual thought, and it really does not deserve its frosty reputation. Because of the breadth of work contained here, it is not easy for me to dedicate this book to any or all of my family or my to my friends over the years. No doubt, many of them will be as adverse to at least a word or two as I am! Nevertheless, in the spirit of understanding, I did put this together mostly for them. May they and you alike get something useful and entertaining from it. -Martin Warren, June 10, 2001 Ottawa, ON. Canada |09-uu-1985>ICE CARVINGS Vultures infested our hills and green gardens Leaving behind them a legacy grim Spoiling the harvest in a last deadly scavage Leaving life's balance too tranquil and dim CHORUS: And just like great statues reduced to ice carvings Once single blast seemed to fragment it all Somewhere between our maligned intuitions We lost our real meaning; our well-polished souls The lies cut too deep to make anyone angry The truth is two-faced and it showed up too late Somewhere between all this digging and dragging Fire escaped on the string wings of hate Now all my expressions have proven futile And suddenly things are just what seem Whatever you say it all seems too easy; You can't understand my illusion, my dream -Written September, 1985 (Fredericton). |06-uu-1985>KILL ME I wanna be terrorized I said I wanna be hurt I wanna see my body Rolling down in the dirt CHORUS: Kill Me!, Kill Me! You're holding a dagger Pointed at my head Twist it and turn it Make me feel dead CHORUS The door to gloom is opened And I step inside with you We scatter plastic on the floor 'Cause there's nothing else to do (Except...) CHORUS (Alternate Verse: I'm sitting beside you And I don't know if you care Since you're sitting beside me... Strangle me with your hair!) -Written May, 1985 (Fredericton). Lyrics by Martin Warren. Music by Scream Theatre. Song appears on "THE ROUGH 'N TUMBLE SESSIONS" by 'SCREAM THEATRE' (1986). |07-uu-1986>MANIAC, MANIAC Sally walks under the streetlight Waving her arms at a slow passerby Sally falls down to the pavement; Her head in her hands, and then starts to cry CHORUS: Maniac, Maniac, stick out your tongue Maniac, Maniac, jump in the sun Tie up the loose ends that have come undone Maniac, Maniac, stick out your tongue Sally's always been my best friend And that's why I'm tellin' you about her right now Sally's head learned how to spin Those spiders from underground told her how CHORUS Sally jumped out of her window Looked at the camera, and let out a laugh Sally put cheese in her pillow Took out a chainsaw, and gave me a half CHORUS -Written July, 1985 (Fredericton). Words by Martin Warren. Music by Scream Theatre. Appears on 'Presents' (1986) by "SCREAM THEATRE". |07-uu-1986>FRIDGE (Refrigerator Death) WHY ME ? WHY ME ? WHY ME ? WHY ME ? Forgive me, Mother Nature, For all my bad deeds I still can't figure out why She's always picking on me She claws at my face with rabbits' feet She claws at my hair with something sweet I'm just a cabbage in a zoo And all of the eyes are looking at you... Makes you paranoid ! I'm wondering what it'd be like to feel cold Lock me in this room 'til I get old I'm only a vestige of your imagination Why do you have to give me this kind of impure vibration ? WHY, WHY ME ? WHY, WHY ME ? Death is crawling up my back Give me another plan of attack I'm just an icebox in your dreams Nothing's ever what it seems -Written July, 1985 (Fredericton). words byy Martin Warren. Performed with 'SCREAM THEATRE' on 'THE ROUGH 'N TUMBLE SESSIONS' (1986). |09-uu-1986>PETRIFIED ANIMAL Sometimes you seemed quite fascinating Chained to your very own womb Hiding in our dusty cavern Rocks the deep Beneath my swinging feet Moonlight hymns to redwood forests Just some more petrified nonsense Helping me to forget Tied down and sideways under a chair Thinking of rebellion there Rebellion of seahorses Becoming one more animal Just another petrified animal Helping me to forget When a friday by the rocks Became a day to drop the sun Drop the sun I came upon a house of gold A plastic rhino in the hall Becoming one more animal Just another petrified animal Helping me to forget. -Written September, 1986 (Fredericton). |10-uu-1986>DEFECTIVE DIRECTIVE What's with the voodoo zombies? Emotions constrained, and there's something on celluloid- It's the Love Midgit! I remember her long curving stairways! She was blowing bubbles, and smiling at me- Opposites attract; Negatives REACT! No love at all in your purple pagoda! Your oriental charts were lost in fascination! The huddling prophecies uttered in your stairwell... This betrayal of trust eats out my heart- 'Til my hair sticks out of kilter... Is it all? It is futile- To try and crawl through these blocked door passages If I ring you, Perfecting the Directive! And ordering me...out of the way! Ain't it strange...how some things never change! And, all of your lies were really a smokescreen! Your heart is as cold as an Antarctic iceberg! You reached for Romeo, performing a striptease- The better to walk you through your palace of sin. BREAK: A new electrical supply for summer camp... You were at the judo club, downtown- Scientology me outside in the square- It is Mexico here, hoist up my pinata! Pleasure is our world - Some lies betray you Oriental flower crushed by fire Before your paramour, eating you in He was dancing the tango by your backyard A black widow rising in a web of deceit -Written October, 1986 (Fredericton). Performed in Scream Theatre by Steve Scream. |11-uu-1986>ICE CREAM FACE Below my windowledge, there's a web that I never clean What secrets do the spiders hold that haven't yet been seen The lights go flashing endlessly...it never seems to end! And the crystal-face keeps turning 'round and 'round and 'round again! CHORUS: I'll make my choice Since I heard your voice And see Ice Cream dripping down! A trident in my hands of iron And a diamond in your crown! Submarine angels dance on water, with newspapers stuck in their ears! It's not much wonder that when you call them, they never seem to hear! I'm gonna pick out their tonsils with a toothpick that I found in a vending machine, And then I'll gouge out their eyes & reach in for a sign that says 'thirty-two kinds of ice cream'!!! CHORUS BREAK: Well, if you drilled a hole through my ice cream soul And crawled in for a better view I'm sure you'd find some peace of mind My brain is shaped like you And if you chipped away at my neurons Until my blood ran red That chocolate from my facial crystal Would make sure that you were dead...dead CHORUS -Written November, 1986 (Fredericton). Words by Martin Warren. Music by THE DRUIDS Performed by THE DRUIDS on 'Summer Solstice', 1987. |11-uu-1986>ARMADILLO CAFE Funny house on a cobblestone road- With a lizard nailed onto the door A sign says "Armadillo", in glowing blue And the woman at the window always looks. Always it happens Like this. -Written November, 1986 (Fredericton). |11-uu-1986>DESERT PSYCHO The neck I break, the bones I twist It seems so easy now! Killing me is your disease, But you do it anyhow! Never mind, I'm lost in space, My eyes pushed through my brain! Mangled far past recognition, I am the bloody stain! CHORUS: Something you don't realize; I'm dangerous to know There's no time left to analyze; your death it will go slow Always it ends up the same; I always lose my way! One million trails through madness That I follow every day With a switchblade bouncing in my pocket Ratt'ling with my change No wonder that whenever you're talking I'm feeling so deranged CHORUS Someday I'll build a statue here And worship it alone My desert hut; mud stuck with blood It's what I'll call my home Though these nightmares killing me Shall never be erased- I'll wallow in that moment I saw blood spurt from your face! CHORUS ("We're" instead of "I'm") -Written November, 1986 (Fredericton). Words by Martin Warren. Music by THE DRUIDS. Perfomed by THE DRUIDS on 'Summer Solstice', 1987. |11-23-1986>PSYCHO POISONED VOODOO DOLL Pins going in, no effect, I'm obsessed- The twenty-sixth time, one more failed attempt To kill you, kill you, kill you. I opened the bottles of cyanide I hid I punctured the doll one more time, and again Something this crazy can't be a sin. Oa-laaa Oa-laaa Crumbling rage twitching spastic in space Another pin tearing the cloth from its face Just to kill you, kill you, kill you. I drenched it in poison to prove this one point I drenched it in poison; my goal, to anoint- I said them again, mystic phrases I coined. Oa-laaa Oa-laaa -Written November 23, 1986 (Fredericton)... |11-uu-1986>I AM A NOBODY My face unravels- I am a nobody! Doll on the road Ready and willing to have Treads on the face I am a nobody ! My doom is your ultimate goal You get one chance Only one, And as this day passes I transmogrify, I am mortal- I am brain dead Morbid? Well... What do you expect? I am a NOBODY ! Casket, my love, bring it to me- I am a nobody! REACH ! Touch my CRUMBFACE ! Magnetic me, dash my head Against my bandaged wound Scabs on the sidewalk, Remains of the blood that was me Sentiments, the undoing- Of a romantic- I am a nobody ! I am the shell you throw, The imperfect pearl, The husk adorned of your cold corn soul I am a nobody ! RAAAA ! Growl, growl, growl ! Once again, my ribs protecting your limbs I am a nobody ! I am a nobody ! -Written November, 1986 (Fredericton). Performed with the Twig People at MacLaagan Hall, UNB |12-uu-1986>PIG SYMBOL FATAL FLAW Surprise; You haven't recognized This answer is your Mantra. You, pig stup, growly head- Namely, I think this is The sickness; You lie. A little girl carries Bones in her back. She holds the blood in her hands. She cradles the material. The platform. The growth Should have given you my Mangled sunflower; Pig - you in a rapid Brain rainshower Faithless Friend ! Yes, and even Columbus Dashed against three boats' Bubble - The picnic on a Saturday Actually, not 'the', but 'A' Picnic One child spilled his splash And cringed, then lunged Like a Mirror Dog. Stained Glass Eye Turned to blue. Is this how we atomize you ? The pins just can't reach... The pins aren't sharp enough... We must throw aside These little obstacles; Corn means drought But, silken shadows await us ! Are you playing shadow, angel ? Everything takes so long to heal Not the place, But , the name in the sand Fallen on empty wings, from trees- THESE trees ! Could it be, you...........YOU- AND THIS MENACING STATUETTE OF A PIG ? THIS PIG ! (Everyone wants one now!!!) On the ledge, I see edges in the shadows. This. -Written December, 1986 (Fredericton). |uu-uu-1986>RADIOMAN Radioman, there turnin' the dial Radioman, though it ain't your style I want to know if you can tell How to live and breathe and in hell Radioman, Radioman Radioman, this the moment you chose Not far away, then again, not too close I want to know if you can hear Me scream and die and live your fear Radioman, Radioman BREAK: The sound it crackles, it sounds like money But what you're saying is not too funny It's radarscope detection time Radioman, show us the sign Radioman, Radioman Radioman, your signals gone bad Radioman, your monitor's mad I want to know if you can see This shock of electricity Radioman, Radioman -Written 1986 (Fredericton). Words by Martin Warren. Music by Kevin Mersereau, (1998) |02-uu-1987>PREFERENCES Whoever slaps your pig Whoever burns your chest Whoever slaps your pig Whoever burns your chest CHORUS: But not me- But never me Whoever rights your wrong Whoever burns the monk Whoever rights your wrong Whoever burns the monk CHORUS Whoever scratched the scratch Whoever sings to the lambs Whoever scratched the scratch Whoever sings to the lambs CHORUS Whoever burns the wax Whoever scrubs your face Whoever burns the wax Whoever scrubs your face CHORUS Whoever danced the dog Whoever mowed your lawn Whoever danced the dog Whoever mowed your lawn CHORUS -Written February, 1987 (Fredericton). Music by Sam Petite & unknown individual. |03-uu-1987>IN IMAGINED CYCLOPS CORE Strokes fire this flurry of ink; rhymes that cannot yet speak Religiously, for, as I am unto you I am- To the many things that I cannot think. The beginning, the beginning, and from there Motion lighten your eye to this vision in air Languish on in your smothering cell If only to prove that I don't know you well. You will dance in the black post-hiatus carnival Dance with your head in your hands on the wall In piety, mumble Greek proverbs, complete- They will swiftly, in time, tumble down to your feet. Come calves and Goliath to your hideout, at once Hoist the magnets in hopes that your hiding we'll stunt; I will spy thee away to a place on a wave To an eye in a grave to a flowery knave- I will spy thee away, I will spy thee away- For you wear the overdrive combatant's tongue, You hobble on stony roads so long yet to come You ring at the bell, after all has struck one... You are patiently waxed and so patiently stung You are quivering water under silvery thumbs And you're closing your mouth, lest a hollow scream hung From your fiery throat, and your cast-iron lung Fly from your breath, and then cremate the sun -Written March, 1987 (Fredericton). Musical arrangement by Kevin Mersereau (1998). |04-03-1987>WOODEN MAN Open the gates, open the gates, Where is the wooden man ? Here stand we Where he is supposed to be Hand held into hand Were we in another place We'd scatter across the land We'd create a search party To find the wooden man Mama, where is the wooden man? You know the vomit that I am Vomit I will on the wooden man ! Wooden man you made me with Your silly grins and lying faces Wooden man you made my Isolation, through the cause that you applied Wooden man, wooden man I shall be Wooden man, yeah, wooden man, me Wooden man wooden by your wooden Assumptions that are wooden; frankly- I don't give a damn for your wooden murder Find someone else to vomit if they are stupid Enough to want that kind of BULLSHIT That tactic used on the wooden man The trick you tried on me, and it's probable Wooden man I would be But the wooden man I was I will never be Wooden man -Written April 3, 1987 (Fredericton). |05-uu-1987>FORM OF THE SECOND DEVICE The best skin is always jaundiced, and this is so because yellow crust rings my toe, and I am very proud to be your pig. It must be the rubber extract produced from the finest pygmy wines. I chain up my pit bull terrier with the remaining vines. There is a table set, but, unfortunately, it is very lopsided, with no legs, but imagination holding up the empty side. Varnished, and I see my face in the reflection on the surface...so now I must get out the sandpapers and grind that image to the floor, in little specks. I get rid of myself and find out that I am anything...could be the man of three arms, but I'm not sure. Perhaps if I chainsaw one, I can subtract, but my head is a mass of delerium. -Written May, 1987 (Fredericton). |05-uu-1987>PUG Rolled-up newspaper bundle In the mud for fun The scrawny fourteen-year-old Got his face scraped on the road Good for him Hope he learned his lesson Somebody's missing their best pet I took a dog to the vet It was a pug Looked like a stray So I didn't feel guilty When the old lady Olga Threatened to burn my house down I saved her the trouble Burned it down myself My basement is nice My basement is cozy I remember back when I was a boy scout With a snot-green uniform And decorations to spare Now, I do my own garbage. -Written May, 1987 (Fredericton). |05-uu-1987>PORCUPINES For years, porcupine ears vibrated Radaring instinct; heard yet to say by a few brave lost Columbus' ancestors who hugged the pine trees with needles burning at the ends of cigarette papers & sometimes imitation pipes Hung from dry teeth and lips In a stick tent- There would reside the porcupines; vibrating sensory Variety. At tea, slothful would all gather 'round & jaw would stick out that day; dry bare wrinkle faces breathe cold on porcupines. They, the hungry flabby, would watch the communiqus Radaring instinct everywhere. Dogs swirled around in dumb attempts to build Anthills, & so gathered dirt in their paws Never knowing quill words, or the equation There was blood & dirt in the dog in yourself, Ye hound of Jamaica. Carib made secret pact with Vikings Florida to be invaded with seahorse vessels, horns- On beachy heads. Porcupines stab their feet; stammering that it was accidental. Those feathers in the headdress Were really miniature devices; painted rocks Meant to turn on porcupines, lest they try to talk. Quill-man sells balloons Beneath an office building. -Written May, 1987 (Fredericton). |05-uu-1987>HII OVER GREEN BRAZILL Vamoose said to Tyranna On an Amazon Isle Concerning a hell in a body, and a hell in a mind- & a wealth of leaves Deeper the drill goes into mine. Hideous formulae preached; & all your slaves, with bows, you are The encircled- Jawing tight to the tree with bones of animals, and their mouths The sticks placed into them, Then, broken, as the hands pull away. Praise the scrambling feet Within the face of this tickle; a bite of mud- Praise the lip, stroked face, and my shave ! Praise the tongue thrice bitten ! Laud it with flower'd water sandwiches The hoe of feathers be praised, also ! Old corn charm broken arm Aged with a tropical caress- The carbon paper which could bless you at home Incinerated you in the alley- With the cameras rolling. Fire Lady, with your sock mischievous- Yellow'd with winged tips of bug, fermented Red on the clash of eye-screen & my Mosquito Protection Net Uniform Face. Lovely you, Brazill Hollow, and observing no new slimes. Crisp, brilliant- Faced with a diamond. -Written May, 1987 (Fredericton). |06-12-1987>BRASS TACK All I want is a draw from you Howz'it goin' down there in Raunchyville Fat Man says he gets you flies for free All different colors they go different places Have you got your supply of emergency salt? There I see they are We're spending time cloning the republic Never again will I go that far She didn't say what she was doing on Monday The Fat Man he spoke with a smile; But, just that she'd save us a totem for supper And a case full of sleeping pills "I can play this trick with razor blades- And she just fell for it!" All voices are imaginary- Just so that you can take them home "Haul'em up every hour ! No one like that aboard-" I've just seen the Devil O Lord. -Written June 12, 1987 (Fredericton). |06-uu-1987>OZONE BOX There are no walls here; just the corrosion of one kind of blackness. The white strands are thinning, the paint is peeling, The cannibalistic old man down here... I hear him breathe to give a guide to the Stillness Eight fingers plus two what I cannot isolate What light cannot be shadowed What light cannot be shadowed Nor slowed into the icy combat of the marrow freeze. This is the frozen on me: My skin a long string of one angular wound a drum, a spoken word, a walk Minutes away from upstairs and coffee and wallpaper In a vase I am as the child I am Who yet breathes and steams the inside- Friends grind their pinheels through the stairs Coming down, they are the guardians The hollow of the black lighthouse, here- Glisten, tear out the long lines. Meet me in an ozone box. Whether or not it is a fallacy is up to you. Dragged through the sludge in a circle I have turned- I'm turning to you, now- All a crater I am creation I am a miniature strand in line Busied by obsession and blind inhibition I break to pieces Please don't tell me of your benevolence Don't give me bullshit about your white mind- Ties begin to unwind These strings are the children of mine Envision the stone cage. -Written June, 1987 (Fredericton). |07-uu-1987>BAJA (1) Miles of dust, all I can see On a desert highway where I can be On the way from noplace to nowhere, where we Can be free I came here for simple eternity Where we are so far from the sea and the green Beneath the blue sky and the darkness of space Let us live, let us breathe, let us be Let us alone -Written July, 1987 (Fredericton). |07-uu-1987>EXECUTIONS You wanna rip off my face with your teeth And leave dead earth where a man once was You wanna rip off my face from my skull And leave a sacrifice; a voodoo doll CHORUS: This is what you'll do if you find out that I'm alive- Leaving everyone with permanant, permafrost eyes You wanna pull a switch on the wall And watch me freeze in the breeze, and be pleased You wanna laugh, and at the end of it all Sail around all the seven seas CHORUS CHORUS -Written July, 1987 (Fredericton). |07-21-1987>CAT TALK The world is too hard, I say It shouldn't be like that! Everyone should know How to talk just like a cat! There isn't any reason Not to learn to live without The words you don't stop using Though their meaning stays in doubt! Balanced on a bridge I was One late October night My fishing line was cast for hours But I couldn't get a bite Frustrated and discouraged I went on my way back home Peering through the darkness While my left hand tossed some stones I once heard crazy stories 'Bout some woman in the fields Who dressed in the skins of her victims So she wouldn't have to feel With a treetop house and a motorbike Her isolation was secure With those pair of wings, she could flee from things And by now she was just folklore Curiosity took hold of me And I was guided through the woods And as I spied a pair of flashing eyes She took of as fast as she could In the afternoon light, she'd hid her motorbike So by now, it couldn't be seen She kept on stomping the ground while she was looking around For her emotional escape machine I caught her by the arm, and then I spun her around I said 'why don't you understand... I'm not some kind of statue... nothing I do is ever planned... so don't call me the crazy man!!!' We talked for hours on end, I won't go back again, But that's a different thing Some people contemplate, and try to imitate The way that churchbells ring Even more hide their pain with a masquerade And get preoccupied with other things But very few realize that every word is a lie And learn to sing like Fuzzy sings! -Written July 21, 1987 (Fredericton). Words by Martin Warren. Music by THE DRUIDS. Performed by THE DRUIDS on 'Summer Solstice'. |07-21-1987>MIDNIGHT HORNS Volcano steps aflame, a blind man wears his chain His painted face is blotted out by the heavy air around A race against the grain, in connected savage brains Conjuring with canes the places blood is meant to drain CHORUS: Following the Midnight Horns Following the Midnight Horns The lioness sapped of breath wanders on unto her death One thousand fallen trees stand with clubs tied to their knees The image forms a wave, and there's no one left to save It's a pity that we all are slaves to a tombstone and a grave CHORUS The gathering, it grows, until the gift, it is bestowed So the body goes to smoke, and innocence becomes a joke And there upon the road, lie the skeletons in rows It's a wonder that a river flows; it's a wonder that no doors are closed CHORUS -Written July 21, 1987 (Fredericton). Words by Martin Warren. Music by THE DRUIDS. Performed by THE DRUIDS on 'Summer Solstice' (1987). |07-uu-1987>(TWENTY-SEVEN) EGYPTIAN TELEPHONES Laugh if you want to I've made no mistake It's going quite well right now; go ahead- Laugh at me, I'll even it out Right now in this totally innocent moment You think; No Chance- No Chance worth mentioning. These flying insects aren't helping much, but- Make no mistake; things change. I have Twenty-Seven Egyptian Telephones Ready and Waiting At My Command. I can push a button with my mind, And the Myth will Explode. Feel the Rage Now I reinterate with untamed Distaste This will be a Victory to me. Watching the Eye Is nothing personal. -Written July, 1987 (Fredericton). |07-28-1987>METAMORPHOSIS Your feelings have been killed But your ego remains...so full You're quickly succeeding At destroying my will METAMORPHOSIS!!! How can you understand How my future remains...unplanned Why these things that you demand Are so far from my hand METAMORPHOSIS!!! The trees are rearranged But the, forest, it stays unchanged Your illusions might get strained If I'm saying something strange METAMORPHOSIS!!! (Rpt. last verse) -Written July 28, 1987 (Fredericton). Words by Martin Warren. Music by THE DRUIDS. Performed by THE DRUIDS, 1987. |08-uu-1987>FOUR TALL THOUGHTS When your pulse and mine at the mirror sync out- Robeless wonders for judges the box In their chairs, blushing; so, she revealed Hoaxes Drawing it down the hell to close it (the session), yet, continuing to ponder. And, weighing heavily, it matters too much Even sleep is doggedly smothered. God willing untangle yet merge faces- clench for whatever reason, or no get this all (look at this) do not read it. Four tall thoughts conquered at all how could you say be a stone I said you worth all my Love please don't drown; it's not just something me to say. -Written August, 1987 (Fredericton). |08-uu-1987>BITTEN The curse was bitten; my head was split Gaps to be found in the ties of the mind- Gathering to celebrate our confidential conquest The structural strategy to make this success Overtly introverted gash in the head. Oh, you must have described this kind of scene once before Lizards impaling you- Their tongues from the Outer Reaches Religion, flashing sword mystery, Crumpled crumbled creature breath. You Monkey Flea Circus ideal The Great Degeneration Deterioration Bones in the Amazon; The Muddy Muddy Amazon. Flesh born of the mountains Strident ridicule; You Monkey-Flea You When over and over again Your mother tied your fingertips Oh, Great Clock- Changes. -Written August, 1987 (Fredericton). |08-uu-1987>OK GEORGE OK George it's time to let go of your balloons You know wha'ppen'd the last time you played Rasputin Fetch'd the evil eye Out of your head But, now that's over And we've allowed you to become misshapen You squid- Gonna wind up Rasputin 'til he implodes You scuba'd it too far down The bell is cracking And, through these small imperfections, Water spews hose-like. To you small inevitables confused smitten eyes: You are no longer privileged These are beautiful misspellings And you will pay For your jeering The plague answers All inquiries. -Written August, 1987 (Fredericton). |09-27-1987>VOICE AT THE DESK There has to be a person- Someone to turn a key A person I might listen to Someone I cannot be CHORUS: I do not think about anyone I wish I could do what you have done You are the voice at the desk 'What says your wisdom tonight, love' You spoke into the phone: 'When you come home from the office- Will you want to be alone ?' CHORUS From the bridge back to the bungalow I walk with a metal cane And to get a taste of real life I wallow in the rain. CHORUS -Written September 27, 1987 (Fredericton))).. |10-04-1987>PRINCESS OF DEW Hollywood foot They glued the sparkles & when the legs touched the stage They stayed. Princess of Dew You are quaking at dawn I knew these star-blue knives stuck in the sky. We are to see Once the tracks of the moon are uncovered Clouds will make haste to disperse So that the Vision will be completed. Will you get your gleam from hallways ? from dimestores ? Will you steal from pay telephones ? Cut your feet out of sand ? Embroider your face into bedsheets ? Fill a matress with stones ? Hang a slave by his feet ? Warm a face with a sponge ? Love Disaster ? Destroy with words and deeds ? Become hair- and spray the walls with water ? Lift up the windowsills ? Toss the handfulls ? Swallow the handcuffs ? Kiss both soapstone and pure crystal ? Princess of Dew- Fall with the brooding ghosts And, fill my glass With every emptiness. -Written October 4, 1987 (Fredericton) @ 22:40 am |12-uu-1987>YOUR MERCILESS HAIR I dreamt you took possession Of my transcendental beard; Encased it in your alligator purse, And then became a stowaway. Fermented on your islands Were the tall wine-rind cantaloupe trees That overlooked me. Your Merciless Hair- I embrace in a whisper: On imaginary boardwalks I remember my beard, And I relish the sweetened meats of - Bordeaux, Whilst clutching the frays. That persian rug on the floor Just can't take it no more; And so, I miss your molecules' whirl. I search the crux of the matter For its gist. Crucify, with rubbery pegs- You, onto my picture frame. Now, I will wear Your Merciless Hair. I hung down from a treebranch By the hooks of my feet, and- I growled like a booby-trapped beagle- For Your Merciless Hair. I put crowns on your head In a dream in my sleep; And was grazed by the baldest eagle- For Your Merciless Hair. -Written December, 1987 (Fredericton). |uu-uu-1987>BATS Don't reach up for the eaves; The nurse's arm is your last respite Before she lands. Focused sounds Greenish bush wail No bugles pollute me. On an ear Little nails- I, stark, stark resolute Mouth dissolving. No, knocking... O my nurse- She is with bats Above her stomach. Slice her hair: Into the Oriental envelope. Can't stand her Zoom. The sound mirrored in her face. Not far now; I plied the bedding with clothespins that giggled. -Written 1987 (Fredericton). |uu-uu-1987>CARROT Blank-faced, not orange- Sweeter than candy That Sin which was sprung from Cain's Loins (Cain's Loins) So, good to our people- good to our god; So am Omni, Omnipotent, I. I breathe your secret; Truly, I am this close ! True, as with vegetable- might that I could touch you with roots ! Through and Through The Living Soul Your True Carrot. -Written 1987 (Fredericton). |01-uu-1988>I DON'T NEED YOU The knife cuts my hand I don't give a damn It comes as no surprise; The knot is tied I don't need you I don't need you There is one truth True truth on the loose ! You are alone With the truth that you use ! I don't need you I don't need you The knife cuts my hand I don't give a damn It comes as no surprise; The knot is tied I don't need you I don't need you -Written January, 1988 (Fredericton). Written by Martin Warren. Performed by THE DRUIDS at Room 26, SUB, UNB. Feb '88. Live recording by Steve Staples. |02-uu-1988>SATURNALIA Compulsive sting- The firefly fling Moustache tattoo Repaired and waiting Crisply doomed faces Erroneous passage Out the wrong door & into the morning Patio symbols This gleaming blank paint Suntan lotion of desire & Emotions of Fire Celebrate broomsticks, beehives, and breadknives. Abandon the morning Eat the door By the automatic waxing floor. -Written February, 1988 (Fredericton). |02-12-1988>SEAS Rings of blue in an ocean walled by glass Radar eyes from ships that dart to grey Full-moon lion faces frightened hermits As they reach forgotten islands in the bay For once to be back in Abyssinia Where I am belonged unto belonging; Nevertheless, this remains Babylonia And I am left in mirrored rooms forever haunting What now? To put myself at risk to peril? An eager saint enveloped in derision? One blast across the plank shoots from the barrel Now I am not alone in this decision Kinetic crabs electric multiplication- Confusion cradles endless situations I wither wildly waiting for an answer; I wither in the face of this confession. -Written February 12, 1988 (Fredericton)... |02-uu-1988>GOOD ENOUGH CAVITY Blickchyy ! Blickenznatzerschtickenschwartz ! Take miniature strawberry nail Make A World A Pit For Decay For Pain To play in. All it takes is one bite. -Written February, 1988 (Fredericton). |02-uu-1988>MORNING OF THE THAW Over telephone lines in a vocal museum Make-up artists painting by number As usual, eyelids all heavy with slumber With our souls awakened by the stings of the bees High ratio of cacklers to silent brush The morning concludes the thaw We are chosen to bear the fear of fantasy To wear a tattered arm The morning of the thaw. 'Might possessions be in order ?', said in rhyme; Gravestones in a passion play. Silence beneath these stony heaps of gray; Voyages contained within the realm of shape. -Written February, 1988 (Fredericton). |03-uu-1988>NIHLO Bug out as black into the sun Facing the telescope for a time Clutching steely guides- Ringleaders in a catastrophe game. The move is ponderous, creeping Featherweight truncheons in a vacuum Hogwire hooks and elastic tendons Yet the colors escape my taste Bubbles pound a warning that nails sleep (Do not bother to walk-) Freedom is, to some, a yarn to design Or, a bright light brought to show Some grating secret. Count up your abacus silly to your trance Paperweights dance to overcome estimation You paperweights know killing- The manufactured shrapnel The shingled, posh, pest in the chapel Comforting you with a bottle Of glassy shards. -Written March, 1988 (Fredericton). |06-uu-1988>ENSERADA You can smell it Manufactured courage How's your robot doing in creative terms? His hug is like an elephant's I see this kind of thing everywhere These days, Having a simple egg for breakfast Is like something out of a Mexican circus Treat your dog with great tenderness Get me to the telephone before the operator Don't show me suspense Give me something else I'd like to keep my money How many donkeys to Chicago? Rats in the hotel- It's only a poison if you're bald and smart Hair stops teeth well Enserada is the home of great art. I've had a good stay in Enserada. -Written June, 1988 (Fredericton). |06-uu-1988>NO-ONE TOOK MY IGLOO SERIOUSLY NO-ONE TOOK MY IGLOO SERIOUSLY DESPITE THE FACT THAT IT WAS A CONSTRUCTION THEY ONLY SMIRKED IN A DANGEROUS AND MALICIOUS TONE THEY HAD THE NERVE TO TEAR IT DOWN TRIED TELEPATHY BUT GOD KNOWS IT TAKES SOMETHING A LITTLE BIT MORE IMAGINARY TO COME UP WITH AN INFANT DOSE I MEAN I NEED JUST ENOUGH TO START THE PROCESS OF DETERIORATION MYSELF I'M NICE SOMETIMES NICE ENOUGH TO GET RID OF ALL THE SOFT FACES I SEE...GUTTER RAT ON THE HALF-BAKED PARADE AND DISCORDANT ARE YOU WONDERING WHY THIS PAPER IS REALLY LINED WELL I'LL TELLY-YOU IT'S SOMEWHAT NOTHING. HEY WHERE'S THE HAT THE ONE YOU DIDN'T WEAR THAT'S NICE AND IT IS TOO GO AND GET IT IT DOESN'T MATER IF IT'S DANGEROUS IT'S REAL AND THAT'S ALL THAT MATTERS ISN'T IT THE LEVERS ARE TIRED AND THE SUN'S DOWN FOR SURE FROM WHERE I STAND I CAN TRACE THE LINKS 'TWEEN SHADOWS AN' TYPICALLY COME UP WITH SOMETHING LIKE A COUSIN OR AN ANTHILL CREEPING IN BOTH OF NOT THE ONLY DIRECTIONS WHAT I'M GETTING AT IS WHY DO WE BOTHER DEFINING A POINT OF VIEW WHEN THAT IS ALL THERE EVER IS A PERSON HAS EYES TWO OF THEM ON THEIR FRONT FACE AND EVEN THEY FOCUS INTO A SINGLE IMAGE IF THERE IS A SOLUTION IT IS TO EITHER CLOSE THE LIDS OR POSSIBLY TO CROSS THE YOLKS THEMSELVES AND IF THEY HAVE TO AS A LAST RESORT END UP ON A PLATTER THEN AT LEAST MAKE IT DISPOSABLE AND DON'T BOTHER TO COOK THE SHELLS. WHO IS BOTHERING TO APPROACH YOUR WOUNDED WINDOWSILL WHO IS MAKING IT EASY FOR YOU AND WHO CAN ONLY BE DEFINED AS A HEADACHE IN THE WALL WITHOUT A DOUBT IT'S NOT RAINING OUT AT LEAST NOT AS INTENSELY AS IT COULD HAVE BEEN YOUR APARTMENT GETS CLEANER BY THE BELL OF THE THIRD WEEK I HEAR THE TOLLING IN MY SHEEP I MEAN MY SLEEP BUT AFTER CHECKING CAREFULLY I CLEARLY SEE IT'S NOTHING SOMETHING'S MISSING SENT YOUR TELEPHONE NUMBER TO LHASA TIBET SO NOW I DON'T HAVE IT ANYMORE AND BY THE WAY AS YOU CAN TELL MY APOSTROPHIC NATURES ARE NOT UP TO SKRRATCH BUT WELL I CAN'T HELP IT NOW BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE DRINK A MILKSHAKE FOR ME ANYWHERE AND OH YEAH I WILL PREPARE YOUR SCARF FOR A NEW TREESYNC COMPETITION SOMETIMES I FEEL I'M GOING NOWHERE BUT SPIRITUALLY SPEAKING I KNOW IT'S NOT TRUE WHAT'S TRUE EVERYWHERE IS THAT BEFORE YOU CAN TELL WHAT SOMEWHERE OR SOMETHING REALLY IS AND ISN'T YOU HAVE TO KNOW WHAT NOWHERE AND NOTHING ENTAILS Y'KNOW THE WHOLE RELATIVISTIC TIRADE AS WELL AS I DO ITS MERITOUS ASPECTS AND VEILED AREAS. AREN'T YOU HAPPY THAT NONE OF US HAVE TO EAT CANNED RECYCLED MUGSHOTS IT IS A GOOD IDEA BUT MY APOCALYPSE WILL PUT AN END TO IT YOU'LL SEE IN A FEW WORDS -Written June, 1988 (Fredericton). |08-uu-1988>WHITEWASHED See, I'm lookin' for a ride But there ain't no one around The road's split down the middle It just goes on... This friend of mine from the prairies Told me to watch out for a beat-up Chev Sitting by itself in the station lot At high noon, just around journey's end There's no place better than my babe's tender arms That's where I got to be goin' I'm listenin' close for the howls of the dogs Someone told me the night's falling down Now the Iron Town's ahead, I got more use use for it Than the seaside waters and rocks. -Written August 1988 (Fredericton). |08-16-1988>SOURCES OF MOTION On your advice, I decapitate myself Fingertips aching on the whites of my eyes- Crumpled. And I stand on a dust mound Squeezing the half-corpse of a dove To understand things better, better than feathers- My primary concern is the pulse: How bare it is ! Young dove, the shell for a spirit of rust. Prickling points massage my hand The fever begins: Hand closes, as it must continue this attempt to excavate The internals of an eternal shell. Out grows the spur The pressure ! A sandwich; between my hand and this virus-spur thing The beating flesh of a dead dove The spikes- The rust- Lockjaw ! Ah, Life ! Blood flows and mingles Beast, also- the curious decomposition of a metal; together- Mingling ! Mingling ! Mangling ! I am three-in-one; I am complete- Finished...Ended. -Written August 14, 1988 (Fredericton). |12-uu-1988>YELLOW FEVER My only bed is a dried-up fountain In the center of the village square After climbing a thousand tropic mountains Guess I need a breath of air Sweet Naples, she's been good to me- Yeah, she let me sleep outside Underneath the volcano's shadow I've found my place to hide It's been a long long ride to where I am I've been writhing in a ship Mosquito bites & seasick friends Who just came for the trip -Written November, 1988 (Fredericton). Lyrics by Martin Warren. Music by THE DRUIDS. Performed by 'THE DRUIDS' at Room 26, SUB, UNB CAMPUS. February, 1988. |uu-uu-1988>DREAMING BY CANDLELIGHT There are seven orifices in a ball of clay The natives take turn at getting perfectly round By knife and by gun, by ax, and by spear They cut the abnormalities down A chunk of butter in a communion of hands There's a calfskin drum, and yes, they dance Dreaming by candlelight in skin and hair And something gets lost in the caricature Heidi's dog lost his teeth and could only stare At this alien place built on mounds of manure 'tis a sad laboratory for boar and bear They're dreaming by candlelight there. -Written 1988 (Fredericton). |04-uu-1989>NOT ABOUT YOU "I" am writing this to "you" To tell "you" of Everything How "we" are only the sum of these exact Amounts of human qualities, and in the midst Of our discussions, the downbogging through These equivocations Means we cannot take, talk, touch- The blistering truth, until "I" finally tell you That you are very to me, and that all "I" Want to do with you is show "you" "my"... Oh, YES! The Desire which endows itself with the power Of the written word wins all but the staunchest "You"'s, and renders insatiable every crevice Of "your" living carcass; "Come into my room, and Make yourself comfortable", motions an alphabetical Arrangement, right there before your softened eyes. Given a fair reading, it becomes a labor of love As thy wildly contorting bosom ecstatically tackles Another frontal lunge; finish with the thing, Words cannot...Oh, YES! -Written April, 1989 (Fredericton). |04-uu-1989>A NEGATION Will prayers of hidden wishes miss their mark? Or, is their still some hope that bridges great Might live on through the mischief and the dark To solve the sudden mysteries of fate When April falls like Egypt past the sun And pyramids stand naked to the sky- I look back on the things that I have done And whistle freely as the clouds go by Once times go fleeting years as seconds, so- The bleeding moment touches paling rim The spellbound sphinx will draw his line so low And him that note as though it were a hymn. But, sure as empty eagles, slow to speak- Collapse, the fullness here must mask the meek. -Written April, 1989 (Fredericton). |05-18-1989>O THAT YOU COULD HAVE BEEN THERE At the dying gasp of Biafra, someone must have taken them all down, the billboards all fell, all, all The billboards fell. But, the pressing question at hand- that which concerns Uli Airstrip 1970 Can only be solved through the use of MEMORIAL DIPLOMACY; A natural outgrowth of this day-and-age, POLITICAL NOSTALGIA. A transmitter intended for far-flung destinations, far, that is, from the marasmus and kwashiarkor feast- In the place where twigs overfoot are cracked; shut down with the timbres of Beethoven and chanting, little moans for powdermilk gutwrench There is only so much a mother can do- Since I was there in Tanzania, Gabon, Zambia, and with French Public Opinion, I must conclude that the first three years of my life were dangerous ages. -Written May 18, 1989 (Fredericton). |07-uu-1989>OGILVIE II Yon pig, he thinks big Tho slyly disguised his he Yon pig, he smoke cig And jump at falling tree He take big hit between the eyes And stink his feet for free Yon pig is named OGILVIE Bow down to he -Written July, 1989 (Fredericton). |09-uu-1989>EIGHT-EIGHTEENTH EYE "Billiards"?- This is no game to me, no misadventures Threaten from invisible towers- No ghost towns or abandoned mineshafts Creak with the movements of vengeful apparitions. You are one- When "chores" become obligatory- And black prisms and electric chairs call our names from the shadows; (See here !) This raft, quite makeshift, paint ever peeling; We will join these islands together Temptation mosquitoes will fall, Topple, sure as dominoes. I call you 'Eagle', Eagle Every rounded corner will be crossed; And the edges will recede; rockchunks Left alive to be read as runes Whether on the shoreline or in the temple Whether on the mountain or in the wind- (Where it begins - The Pinwheel) I want my love to be a cosmos to you Eating dry the scatterings Wiping blank those past etchings of an end That ceremony of concentric rings All of these elastic walls Shall snap back into place. My words may never be yours- But my love ? -Written September, 1989 (Fredericton). |11-uu-1989>TWELVE FACES OF GOD In arms and head- A parody. Old skin black as ant shielded ant; Situation little better after Viewing. Left enormous Beside God's Twelve Faces The steel blocks heat by viper's coil Here, upon this reptile soul The sky is spoilt. I have eaten the sun and his round face of age. I have told the Easter Island faces how to behave. Whether simple rocks or doorstops, The varieties are all accounted for. God's Twelve Faces look down on me, and it makes me feel quite free. -Written October, 1989 (Fredericton). |12-uu-1989>DEVILS AND STRANGERS Can't blink My elbows on a hollow table My eyes glued to a naked wall My eyes glued to a naked wall See the writing See all the craters eaten through Through the corners of this darkened room Through the corners of this naked room Devils and strangers I perceive intuitively There beside my dusty window All talking about me Devils and strangers I imagine easily There beside my dusty window Oh God, they look like you ! I can't blink; I see all the craters are eaten through Through the corners of this dusty room Through the corners of this naked room Devils and strangers I imagine easily There beside my dusty window All talking about me -Written December, 1989 (Fredericton). Music by Sam Petite and Kurt Goltz Recorded at the 'MAKING THE PRIMAL POINT' (1991) sessions. |01-15-1990>SUMMER'S SHEETS Summer's Sheets In a young red glow of ethereal breath Tinted in dawn, we read fortunes In one another's dreaming eye The pollution weight banished Cold exiled to a place beyond our panes- Began with a word until the high possibility Shaped as clay Into a form- Those lips of whom I longed for, unknown Met my own, and Red glows deepened to a silver flash. I stretched my hand to glide over your breast; and- You motioned me quickly to tell it out in a story. Yet, everything was so sudden Both centers a furnace- with eager ceremony in our temples. Summer's Sheets Breeze lifting the drape Thin chills and joyful tears Your hair flung so far back, into the wind- this orbit Pulling into one another, gravity-drawn; Your face, Your neck, You are all smoothness beyond the sea In calm. The heaving rage of Love It is our Firestorm. -Written January 15, 1990 (Fredericton). |01-uu-1990>THE CHRISTMAS CAMEL'S WREATH (I watched them shave my leghairs off; one by one, they spirall'd down Yet, that wreath they placed upon my ears- Astounds !) And, I am here with the tweezer gleaming- Up at me, from the snowcrust ground Here in the shopping mall parking lot The cabdrivers tell me they can slide on a bottle The shingles are all falling off This barberstrip'd sugary neighborhood house And, the chimneysweep smogs a foggy cough While the Christmas camel picks out a bloodsucking louse O Dear Child, take me warm into the sugar house- For fully I hunger for the swelling of gout ! -Written January, 1990 (Fredericton). |01-09-1990>NOT CONTAGIOUS Waxen statues on the floor, And the fire, wanting more I will sleep and you will drive While I'm leisurely alive I called the cops to cleanse my sins "Tell me when the bust begins" Look up into the open sky There's a haunting in my eye CHORUS: Well, your mother's face is like a pig-sty So, there ain't no need for an image of her I'm sorry I can't help you, darling But, at least, I'm not contagious While Mussolini caught a cold A nice trapeze-boy gave me gold I took hold of the forbidden sin And then I cast it to the wind And so, we dragged him to the mine And asked him nicely if he'd find A boiling pot, and once again- A boiling pot to fry him in! CHORUS We brought his body back inside We laid him there, and there he died And, now upon a cross he leans And we are clean in pastures green Now we take hold our holy books And read them whole like whole souls should We are the squeaking clean machine Where have you gone? Where have you been? CHORUS So, teach your children to salute Shut their mouths and make them mute Grr...grr...grr...grr...grr...grr...grr They might as well say "A platypus" Hear our prophets, hear our prayers We are there, and everywhere This master plan has just one cost: We are the saved, you are the lost CHORUS -Written January 9, 1990 (Fredericton). Music by Nick Oliver. Song appears on 'MAKING THE PRIMAL POINT' (1992). |01-09-1990>MR. CORPSEHEAD Human mirage on the open road By the next stop in, where no-one goes Dead in the trunk of a stolen car Losing my way, now, from where you are You're a stinky, slimy, Mr. Corpsehead Speaks like a ghost from a greenhouse cloud He's walking towards me, what should I do now? Open up his eyes, open up his lids Don't show the bad guys, don't show the kids You're a stinky, slimy, Mr. Corpsehead A family picnic, good wholesome fun Here he comes; uninvited guest number one Wears a penguin tux, and a bow-tie, too And, dressed like that, god only knows what he might do You're a stinky, slimy, Mr. Corpsehead -Written January 9, 1990 (Fredericton). Music by Nick Oliver. Song appears on 'MAKING THE PRIMAL POINT', 1991 |02-uu-1990>UNTITLED I've held you too highly, closely & tightly ! Each hand is broken, each finger eaten To its own skeleton; if only out of fierce hunger, I've knocked gears out of the machinery And years of scenery gnaw at me. I call it all closed ! Bitter grieving Has been too convenient, all of the crutches Find at once their moment of disposal Though the fear is total, there is no More of a goodbye to you than there is already In front of you, and wherever you go Remember this one thing; the ghost of your memory Will hunt me, until we orbit in the eye And the day comes down when the ashes fall With the ruins of it all, sinking beneath The purer stone. The day will come when in your darkest prayers A page might appear, and then out of sheer Curiosity or memory, drive you to reach out To someone, who could be or not be me- Who would have to Be If you were There to Be Waiting. -Written February, 1990 (Fredericton). |03-uu-1990>GOD OF SLOTH For eons I impoverish O God of Sloth ideas me Soothing brawling brain O Lord doth make I easy For any were the same I'd easel on the crazy And song off lyric lame O how the cows go grazy Relax'd a lower form And told me how it lappeth At lab retriever lips And resteth on the sabbath Was quiet for the while If only out of habit But soon I boredom smile And spoke to him to cab it. -Written March, 1990 (Fredericton). |03-uu-1990>WORLD Twilight paper cuts; It gets easier. Sometimes, upon breathing, I Am as uprooted cactus Thorns and bubbling within Green water blood air Front it is; She the shiny edge shine, Hair tied back like broomstraws, Except bows for wire and the scalped hooks Bundled face down, I see it In clouded grey- Meadow; you and your itchy lips. The eye hate, She mumbles at smoky billow Closed light moon In mock hilarity, she- Bounces off her tiny elbows Echoes of breeze Rhythmically teasing The hay. Rushed stream vessel The instant of opening, the lids Of eye one... Two...cyclical ...garden bordered by pottery Tiger Trees in swerve view Softly pass me. Tapestries woven placed hung, Just wind-dry for mama-kid, Martha name, she did-yes say it was Looming castle making Martha marsh island mind and- Paranoid; no cattle eat fodder in dark castle shadow. Mama poetess big quench by drink Every moon in every year Curled up in that meadow Real weed and learn- Itself tease broomstraws, shawk real; Bald upper side sphere babble head wheel. Ship landing take hay head away; Mama kiss dig hole castle meadow- Crawl on sunny day Take to world away. -Written March, 1990 (Fredericton). |uu-uu-1990>ANOTHER LIFE She said she came from Another Life. Now, her hair's been extended, & she lives in her poncho. Alexi came in through the villa's back door- -hungry Holding boxes of sandwiches for herself. Her mother; stale in seclusion & deep in prayer. She scanned the penlight beam dust All the way to the sun (it's happening), Quizzical staring. "There is Hatred in the Hills... Hatred in the Hills... BARBARIANS !" You've been here too long. It's time that you left. You have waited a fortnight to no avail. You Act. Stood beside the mirror. Stuck her foot into her mouth. Her friend put on a look so grave, and cursed the running water. -Written 1990 (Fredericton). |05-uu-1990>VEGOPHILIAC BLUES Gimme that lettuce That one at one fifty-five Gimme that lettuce That one at one fifty-five Y'know I had too much o' radish And don't you know they ain't my kind Y'know I stay away from carrots But get potatoes on the side Y'know I stay away from carrots But get potatoes on the side And don't you cry when you hear that moanin' I'm tellin' you that it's alive Stop callin' it zuchinni When you don't know how good she tastes Stop callin' it zuchinni When you don't know how good she tastes To hell with your linguini And let that goddam turkey baste Aww, it's goin' cross the country How this patch is growin' free Yeah, it's goin' cross the country How this patch is growin' free After managing this cabbage Maybe I'll do you a tree -Written May, 1990 (Fredericton). |05-uu-1990>SAIL AWAY It don't seem so long ago I last heard your voice Now all that I'm hearing is this silent night noise Where streetlamps said silence, and we gave our goodbyes The pain you were fighting fell in streams from your eyes CHORUS (rpt): The fierce, flying winds they batter boats on the bay The seas, they are calling me, Sail Away You've latched all your windows, now the distance has grown From where I stand now, you've never seemed more alone Surrounded by friends who simply fill in the time Grab your attention, but still leave you behind CHORUS I can't see a way that I can right what's gone wrong But don't lose your pathway as you travel along Tommorrow I'm going to places unknown But it won't be long before I come back home CHORUS -Written May, 1990 (Fredericton) Words by Martin Warren. Music by Kevin Mersereau. 1st song written intended for use in the 'TIN JEUNESSE' project. Played in Rehearsal (December, '90) McLaagan Hall, UNB Campus Kevin Mersereau, Tristram Pym, Steve Duggan, Kurt Goltz, Martin Warren. |06-uu-1990>SCUM OF THE EARTH I'm standing on the street Before the daylight comes I've got blister's on my feet And I'm spitting on the bums These ditches are the pits I throw them into some I find an axe that fits And then I chop 'em bloody numb CHORUS: So, if you think that you belong You got my message wrong You're only the Scum of the Earth !!!! I broke the warehouse locks And then I stole the bread away I'm wearing sweaty socks Gee, I sure smell fresh today ! You're standing on my shoes Now my foot's in your face ! It's time you got the news I don't want you in this place ! CHORUS You're looking not too well Go on and sleep in slime You can mutter on like hell Just don't ask me for the time They'll fit you in a suit Once you become disclosed I hope that you succeed Despite your missing nose CHORUS -Written June, 1990 (Fredericton). Words by Martin Warren. Music by Kevin Mersereau Intended for the 'TIN JEUNESSE' project. |06-uu-1990>WISHING WELL A lotta smoke A lotta wine Come on baby Anytime Get it straight Gonna take you home Come on baby Shake my bones ! CHORUS (2x): You're gonna shout, you're gonna yell I'm swimmin' in your wishing well A prayer for sale A penny spent You're too far gone now To repent ! I'll be your god, babe Get on your knees ! Sock it to me ! Don't be a tease ! CHORUS (2x) Stir up the waters Make them move The farmer's daughter's Gonna groove ! Surrender to me ! Don't say no ! 'Cause once you touch me- You can't let go ! CHORUS (2x) -Written June, 1990 (Fredericton). Words by Martin Warren. Music by Kevin Mersereau. Intended for 'TIN JEUNESSE' project. Performed with "SKELETON X" |06-uu-1990>(REQUIEM FOR) DR. BOGEYMAN When the curfew hits at ten o'clock, the kids are in their beds And they leave their washed-up castles in the sand At the moment lights go out, there's still a lingering of doubt 'Cos they're still afraid of Doctor Bogeyman Safely locked away, through the night and through the day Remembering the way things used to be He walks the prison grounds as he burns a candle down And mumbling these words he says to me: 'What are they doing with my secret I didn't think that they would keep it I'll be back on them if they leak it For I'm the only one who can retrieve it' 'The sun burns down Old Charlston Road Each day it passes me by They can kill me with poisonous implements But my spirit will never die' There's still a policeman standing by the courthouse steps There's still a creaking there beneath those stones There's still a guard dog sitting there, lapping at its lips Waiting for the dripping chamber bones He looks into the sky as if he'd grasp it with his eye Just looking for some solace there Every moment he's alive, someone wants to see him die And of this he is very much aware What are they putting in my coffee My cellmates all are trying to off me I've got to stay awake while I'm sleeping Just to see what kind of company I'm keeping The sun burns up Old Charlston Road Each day it passes me by They can chase themselves to hell if they choose But my spirit won't be far behind' The clanging of the door leaves no time for nothing more 'Cept the thought that it might one day be ajar The litany is read; all the names of all the dead And dead is what some living folk here are A churchbell calls it closed, a tyrant falls and gets exposed And every day it seems like more's gone But as every sundown falls, as Dr. Bogeyman well knows It doesn't mean the curtain's fully drawn -Written June, 1990 (Fredericton). Lyricccss by Martin Warren. Music by Kevin Merserau Intended for the 'TIN JEUNESSE' project. |06-uu-1990>SMALL NEIGHBOURHOOD Little girl, I see you've come a long way now In your tight blue jeans and your velvet suspenders Your name's getting plastered all over town You're the only one I know who everyone remembers Better watch how you step, you won't be so adept Now that dogs in the alleys are hunting for bones Got a call from your priest and fell down on my knees Screamed obscenities into the black telephone CHORUS (2x): It's not the best place to be As you should easily see Little girl, these temples of tall slab stone- They intimidate you in the eye of the hurricane I saw your performance on the late late show Through a coffeshop window in the pouring rain These activities you kept a secret from me But you can't keep it hid when it's you we're all watching And it's hard to take this being awake While it's everyone else who you've been massaging CHORUS Little girl, I'm waiting for your senses to flash I'm hoping that all of my words are not wasted I can pay you attention, though I can't pay you cash, But your mirror is easy to face once you've faced it I can't make it clear why I want you to stay here While your head's in the clouds and your life is in danger And I won't find the time to be this cruel and unkind While your whole world's getting stranger and stranger -Written June, 1990 (Fredericton). Words by Martin Warren. Music by Kevin Mersereau. Intended for the 'TIN JEUNESSE' project. |06-uu-1990>WAKING LAMENT It's a mistake to think that when you awake And you wipe out your eyes, that you are something inside For the swan on the lake slips away, in the harbour's dim light Your pillow of steel bears a sinister seal But you've wiped out your eyes and now there's nothing inside And, her voice, it trails off into the night CHORUS: Rootless, wandering, footsteps that lead nowhere Walking beside the princess as she floats through the air She's too far above for you to give her your love But you've wiped out your eyes, you think you're something inside And as the crying sunrise speaks, you fall into sleep CHORUS CHORUS It's a mistake to think that when you awake And you've wiped out your eyes, that you are something inside For the swan on the lake slips away in the harbour's dim light -Written June, 1990 (Fredericton). Words and Music by Kevin Mersereau and Martin Warren Intended for the 'TIN JEUNESSE' project. |06-uu-1990>GO HOME I won't let it go so easily; Her wings are broken and her mind's carved out All of her words seem so diseased to me - None of her feelings are worth thinking about CHORUS: Go back home, baby, go back home Everybody's too good for you Go back home, baby, go back home Keep yourself a secret, that's what you should do! Yes she's the stuff of somebody's fantasies I wanna tell you who that nobody is I found my facts from leafing through all her diaries I couldn't read 'em, they couldn't keep my interest CHORUS She's the princess of a dying kingdom Could be a princess from Ancient Rome Sticks up her nose, she thinks she's somebody special Old Uncle Nero'll play the fiddle once she's gone CHORUS -Written June, 1990 (Fredericton). Words by Martin Warren. Music by Kevin Mersereau Intended for the 'TIN JEUNESSE' project. Performed by SKELETON X |06-uu-1990>TROUBLE COMING DOWN Down below my window, trouble coming down All alone by tombstones, trouble coming down The nightly groans of buried bones, there's trouble coming down And all you can do is crawl Being bought by barter, trouble coming down Getting sold for slaughter, trouble coming down The day is nigh when you will die, there's trouble coming down And all you can do is crawl Stabbings in the subways, trouble coming down Single mothers on minimum wage, trouble coming down Crackhouse raids on Christmas day, trouble coming down And all you can do is crawl -Written June, 1990 (Fredericton). Words by Martin Warren. Music by Kevin Mersereau Intended for the 'TIN JEUNESSE' project. |06-uu-1990>THE GALLERY KEY How can you see the candlelight?- You still look sickly blue The curtain's drawn, the gallery hall Is sending me through you Hunger hit my pale nerves But I could not get through CHORUS: On a nail hangs the Gallery Key And turning sand to salt, in time With anxious moments spent in hell With every friend of mine Who sent to me this article Is secretly a king Though subject to the rule of none, He causeth everything Hunger hit my pale nerves, But I still couldn't make them ring CHORUS CHORUS -Written June, 1990 (Fredericton). Words by Martin Warren. Music by Kevin Mersereau. Intended for 'TIN JEUNESSE' project. |07-uu-1990>BAJA (2) Another minute on the clock, we fight this frozen time Another rock thrown at my house, but baby I don't mind Been so long since I last burned back from the ghostly mexican sands Now you tell me I talk in my sleep, and you don't understand CHORUS: Now I know that there's better days ahead Baby, I can't stop I'm going back to my best friend- Baja, Baja Cactus for some shade Baja, Baja Lizard on my leg I dived for ocean pearls there, I looked like Captain Nemo A strange old man said I was lost but where else was I to go? A black pinata of sacred stones swings from the chandelier And even though I'd be more alone, I'd rather be there...than here CHORUS There's a coastline footprint still in place and I'm going back to find it A sun-etched pattern fills my face and the sand and sea designed it I wanna be free where I want to be, where the ocean and desert meet & I'd rather be singing from as scorpion sting than be stranded on the street -Written July, 1990 (Fredericton). words byy Martin Warren. Music by Kevin Mersereau. Intended for 'TIN JEUNESSE' project. |07-uu-1990>WILL AND TESTAMENT I still have your gift How come it's breathing down my neck I haven't broken anything of yours I think of your smile And put my fist through the wall And then I crawl around on all fours But, back in the past I know there were happy times Now that they're gone; I'm looking for other kinds CHORUS: A little bit lost - you might think that I've become A little bit lost - but I'll prove you wrong I can't explain, if (you think) I'm to blame I guess to you it's all the same After a while I watched you with porthole eyes It seemed like a challenge at the time Your shell was so thick It bled into yesterdays I drank you like a vicar drinks his wine But night played it's hand And I couldn't face up to it You gave your word... There wasn't much worth to it CHORUS I'll finish this script I'll leave a message on your line But you won't like the things I'm saying now Your coat full of holes Is on your doorstep in the cold And my windows you can't see through for the smoke Your life is my living death Nothing can save us now Even though the phone will ring There'll be no answer to your call CHORUS -Written July, 1990 (Fredericton). Words by Martin Warren. Music by Kevin Mersereau. Intended for the 'TIN JEUNESSE' project. Performed live at Rye's Deli & Pub,Fredericton NB (old location), March, 1994, by MW and Kevin Mersereau. |07-uu-1990>ON YOUR SHELF Casual whispers, The midnight moonshow, The sunstruck island I always stand on All wrapped in memories Lingering lonely I'm on your shelf I'm on your shelf All pulsebeat killers Acquaintance kindling The fires of friendship Are fondly fading Sole isolation No information I'm on your shelf I'm on your shelf Mountains and oceans Block every gazing The empty skyline It pains my eyesight From grave to cradle My vision's fatal I'm on your shelf I'm on your shelf BREAK: Safe in this hammock, I've been surveying damage Too little to pinpoint, but too much to manage 'How are you feeling?', don't ask me that question I'm on your shelf, I'm on your shelf You slept in my room You howled on full moons I walk the sand dunes In wait for typhoons Hope that you're happy 'Cause I'm only angry I'm on your shelf I'm on your shelf -Written July, 1990 (Fredericton). Words by Martin Warren. Music by Kevin Mersereau Intended for the 'TIN JEUNESSE' project |07-uu-1990>HUNGER CAFE Summer's gone and you're still frozen, trembling in the cold No one says a word to you, and you've got no control The sign above says 'Welcome', but you better get away From Hunger Cafe The waiter and the waitress beckon you to step inside And bask in the reflection of the jagged fractured light And everything's so quiet 'cause there's nothing here to say At Hunger Cafe All that you can buy there is a slice of boiling bread And from the looks of you today, you'd be better off dead The clock up on the wall don't tick; you'd better get away From Hunger Cafe -Written July, 1990 (Fredericton). Words by Martin Warren. Music by Kevin Mersereau Intended for 'TIN JEUNESSE' project. |09-uu-1990>I, SHE, AND WHO IS YOUR MIND ? The earthquake's come to town And I hear she's shaking 'round Looking to get the best of us She'll mess you up in a big way But I've got both hands tied And I'm in a bad mood And they're swollen with pride And every point I make is moot- She's the spitting image of... But I forgot to mention her claws Look out ! She's coming at you from behind And you know what she's trying to find Well, you know what I found in the room Where time never did stand still And I'm holding on to the telegram She says there's something she's got to say And you're still scared of the dark How can you say that everything is alright When you could burn her for a lark And she wouldn't act surprised How could she not realize... When she's coming at you from behind And you know what she's trying to find -Written September, 1990 (Fredericton). Words by Martin Warren. Music by Kevin Mersereau. Intended for the 'TIN JEUNESSE' project. |09-uu-1990>SWEET SUSIE BABE Lying in a flat open field Watching planes fly above me- Holding back the pain And thinking about my Sweet Susie Babe Lyin' to myself that she's gone, And no way will I miss her, But, I'm going insane Thinking about my Sweet Susie Babe She don't know the reasons why I had to leave her far behind And she don't know if she'll ever see me again Lyin' in a flat open field Watching planes fly above me- And holdin' back the pain Thinking about my Sweet Susie Babe. -Written September, 1990 (Fredericton). Music by Kevin Mersereau. |09-uu-1990>SECTION I I and- the full pack of tumble tricks, wax methods, coffee, fast bellowing act for my friends for my applause my laughter, and theirs. Jumping my mile-high once more keeping the ball in play- just inside the lines. Don't be deceived if I look coldly at you- IT'S NOT YOU - IT'S ME I Love You as if...as if this was not such a black September crumbling at one orbit's completion it's one year, just one year gone I'll pretend to everyone it never happened it never was that much of a big deal big deal. What I'd give to have a new canvas To show you what I REALLY meant - (I really meant THIS ONE - no - THIS ONE - NO - THIS, et cetera). You know not to fall for that one. History. -Written September, 1990 (Fredericton). |10-uu-1990>LINE OF FIRE It's four in the mornin', at my door I hear the knockin' Outside the rain if pourin', I can't take it anymore I get up from bed, pull back the latch Straight here from Las Vegas, not a penny to my name now And my mileage gauge went skyward, as my fortunes went to hell I've got a cigarette, but could you spare a match? CHORUS: Well, it's one of those things And, I had to get away I ain't in your line of fire Today I was walking the tightrope 'tween tomorrow and to nowhere I was talkin' to the desert, to the highway, to the sea Didn't know what was happening to me I was stayin' in a city with the narrow road before me I was gettin' buried under by your crazy little games Should'a known things'd never be the same CHORUS (2x) -Written October, 1990 (Fredricton). Words by Martin Warren. Music by Kevin Mersereau |12-uu-1990>LAST DAY IN THE DOLLHOUSE My relatives all stare me down Because they know I'm leaving town My face is washed; I packed my towel And I kept my ceramic owl CHORUS: I'm just the same You used to know me I'm getting out It's my last day in the dollhouse I am a conservationist I grew the plants that Greenpeace missed My radio runs off the sun And my clothes are pure aluminum CHORUS I painted everything I know And so I am Vincent Van Gogh No genius is worth keeping in A canvas made of baby's skin CHORUS (2x) -Written December, 1990 (Fredericton). Words by Martin Warren. Music by Kevin Mersereau. |12-15-1990>CIGAR DOLL WOMAN On a cardboard box, right on top of the bus The chinese lady lit up her cigar- I've never seen two faces like that before Please tell me which one you are CHORUS: She is a cigar doll woman She is a cigar doll woman And you, you ain't one I spy, I spy, with my sweet little eye That doll-face hidden beneath your hair When you open your mouth, all the springs pop out And so does the silverware CHORUS Oh, pass me the sandwich, The butter of peanut, molasses & sauerkraut Don't act so mannish, gypsy woman; For in time I'll have you all figured out... CHORUS: (You Are A...Cigar Doll Woman, etc.) -Written December 15, 1990 (Fredericton)... Words by Martin Warren. Music by Sam Petite. Performed by SKELETON X and various other arrangements. |12-uu-1990>CHAPTER This chapter has been an ugly one For whatever or no reason Sharp, indignant lapses Thoroughly torn silences I do not know you (Yes, the face does resemble- Yet, I am most certain) 'I do not know you', Occasional. -Written December, 1990 (Fredericton). |12-uu-1990>XYG The ReZoned Hotel Block "Sonofabitch" stumblelord number twenty-five babbling To his shadow, pavement runs rings Around cement and concrete crumble Hate etchings earlier when wet Stumbling-o-stumblelord This door is YOUR door. Watches the teapot The window breaks that connection, The smell of this swelter That swatch of sandhair Cannot bear that image, clenchfully Torn out and finally dropped. A fine young lady- Loverlike ardour, that offering Of the cement things The high heels, the tiny mouth, O, how you want to see the end of me. Your circumstances would be better off Low in the snake chamber- How, I KNOW this wall, Lifting, Lifting, Lifting- Now there is but a white, A time, a sea, a hate, A home. -Written December, 1990 (Fredericton). |12-20-1990>TO THE DOGS You'll never look so good again When I feed you to the dogs You'll be a basic food again When I feed you to the dogs Oh, whatssat skeleton down by the ocean- It's you! It's you! On the beach by the ocean- Children wigglin' toes, deep in the sand there beside you And the vultures pick your brains out... ONE MORE TIME!!! And me, I drive by in my black limousine...just smilin' happy! You'll never call my name again When I feed you to the dogs You'll never feel the same again When I feed you to the dogs Oh, whassat skeleton on the beach by the ocean- It's you! It's you! On the beach by the ocean- Children wigglin' toes, deep in the sand there beside you And the vultures pick your brains out... ONE MORE TIME!!! And me, I drive by in my black limousine...just smilin' happy! -Written December 20, 1990 (Fredericton)... Words by Martin Warren. Music by Ted Hamilton, Tristram Pym, Kurt Goltz. Performed by SKELETON X. |uu-uu-1990>DRIED-UP BRAIN Living in my dried-up brain Laughing gas seems like a saviour Living in my dried-up brain There's never any thinking, ever So much to do and to explain Living in my dried-up brain Every thought is just a stain On the emptiness of my dried-up brain Living in my dried-up brain Intellegence is a lost flavour Living in my dried-up brain Laughing gas seems like a saviour Living in my dried-up brain Living in my dried-up brain -Written 1990 (Fredericton). |uu-uu-1990>BIT BY A PICTURE bit by a picture I seek refuge in my rasta and howl Ethiopian curses at everyone & I snuck a peek she was not the same then as after when I came around again how she continued in absence so I struggle with my obesity & this thing before you here fails to be me and, at the risk of sounding uncultured if I may say so I am not like the cheese of you I am split into like parts; two. -Written 1990 (Fredericton). |uu-uu-1990>HEADDRESS When you throttled the globe with your hatchet defiance And broke your own heart trying, I was living the scavanger, dragging off carcasses Waiting for you to turnip at my beast-feast I had a seat reserved for you At the head of my Valhalla table for two A cradle beside, to secure your devices And my wicked candlelight was burning at noon When you showed, in your headdress and tribal regalia I stepped light to the shelves and I tore out containers Of MIND, which I, in hopes you'd not assume That I presumed that you assumed my paranoia Concerning your headdress and tribal regalia Brought out, and set there, in front of your eyes To entrance you into believing that I Was a Creature-Saint, who lived only to dine. -Written 1990 (Fredericton). |uu-uu-1990>CRABBER Jitter thang Jitter thang 'Tis a German Windhoek phase phrase Crabapple slave, shake thy trunk At the dunes, you bake- You bake Crabber, sway Crabtree sway Africa for you Pre-Nuptial Paradise Resort Stretch yer limbs now, Ritual Crabapple. -Written 1990 (Fredericton). |01-16-1991>HYMN (Your Omen) Your omen is acting up again The floor is bare, the wallpaper's gone A hardwood clutter of synthetic shoes Your omen is acting up again Your windscreen is rattling loose She stares; a beacon to the core Your omen is acting up again The swings swing on, no kids around- Straight-chained, seats bent toward the ground Your omen is acting up again Fireplace burning with no fuel Knight's uniforms in deadly duel Your omen is acting up again The figures under guestroom sheets Make love, then turn transparent heaps Your omen is acting up again Your omen is acting up again You love the way I say this thing Your omen is acting up again You love the way I touch you; This is how I say "I Love you", Your omen is acting up again Your omen is acting up again -Written January 16, 1991 (Fredericton). |01-09-1991>GOD'S CURSES God cursed me with a nine-headed child from the sun And then went and gave me another one God cursed me with a nine-headed child from the sun And then he went and showed me the things that this child had done CHORUS: What I seem to think about Don't mean a whole lot to me now... But does it ever? God cursed me with a 1975 Pinto And then told me to drive to the places where most people go God cursed me with a 1975 Pinto And then he said I could know the things that most people know CHORUS -Written January 9, 1991 (Fredericton). Words by Martin Warren. Music by Nick Oliver. |02-uu-1991>ID JIAH My harvest you beheld Propagation of this mind No speaking of agos I need you for your Now. How I could not, even here- This cane up on my peak Your voice wrings dry my ears You took note; each charred root Ran the hedge in parallels. Your knowing barefoot step Touched, to dry this oily earth My good land, my old land Where your note took each charred root You are heat ! You are racing through Do you think you might drop off ? Atop, atop this snow Where you told me to be free If that thing was true to me. Now know, now never know To this place this spirit goes Early the eye glows So, as it closes, know That I am ID JIAH & that this field is yours. (for See-Eye) -Written February, 1991 (Fredericton). |02-uu-1991>COLD She did not question me when she came in; She had never pretended that she would stay long. I had received a couple of phone calls, One thin sheet of neat printing (in a small envelope with textured ridges), & that was all. I will admit that this meeting, at first- Was awkward, owing to the nature Of the bitter truths which had to be exchanged. Specific cases, where both persons Know another person, and both 'others' Know one another. Despite these obstacles, I composed myself, As did she, and I began to tell her What it was, What I planned to do about it, And why I thought that we could still help one another. She, she echoed these sentiments. Still, I did not stop at this agreement. Instead, I stubbornly demanded that she read once more The content of her letter. She was rightfully pissed off for having to explain, I broke into tears, & Four Walls heard my stupid contest. After she left, I threw in front the black blind, & drifted through the room; destined- To call upon the one available chair. Skull fell to palm, eye closed- 'Never Again', I said to myself, & I felt very Cold. There are neither Wants nor Needs. I can walk on coals and drink torch fuel. Attempts at a thaw, frenzied. If only you were here to witness this one spectacle; To see me sleeping on this block of burning ice. -Written February, 1991 (Fredericton). |03-uu-1991>KRIBCAGE All right. About four-and-a-half feet in height is he who is somewhat waxed. In (approximately) the same amount of time that it took him to accomplish this feat of creative gruff, a spun word sailed without warning out from yon basket. Therein contained was the Typhus genie seven segments out of the origin bottle. And what a spirit am it! The source was foaming at the plates, distraught vegetation working its way through. All this and knowing all the while that the price of this maneuver was the eventuality that it, too, might forthwith elasnap. Spores that did not once did ever inkle of light/dark damage tearing the root and bleed. The unfortunate presence of the supplementary eye precluded all caution; the plant edged on through the plate XYKIKKKKHHHHYKHKHOAaa. My face the first ever to be underwatch by the Kribcage Typhus. AND WHAT A BEAUTIFUL BABY IT WAS TOO ! It was am BABY DAY a special edition was published a self-analysis provoked for the first time a living embodiment of the disease itself. -Written March, 1991 (Fredericton). |03-uu-1991>SINISTER FELLOWSHIP I'm hearing the wind blow hail on my window There's salt on the table I was careful to spill And I remember all the stuff that made no difference All the stuff I tried forgetting, while I was still Marching to Glory with an Army of Zombies Holding the cattle so in place And, I was walking, walking towards them Holding my cigarette to their faces CHORUS: Don't ask why, no, don't ask why It seems like a Sunday that the clock couldn't keep track of And for every square of sidewalk, there's a crack I've got to step on In a panic, with my eyes closed, I was shaking while my face froze That horror I felt long ago, I stumbled back upon For there was perfect symmetry, and smooth geometry In the small cow baby that was standing in front of me I picked it up to pet, but then ripped off it's head instead This was a tragedy, there was no turning back for me CHORUS If I tell you of my Grand Design, must you find another axe to grind? Just to break the ice of my twilight mind, must you take me away? Can a two-hour dream prepare you for that thing which glows up through your floor Will I ever see you any more, or must it end this way? CHORUS I'll make you an offer; on a mere piece of paper But, if you don't take it, you must bear the consequence There's a Sinister Fellowship that's boarding the battleship; There's no turning back for you, there's no turning back for you! CHORUS -Written March, 1991 (Fredericton). Words by Martin Warren. Music by Chris Murray. Song appears on 'MAKING THE PRIMAL POINT' (1992) by 'SKELETON X' |03-14-1991>OBSERVE, DEDUCE, ACT. I'm staring at you like I really know you I'll be your active transmitter Yes, it is buried- But yet still, it is big I'll be your active transmitter Talk of evil, talk of tongues, Talk of talk Taking the word and presenting the end Of all thought If you can see the nucleus I wrap around You've grown in vision & gone from there I'll be your active transmitter Staring at you like I really know you I'll be your active transmitter -Written March 14, 1991 (Fredericton). |03-uu-1991>SHE DON'T WALK She don't walk 'til it don't look right She don't walk 'til the dead of the night She don't walk 'til the windows are froze She don't walk 'til she knows nobody knows She don't walk 'til the doors've been shut She don't walk 'til she can't show what she's got She don't walk 'til her anger agrees But most of all she don't walk next to me She don't walk 'til it don't make sense She don't walk 'til she can make some pretense She don't walk 'til the clouds cover all She don't walk near no damn shopping mall She don't walk 'til her features are hid She don't walk 'til she don't know what she did She don't walk 'til she's good and clean But even then she don't walk next to me -Written March, 1991 (Fredericton). Lyrics by Martin Warren. Music by Chris Murray. Lyrics latter substituted by GORILLA. |03-13-1991>ZALAD D Zallad Zalad D Western seagreen ballet Hide the cap and gun- Fortune brings a friend Who sails no better Than the ice-tied Limbonius Where limbo knees is Looking through Zalad D Lantern lifted just to cast a fast glance At her perishing face She is pointing deep at nothing "Quite swift" came up the mineshaft With her chromium chimes streaked. -Written March 13, 1991 (Fredericton). |05-uu-1991>SILENCE IS BETTER Silence is better You say nothing Your time is up And no-one is listening Silence is better You say nothing Your folded face of dangerous layers- Silence is better! (Because you say nothing) Frost, so cold- Frost, eat through me My body's frozen And, you think I should be happy?!? Silence is better 'Cos you say nothing Your time is up And no-one is listening Phantom eyes You look so panicked My menaced mind- With the page that's come in view- With the page that's come into your view- Your face is on the tree And the tree looks like you! Silence is better Silence is better Because you say nothing...Nothing! Silence is better You say nothing Silence is better Than the nothing you're saying -Written May, 1991 (Fredericton). Music by Kevin Mersereau. Song appears on 'MAKING THE PRIMAL POINT' (1992). |07-uu-1991>HONG KONG BIBLE BELT BLUES It was a quarter to a dollar; I was stuck on a dime On my way to calv'ry, like in Stonewall's time I was marchin' brave like in the story, raisin' high ol' stars'n'bars Damn' Yankee ol' glory, you can shove 'er up your arse ! You're actin' like I must be some alien from Mars ! CHORUS: Well, it's just them Hong Kong Bible Belt Blues (4x) I got this pretty baby Peggy bakin' pigs in a pie But the one that got away was the apple of her eye You say 'I'm burdened down with troubles', but to me they don't compare With my pretty baby Peggy with the Buddy Holly hair She's greasy and she's scary, just plain Grizzly when she's bare ! CHORUS I got this good buddy Rick, he's in a video club We went to rent out Alex Haley, and we pissed on his rug Yes I know some famous people; be you certain for sure Tried to capture Charlie Manson just 'round Devil's Gorge But we couldn't save his candles from the ghost of Chicken George! CHORUS Fin'lly got me insulation, but as readin' ain't my art I made use of my bare hands and my barely thinkin' parts It would keep me warm on win'try nights, or so the salesman said So I threw away the package and made me a bedspread Be just like these things today to turn my skin all blazing red CHORUS MISSING VERSE: [All of fourty-eight cowboys were sittin' on a fence, Only one herded cattle, and the rest, they made no sense There's no direction here, say the lines on the map And I know you weren't expectin' this mad-hattin' rap Go right ahead and try this mixture, go lie down and take a nap] CHORUS Go right ahead, call me a bigot for the way that I talks But you been lookin' too long at Aunt Jemima's box 'I got stones in my passway', Robert Johnson moan'd, But my doc, he took out mine a long time ago... Jus' don't sit around & wait for your kidney to blow CHORUS ("From them Hong Kong Bible Belt Blues") -June, 1991 Words by Martin Warren. Musiiicc by Robb Chessie. Song performed by "SKELETON X" on 'MAKING THE PRIMAL POINT' (1992). |07-01-1991>SPHINX FROM AMARILLO I used to believe in beehives 'til the Brazillian beez came up I'm a Sphinx from Texas, and I don't feel nuthin' With my face of solid stone, you might say I'm lookin' serious But there's a problem with my face...it doesn't exist It's a little thing that a Sphinx from Texas might see As opposed to a carniverous bat Comin' up from the cave, I'm walkin' towards my eternal destination Oh, Amarillo, white lilly flower When you pursue me hour after hour This Sphinx from Texas can't take no more 'Cause this Sphinx; he ain't no whore Lillywhitestrawberriesfrommexico, I can see them a mile away Grey gowns and grey faces Stuck on the remains of my tattered tourniquet They're throwin' their hexes But woman, you so lillywhite...why don't you spend the night With a Sphinx in his cave in the middle of Amarillo The place that's named for you is the place to which you must be true Lillywhiteflower, f*** out my brains Oh I'm growing old and grey Sphinx from Texas, I've gotta stay On the middle of Galveston Bay Where there's a giant ship left by...none other than Noah ! See it flyin' up in the air I try to pretend that I care But, here in Amarillo Galveston Bay's nowhere So, you, little sweet light bright princess Won't you please put in your dentures MISSING VERSE: [I'm a Sphinx from Amarillo, smokin' weed in the afternoon See me on your church steeple, howlin' at the moon My sphinx-face of solid rock is slowly crackin' off Lillywhite in Amarillo, please don't leave me now ! I've got a problem, it's not a big one I shot your three-month-old son Old ladies accross the street; stop throwing rocks at me If your name's not known in Amarillo, You shouldn't be here with me !] It's a taxing situation When you're a Sphinx on vacation- And you end up in Texas With a mexican senorita She may be twelve feet tall Or she may have no feet at all, But, either way, you don't give a damn ! Oh, it's so hard to be the Sphinx When in Amarillo, water nobody drinks And grotesque stairs from the stairwells, sayin' 'You're egyptian, so you're goin' to hell' Aww get out of here all of you baby brats I'm gonna take off all your cowboy hats Throw 'em around 'Cause where eyes fall, they don't make a sound Sphinx from Texas, Sphinx from Texas, Sphinx from Texas, I'm a Sphinx from Texas now And my face is cracking off -Written (ad-lib) July 1, 1991 (Frederictttoon). Words by Martin Warren, Music by John Mersereau. Appears on 'MAKING THE PRIMAL POINT', 1991. Performed live by SKELETON X |07-01-1991>(BEWARE OF) THE SPHINX Don't turn your back on the sphinx He's gonna get you in the end Don't turn your back when he walks toward you 'Cause in back of you is the Sphinx' best friend That mummy who arose from the tomb Grey haired and anorexic Don't turn your back on the sphinx With his face peeling like some icy piece of onion paper Turn your back on the sphinx And you will be lowered to the level of a graham wafer She is walking like a mummy out of the tomb Grey haired and anorexic...what a bitch! Now when they colonized Atlantis Some three-thousand years before You could see me praying to the preying mantis Before they siphoned my brains through my nose Now, I'm not proud, but beware of the Sphinx- He's someone you might not want to meet Beware of the Sphinx He's coming to get you ! Now, five miles from that yonder pyramid I see This bald-headed dwarf, and he's walking up to me He calls himself ZERO, and says he's from Italy I guess they sent the Mafia for me ! Now, I'm not proud, but beware of the Sphinx- He's someone you might not want to greet, no Beware of the sphinx He's coming to get you My rabbit ears on my t.v. set Are picking up strange signals Coming from the Planet of the Apes But all I can see is a chimpanzee With a face full of wrinkles And now I think they're coming after me...Shirley MacLean ! Beware of the sphinx, he's coming to get you ! And his grey-haired grandmother, she wants to whip you ! -Written (ad-lib) July 1, 1991 (Frederictttoon). Words by Martin Warren. Music by John Mersereau. Performed on 'MAKING THE PRIMAL POINT' (1991). Performed live by 'SKELETON X'. |07-uu-1991>VIETNAM BLUES (Ad-lib) I'm goin' to Da Nang Goin' lookin' for poontang And I'll tell 'ya somethang You're gonna hear them mortars rang Here I am on the beach Lookin' out at a peach See us rollin' on the ground While them missiles come down CHORUS Boom, boom, boom...Vietnam Blues! Ho Chi Minh lived in Hanoi He said 'Get out of the jungle Boy', So I'm going to Haiphong Gonna join the Viet Cong CHORUS -Written (ad-lib) July, 1991 (Frederictonnn)). Words by Martin Warren. Music by John Mersereau. |07-01-1991>WHAT YOU'VE BECOME Why are you shining that light in my eyes? It's the only reason I'm going blind The lamp by the wall is smashed, into gleaming splinters, Undefined, Another twisted thought that haunts my mind CHORUS: ('Cause) If you unwrap the scroll, You'll see your name in my own blood Reminding me of what you've become I once heard of a place Where all the streets were paved with skulls; You call it hell...I call it home! And there's a ladder to the sun That I once saw Venus climb; But, now she's just a wreck of walking bones Walking Bones! CHORUS I shook my pockets out, & picked a penny from the dream For every wasted thought that was spent on me Now my eyelids sink in time to the circles of my sleep Where the jaws of viscious age are gnawing deep CHORUS (2x) -Written July 1, 1991 (Fredericton). Words by Martin Warren. Music by Chris Murray Recorded for 'MAKING THE PRIMAL POINT' (1991), and performed by "SKELETON X" |07-21-1991>HA-HA (THE MAD SCIENTIST'S LAMENT) Is this a lovely photograph Of nineteen cats in the microwave? Or a lovely photograph Of your face, once you fell into the grave? The lake is NICE this time of year, I bought myself a cottage there Drinkin' vodka by the fireside, Watching ghosts dance in your underwear CHORUS: HA-HA, HA-HA, HA-HA, HA-HA The circus came to town one day I flew in, in my private plane Took along the thoughts of Chairman Mao Some bamboo sticks & whips & chains The clown lights up, with neon fear "Welcome to the House of Mirrors... While I plow back another beer, Try to find your way through, Dear!!!" CHORUS: There's an SS-Clone in a monkeysuit Trying on his bamboo sandalstraps And this guy looks like the President, He's trying on his rubber breasts Think I'll snort my lines & hit the road, And you won't have to go with me, When my grand-dad's head from this stump grows Replacing what my god gave me CHORUS Face down in the rumbleseat We're rumblin' down Argyle Street Dripping, runny, raw, red meat Emerging from my mouth...(so sweet) Someday we'll be very rich From Scientific Sacrelidge Strobe lights flash, and muscles twitch about... (twitch about) CHORUS -Written July 21, 1991 (Fredericton). Lyrics by Martin Warren. Music by Chris Murray, & Arrangement by Robb Chessie. Recorded during 'MAKING THE PRIMAL POINT' sessions. Performed by "SKELETON X" |uu-uu-1991>EXPLORER You, Explorer- on the invisible cliff. I can only see you Gesturing at the tall grass With a child's hands. By yourself, always- In your imagination, I can hide. I do not find you dangerous Still, I fear you As I fear the tides and the lines of an ageing Earth. To be here, You must be so familiar With such frailties of substance; Although you do, somehow, Remain inconspicuous in its midst. You have made your pact with eternity- & I hate it As it does me. I am not wrathful But, I will wait At the other side of the valley Playing in the weeds (Aware, as I am of how the trees hate me). All is loathing. -Written 1991 (Fredericton). |01-uu-1992>VISHNU SOUL Alley-ho, Alley-ho Unmasked, watercolors through mirrors Fly free in a silver collision And the scattered links on the chain Disconnect and scrape bone through the idol incision CHORUS: Alley-ho, Alley-ho, One with the Everlasting Vishnu Soul Alley-ho! Alley-ho, Alley-ho Fog on the river, But, a boat on the other side. Space is the home; No thick jaws eat out holes, and then hide Where the veil gives theme- Wraps around the one thing you know: CHORUS Alley-ho, Alley-ho One stride to the shore, so stir- Uncontrolled All elbows and knees; pour Vishnu upon me, please While twilight's lie still waits For me. CHORUS -Written January, 1992 (Fredericton). Music by Kevin Mersereau. |02-10-1992>I WAS THINKING I was thinking hard, almost aloud About you, about me, about Why I was thinking so damned hard, While you, well, I don't know if you had any questions If you did, I think you kept them down You see how strange all this can get I could only guess At what you think I'm thinking In your files of recorded memory I suspect there's at least one sheet To keep yourself from going crazy Writing there for you, as I do, here for me You guessed at some odd mystery... Yet, nothing was sure Yet, nothing... Nothing was sure Who am I to say what it is you're feeling? Who am I to say you understand this here thing? What I'm getting at doesn't come out easy What I'm getting at might as well be nothing Who are you? I was thinking hard, almost aloud, About you, about me, about what I was thinking About you, about me, about what it was I was thinking What I was thinking, yeah. -Written February 10, 1992 Words by Martin Warren. Music by Kurt Goltz & Robb Chessie. Song appears on 'MAKING THE PRIMAL POINT' by "SKELETON X" (1992). |02-uu-1992>MONSIGNOR BOYED Monsignor Boyed, he lived in a hotel room Out in the hallway, a woman was whistling a tune, and- He looked beyond his eyes; just maybe once, or twice, or three times And he thought to himself: "Why's the door closed, why's the door closed" Monsignor Boyed, he ain't got no family treasure But he's got a couple of things designated especially for pleasure And both of them sit beside him, on the couch, by his front porch- Which don't exist... Poor Monsignor Boyed, he ain't too overjoyed Living in his hotel room with the woman whistling out in the hall... He says to himself: "I can't hear her at all, at all, at all..." Monsignor Boyed He called Room Service Asked for a razor blade, a rope, and an AK-47; And he used them all at once, So, now he's a heap of blood and guts Monsignor Boyed He's not overjoyed Monsignor Boyed Is dead, he's dead, he's dead, he's dead. -Written (ad-lib) February, 1992 (Frederiiiccton). Music by RED; with lead guitar work by Kurt Goltz. Recorded during "Primal Point" sessions. |02-uu-1992>THINGS I COULD BE DOING (Ad Lib) There are so many things that I could be doing That would be so much better than what I'm doing now There are so many things that I could be doing... I could be f****ing you on the stairwell Yeah, baby Yeah, baby Yeah, baby Be an item An item on my grocery list Send us to a mad scientist...Ya! Ya! Well, my artificial leg, it is coming off good, baby Just like a scuba diver, I'm underwater And when I think about it, my mind thinks too swiftly I am drinking salty water But in bed with you it's something else... It's something nice I can't put my finger on ! Here comes The Paradise, Here comes The Dawn Oh, my child, where did you come from To be such a blessing to me? Oh child, where did you come from? I love you, and that's guaranteed Where are the words I must find to delineate And tell you these good things here that we have When I think about it, I can't articulate- I'm eating my hand, grrrarr, mrarrmr, rmmrar, mgrgrrar... There are so many things that I could be doing That would be so much better than what I'm doing now There are so many things that I could be doing That would be so much better than what I'm doing now -Written February, 1992 (Fredericton). Done as an ad-lib by the 'Hand-Eating Lounge Singer'. Words by M. Warren. Music by RED and Kurt Goltz. |02-17-1992>DOPER DADDY Well, Doper Daddy and Heroin Hannie They went on the road to San Antone Took along a t-bone, and a four-stroke chaparone Drove five-gears in reverse All over this goddam universe Ended up in San Francisco- Lookin' for condoms Doper Daddy, Heroin Hannie, Aww, Heroin Hannie, I got her name wrong, so f*** me Doper Daddy, Heroin Hannie And mommy's home all alone, eatin' that t-bone Five years ago, I was my daddy's favorite son Ended up shootin' everyone in the schoolyard, (Just like in that Boomtown Rats' song) And now I'm in the prison Lookin' for Jehovah's Witnesses For deliverance from almighty curses Doper Daddy, Heroin Hannie And momma's home all alone, suckin' on a t-bone Doper Daddy, Heroin Hannie They went on the road to San Antone, just 'bout five years ago Well I cried tears of rage in my wet dreams Nuthin's ever what it seems, But they're all gone, and I'm here lookin' At my kindergarten 'Pictures of Peace', haha A neat collage An appropriate imaj For an art wanker nightmare clown like me Don't you agree, baby? Doper Daddy, Heroin Hannie They're on the road to San Antone, suckin' on a t-bone Doper Daddy, Heroin Hannie And mommy's home all alone I feel so sad... -Written Februrary 17, 1992 (Fredericton))).. Words by Martin Warren. Music by Robb Chessie. Performed by SKELETON X and by various other arrangements. Appears on 'IT WAS AN ACCIDENT' by 'SKELETON X' (1992). |03-uu-1992>MISCARRIAGE OF LUST Miscarriage of lust, it's killing me in my sleep Miscarriage of lust, I can't get to sleep No, I can't get no sleep - with all these pelvic thrusts It's just my miscarriage of lust Miscarriage of lust, it's haunting me every day Miscarriage of lust, no I can't find my way 'Cuz I can't get away from all these pelvic thrusts It's just my miscarriage of lust Miscarriage of lust - It's come out of the blue Miscarriage of lust - And it's directed directly at you And I know my love is true 'cuz of all these pelvic thrusts It's just my miscarriage of lust, yes it is It's just my miscarriage of lust -Written March, 1992 (Fredericton). Words and Music by Martin Warren |03-uu-1992>MR. AND MRS. BOUVINE Hello. I've got teeth to show little red riding hood. I want to surround your teepee with molasses toast This is my never-wear Smothering by number But who is counting ? It doesn't matter; I've got my own shoelace to take care of Don't laugh ! It's going to happen to you ! SOON ! In that weak, undefineable spot Between our dried parts In the sauna subjugation You cannot help but find A grain of agony. I'm looking for a snarl from the empty wall Upside the dresser mirror. Your face. It only makes sense that I've pasted it on; With my neon crayons, I've scribbled it. It's a crummy feeling- To live in a place with no. Holy mackerel, I think she's gone. You had better take a look out the window. Telephone give me my quarter back. I'm telling you. I need a puddle on the floor I need to see how I look Are you blind to what you don't see? Twinkle was her show name Whenever she felt numb. I want to be a drug to all your women; Now, throw me in the trash, Monsieur! Farbeit for me to Farbeit for me to Punch out the lightbulbs So I can't see the blood! Crunch eat the ozone And fizzle and pop! I went to The ceiling in your bedroom And, I left my tongue! Souveneir sweat, And she glued yer arm pits To her stomack! I'm out of razor blades, So, I'll try candles! You only fatten a hog In order to kill it! And when the pregnant lady Fell over my groceries, I got an immediate rebate On my poor, aching, thumb. There was a hairy chest- The chest of Mr. and Mrs. Bouvine. They shared their chest Equally. It's pores opened wide In the sun, And they took it for long walks In the city park. We all took turns Jabbing it with knives And bamboo sprouts; Poking it- In its tender places. Mr. and Mrs. Bouvine Would scoop up Their hairy chest Tenderly And cover the wounds. The chest remained an enigma To most passers by. The scattered jigsaw fragments of his intellect Reacted, strangely enough- With a sense of despair And resignation. -Written March, 1992 (Fredericton). |07-02-1992>CAT IN GREASE A cat in grease A cat in heat Nothing ever falls beneath A cat in grease A cat in heat A cat in grease...awwwwwww!!!! -Written July 2, 1992 (Fredericton). Music by RED, Robb Chessie, Kurt Goltz, Greg Smith |07-uu-1992>CACTUS GAS: aphrodisiac dalmation/misanthrope extrapolation see you sit up tight, Lilac, sometimes so tight I wonder how you ever manage to uncross those legs let me get up on up and slip the disc Awe there we go Lilac somehow I feel we need a bite Raa ! the brave feast I have at last uncovered, my dear your pores are sweet as lamb's dew smoked smeared with lipstick your leather hair endears me once again to Halloweens of bygone times we invade one another without causing suffering my oval eyes spin, and I acknowledge your presence my dear, the four days on the camel's back did not in fact net us much except vagabond trout with suicidal reflections on the last pond I amused you at the pulpit with my funny ears and forked bathtub come to Cactus Gas you can take care of my pliers or contract laryngitis settle down you're aggravating your athsma the round carbuncles between your eyes are getting hairy we could hijack the amphibious craft to Calcutta dammit we could pirouette through the musky air in the pearl of West Bengal selling powdered milk at a discount on par with the rate of inflation the little boy's belly would inflate with the bloat and we could raise prices we could pay off the old man at Cactus Gas for his troubled times sitting drowsy in his rockin' chair with his wife, Tumbleweed it could be very, very nice Lilac let's crisp the lettuce with butane and vinegar snuggling up to the 'rousing sounds of the Khmer Rouges Cadres' Symphony uncross those legs we have dreams that Tontons Macoute sure does make me feel good honey INTERMISSION: I can play the bugle, Lilac, I can play it fine Stay up past the witching hour, and take my good ol' time Be elegant, distinguished; not a fungus in the brine I can play the bugle, Lilac, I can play it fine having lived at Cactus Gas for thirty-odd years; Paddy knows thirty-odd languages nevertheless remains a mannequin I know one language, Lilac- and I resemble an armadillo Lilac, I'm busy tonight got business to take care of there are anthills on either side of the driveway one full of giant red ants the other one black ants If I had a hammer I'd hammer in the morning I'd hammer in the evening all over this albino dawn got to talk with Paddy Paddy, I know that you've been afraid of tractors for a long time such a long time that's still no excuse for your bald head your plastic torso I do wish you would talk back now and then but, you don't even move the wig I bought you for thirty-seven cents at the flea it's barely lasted a year now it's a charred reminder of your plastique physique as it is no longer on your head baby I never did think that I would meet this day your old wig melted by your feet silky strands dripping off the grate of the radiator You hath not bones ! G'bye Paddy Lilac, I've got the beer you can stop conversing with the refrigerator already Paddy doesn't want to join us in loving tandem she melted she's a user I buy her clothes and an antique jukebox and she's all silence I wish that she would not adhere to metal so well Right-O bring me the doll must lay curses on the doll Lilac let's curse Paddy I'll dim the lights put on some Tontons Macoute, dear just the old stuff and this is good Duvalier sherry we shall enthrone...with...mmmm voluptuous as I had wanted Paddy er, the bongos are just fine by me the tone's off, though the Khmer Rouges Cadres' Symphony Orchestra is more attuned for that certain mood esprit du vivre esprit du vivre Saving Paddy provoking in me the goosebumps yes, yes, this is satisfactory I shall immerse myself in corn oil I shall save Paddy, I shall Panda, I run at you full of the vigorous fluid of youth you labor with your thoughts to cause me injury ! I am invulnerable to all of those laborious measures which you so insist on applying ! Panda, I run at you to sustain the voluptuousness of Lilac Panda, that chain which you swing by your jaws shall function as thy noose ! I run at you once You step out of my way I run at you twice You growl through clenched teeth I run at you and I run at you and I run at you and I run and slap my shiny naked flesh against your fuzzy skin people are cheering 'PAN-DA, PAN-DA !' they are too engrossed to guess even obliquely at that hideous smell which emanates from that place which embraces our respective bodily warmths you seem to take pleasure at my essentially defensive measures, Panda Sing, Lilac, Sing. -Written July, 1992 (Fredericton). |08-uu-1992>CAUGHT IN THE HEADLIGHTS Annabel was looking At the table's other side When it answered back It confirmed the changing tide And Annabel said "No More" And she found herself a cave She said: "There's nothing left- There's nothing left... There's nothing left to save" Then she said: CHORUS: I don't mind getting caught I ain't dyin' of fright I don't mind getting caught In the headlights In the headlights The autumn leaves were covered There were no more razored words But, no poetry could rise above The background The room was full of mischief Pinning tails to the sun Annabel, she saw it all, Going down, down. CHORUS "Time well spent" says the miser's son As he shoots holes through the floor I might as well plant some iron filings There are places you could go That have better scenery And, I'd feel better if you were left smiling" It was twelve-twenty, and counting- And I ran for the pony express I had no energy Left to play another symphony Annabel's grown silent She's just waiting for the clock And for when the room falls down And the dust cloud makes her free CHORUS (2x) -Written March, 1994 (Fredericton). Music by Chad MacQuarrie. Song appears on "'Ello, Gail?'" project (1994). |11-uu-1992>HOW THINGS USED TO BE My, you're dressing well, positively elegant Your voice keeps ringing out, but still you don't seem eloquent My thoughts are beating amusement park distraction themes But this train's runnin', babe, this train is runnin' out of steam CHORUS: Oh, I live to see your mystery Though things aren't quite, Things ain't what they used to be, no- You see me thinking my parabolic nebulas I sit here sipping gin, wond'ring if I should make a fuss Why don't you take me back to what you think it was My feet are dragging, though, and my veins are clogging up with rust CHORUS These frames contain the lies of two-dimensional paintings Left to soak out in the rain on a hill where the sun is waning There's no use doing more, and even less of me complaining What the hell can you do when it's me that's getting overstrained CHORUS -Written November, 1992 (Fredericton). Music by Kevin Mersereau. Performed by "SKELETON X" |11-uu-1992>PIG'S MEAT ON JACOB'S LADDER Electric bolts of steel Enough to make you feel ! Just set them on your lawn Plug 'em in and get turned on ! It's in your holy book Be careful what you cook If it's got a cloven hoof You better eat it, it's real good ! CHORUS: You're not pig's meat On jacob's ladder Pig's meat On jacob's ladder Now, here it comes again This ecstasy don't end When you're burnin' at my stake Do they call you shake and bake ? I know how not to tell What's heaven and what's hell What's magic, what's mirac-ale How good meat sizzles, when it's done well CHORUS Your boyfriend made you mad So crash out at my pad And if you don't seem glad I'm a-gonna call your dad I'll tell him all the facts I'm perfectly relaxed I'll give him heart attacks And then there'll be no turning back CHORUS -Written November, 1992 (Fredericton). Words by Martin Warren. Music by Robb Chessie. Intended for "The Frighening Face of Leisure" project. |03-uu-1993>GORILLA Gorilla hide in the plane today Gorilla take your mind away Gorilla show you what you wanna say Gorilla give you tooth decay Gorilla lick you with a big red tongue Make you feel like Buddah's son Gorilla play with your dark brown hair Gorilla eat you in midair Gorilla, yeah Gorilla, Gorilla, Gorilla, Gorilla Gorilla chomp, Gorilla swing- Gorilla's pork chop is the biggest f***in' thing Gorilla I love you 'cos I am a Gorilla Gorilla -Written March, 1993 (Fredericton). Music by Chris Murray. Performed by SKELETON X. Intended for "Frightening Face of Leisure" project. Song appears on 'IT WAS AN ACCIDENT' by "SKELETON X" (1992). |03-13-1993>HAPPY ON SMACK You throw yourself down the stairs You reach for someone; she's not there It's just a dream, a memory Of when you were happy CHORUS: You were Happy On Smack Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy You were Happy, Happy on Smack ! You walk the block, you feel so pissed You see the track marks you so miss It's just a dream, a memory Of when you were happy CHORUS RPT. 1st verse CHORUS -Written March 13, 1993 (Fredericton). Words by Martin Warren, Music by Chris Murray Song appears on "MAKING THE PRIMAL POINT" sessions (1991) and also on "ALIVE AND SORDID" (1993) by 'SKELETON X'. |09-uu-1993>SHUT YOU UP Style and class all cost a buck And if you got one, you're in luck Ain't you so blessed To the nines you're somewhat dressed An utter shape of holiness Ain't you oppressed? You've baked your bread, so now you're ice You live a trap that you despise You can't get out And all too soon, you do recall What there is left, but it is all Shrouded doubt You loose the ties yet to appear Until they're stark and still and clear In front of you You get deformed and so obtuse But, still you find that it's no use It's all too true You see how this all fits to rhyme Just thinking how, it costs you time And sacred sins You built yourself a house of stone A place that you could call your home 'Til it caves in Swift and sure, with certainty The bubble where you hope to be Is all you see It's real and before you now With all the life that it allows In brilliant dreams It'll shut you up Shut you up, shut you up Shut you up, shut you up It'll tie your tongue in a pretty knot And you'll see how everyone will gawk At your tortured eyes But, it's a thing that you must go through Whenever they look down on you As uncivilized -Written August, 1993 (Fredericton). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on "THE OTTAWA TAPES" (1995). |09-uu-1993>ART GECKO It's raining where I am tonight Art Deco buses glare There's a mist on the pane, where I sit tonight Fingerprinted messages there: CHORUS: My daughter bought herself a pet gecko And she's at home with it, right now Yes, the buses here are art deco I've got to get home; goodbye for now Why, it's a funny feeling in my head When the woman from the bank strolls on by She's got Fort Knox snapped inside of her purse And she smiles when I wear my suit and tie CHORUS -Written September, 1993 (Fredericton). Music by Chad MacQuarrie. Song appeared on "'Ello, Gail?'" project (1994). |10-uu-1993>SUNRISE BACON Sunrise bacon, and the morning sun The taste that's true for everyone When you're with friends, or by yourself Sunrise bacon's comin' up Sunrise bacon, and mom and dad Sunrise bacon's taste will make you feel so glad If you're at home, or far away Sunrise bacon just can't wait Sunrise bacon, and summer's joy Wholesome delicious taste for every girl and boy Like the old barn door, and the old red school Sunrise bacon's tried and true -Written October, 1993 (Ottawa). Words by M. Warren. Music by Chad MacQuarrie. Performed with "Golden Swing" at Sue Lawrence's Gallery, York Street, New Year's Day, 1994. Song appears on "'Ello, Gail?'" project (1994). |10-uu-1993>MUTINY Commander, ready the bridge for a squall They put glue in the engine; it don't work no more I put out a fire on the starboard deck And you ain't even heard of it yet A lifeboat's been punctured; a dagger's been drawn Bet you wish you were at home with your wife on the lawn Rolling around on the dewy sweet grass I bet that you miss her sweet ass CHORUS: You've been waiting for a mannequin To know as part of your very self But, there is nothing else To keep you, keep you sane All the black and blue pirates; they congregate here Hard to tell which of them is the real mutineer If you could be known to what you most fear You'd be an authentic King Lear So, strap on your helmet, you will be alive There's one leaky boat left in which you may writhe When you're back to your woman, you can meet her inside Just tell her I said "HI" CHORUS (2x) -Written October, 1993 (Fredericton). Words by M. Warren. Music by Chad MacQuarrie. Song appeared on "'Ello, Gail?'" project (1994). |11-uu-1993>HER WETNESS It's inescapable- That fire that burns in her heart It's inconceivable That thing I feel in mine Her wetness calls me To the source of her inner strength Her bonds to the oceans That warmth that welcomes me to her Meeting her lips And the pleasure therein enclosed I run my fingers o'er her hips I find purity exposed No time to run from the secret She confides in me, tonight- Without haste, we become a body Every good deed has its prize With a light kiss on the skin She prophesizes my whole life With such ease, she scales the tower Which will inhabit her tonight Now, we soak our bed of passion So, perhaps a seed might grow Unencumbered by mere fashion 'Tis her wetness makes it so -Written November, 1993 (Fredericton). Music by Chad MacQuarrie. Song appeared on "'Ello, Gail?" project (1994). |12-08-1993>FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN On top of the mountain I feel like Moses Standing with my tablets Does anyone heed them? Carved in stone all the laws That you must abide by If you want to take your own way home Lullaby, my sweet child, Sweet baby of Higher Breath A lullaby my dream is called For you must get your rest CHORUS: Fire's coming from the mountain Fire's coming from the mountain Fire's coming from the mountain And you'll pay, you'll pay Don't break yourself with innocence And say that it's a gas Because your time is sore to hear Every moment that goes past CHORUS Down here the sky is grey And the pigeons go in flocks Everybody knows what to say But no-one ever talks As a result your leg is plastic And your head is spinning 'round That motif is a cliche, but... -Written (ad-lib) December 8, 1993. words bby M. Warren Music by Chad MacQuarrie. Song appears on the "'Ello, Gail?'" project (1994). |12-24-1993>IF IT MAKES YOU FEEL ANY BETTER When you dust the cobwebs from the photo albums And you pull the squealing pigs out from the ovens And your total fiends, they well exceed a dozen Do you cry, or laugh, when they're slicing up your onions This is not a thing I mention out of mischief I ain't asking you for anything at all I guess I just don't like the horns and tails they stuck on you And, so I bang my forehead on your doorbell I really don't know what else I should have said But this Olympian steeplechase of words is almost through You could say I brought a message for your cat If it made things any easier for you Lord, deliver us from evil, for we eat junk food And this fact remains the foremost in my mind I've no third-eye left to grace your pink flamingoes Here's one for you; a gift from my own kind Construe me as your favorite Babylonian Intent on mixing stuff to shake your sense I've reserved a special spot in my Smithsonian To preserve the memory of your psyche-prints The guardrails we were leaning on were bending Sister, what else was I supposed to do? But, humour should not really need defending If it makes things any easier for you From the toggle-switchboard, Ygor guards my tower And he keeps the dancing bears so occupied I've perfected non-existent powers That keep the voodoo doll electrified There are little people foaming at the eyelids Aberrations of a happy year They sit around and eat a bitter sandwich So jealous of the golfcart they can't steer Yes, it's wall-to-wall amusements for the wretched And the only legacy of Montesquieu I'd commit to you the latest research findings If it made things any easier for you Now, with everything that's tossed about so lightly Your impressions of the Earth are what I like These orbits veer away in fear of fire Next time you'll see me on a motorbike And, if you ever throw a donkey down my chimney I'll be incredibly beside myself 'Cause if it's me, I've got no f***ing chimney And if it's not me, it's somebody else ! Yes, Ort is Ort and I'm an Ortist, yeah, yeah Ort is savored better when it's chewed I'll let you in on how you might breathe fire If it makes things any easier for you -Written December 24, 1993 (Fredericton)... Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on "THE OTTAWA TAPES" (1995). |12-uu-1993>THE WHIP AND THE LASH Somewhere, twenty miles from nowhere I bought myself a horse We laid ourselves down in the grass And we had intercourse And the sunlight shone on both our heads And we were sore in love We found out we could do the things That we'd both been dreamin' of` CHORUS: So if you give me the whip, babe, I'll give you the lash I'll bring all the time, babe You'll bring all the cash You're love strikes just like lightnin' babe We're movin' so damned fast So if you give me the whip, babe, I'll give you the lash Well time moved on and Betsy and I We had to go our seperate ways For the world revolved around her thighs And all her labour days So I packed up my herd of mules And I went far out to see If I could start a harem For to buy their custody CHORUS: Now there's geishas and more, they're full of bubblin' allure Howdy stranger, come on inside ! They'll give you a lovely back massage For to stem your evil tide And when you talk about their charity That gives and gives and gives Remember, whoever else you do it for, Do it for my kids ! CHORUS: (repeat indefinitely) -Written December, 1993 (Fredericton). Words by Martin Warren. Music by Robb Chessie Intended for the "Frightening Face of Leisure" project. Performed live at Rye's Deli and Pub (old location) in Fredericton, NB, Winter 1993 / 1994. |02-uu-1994>(GET THE) SKIN CRAWLING We can put on the big show When the slate is wiped clean Then we'll lie on the rainbow In a feelgood dream Never ever be lonely In our shiny white ark It's no use getting phony Or metaphysically dark All of our dancing Expresses our state We're just little beans jumping In the warm hand of fate We will garnish our ski-i-ns In our mingling at dusk And everyone will want To mingle with us You and me, we have a good time And when we get the skin crawling (Get the skin crawling) get the skin crawling (Get the skin crawling) get the skin crawling... We get along just fine People say...there's trouble on the mountain We don't think that's so The only trouble on the mountain Is the avalanche you feel when you come to know All of their anger It has no excuse They're triangular wankers On the hypotenuse We're feeding the challenge That they never find And we're using our bodies Instead of our minds. You and me...we stick together like paste And when we get the skin crawling (Get the skin crawling) get the skin crawling (Get the skin crawling) get the skin crawlin... We know how good it tastes -Written February, 1994 (Fredericton). Music by Kevin Mersereau. Intended for "The Frightening Face of Leisure" project. |02-uu-1994>BUILDING TEMPLES (For Anna) It glances off this dreamcage This sound of hardwood breathing Now the wall where you were leaning Is letting laughter out, it is So, at this, you fire my hunger No, it's only taking issue In this cold room lined with windows All the things that I won't say So, forgive me my dramatics I've a penchant for hysterics As you well know, it's a cover-up When you grace me with your prescence No it's true I just can't say his name I'll leave that up to you again Your close relative has a dressing mirror And I must confirm my sins On those sheets of fear and loathing You're replacing all the spelling In concert with a textbook You have stamped behind your eyes You request a stolen moment But sometimes it's not that easy There's a love that's building temples Out of what you've thrown away So the night it threw its curtain And I left your place uncertain If a statement was in order Or if I wasted time Only you can make this meaning Go beyond this inner seething I am screaming in a vacuum 'I think that I love you'. -Written January, 1994 (Fredericton). Words by Martin Warren. Music by Robb Chessie. |03-01-1994>OH? This is the one you've been waiting for Looking for you as if you should know Downs the bitter glass, making time Cutting your language easy as butter; You should know better than to try to calm her. You should shield yourself You should shut your mouth You should put on your armor The crowd's all around; paint by number types She fancies herself an evocative sort As she tosses away yet another dry line And the French horn on the wall never played And the French horn on the wall never played You should shield yourself You should shut your mouth Call this night a day She called yet again...oh? She called yet again...oh? There's something like fear That keeps you from stating the obvious The kind of fear that happens When somebody knows your weakness; So you take down her number And leave her alone You don't want to believe, but, you do. Finely tune your speech so as not to reveal And say she didn't do a thing to you Say she didn't do a thing... You should shield yourself You should shut your mouth Say she didn't... -Written March 1, 1994 (Fredericton). Musical adaptation by Kevin Mersereau. |04-14-1994>GHOST BY THE RIVERSIDE There's a ghost by the riverside I can't look too deep in her eyes See the night fall; hear the crows call- Something's alive Inside Inside Communing with her secrets Under the pines I'd do anything to wipe away That pain from her eyes Are you the ghost by the riverside?...seems- I can't look too deep in your eyes I built myself an empire Fences, gates, and walls Seems to me you finally saw your way through them all. -Written April 14, 1994 (Fredericton). Music by Robb Chessie. Performed once at Rye's Deli & Pub. |04-17-1994>WHEELS AWAY Don't tell me again you hope your face turns green 'Cos you'd look a little leafy as a plant, I think- Play me your flytrap blues...from the treehouse Right now I'm feeling like good prescription medicine Fill me with sadness, and then pump up the valium This leaning tower was built...for both of us Just because Just because, just because CHORUS: Well, I finally planted my feet on the floor Over fast moving Wheels away, Wheels away. Sometimes I think we just ran out of space In that little tin land that contained everything Where we mingled our unwieldy points-of-the-spirit Strangers passed before to see In all of their sweet barbarity Where we had rendered it useless-useless-useless Mine and your color Mixed to black Mine and your color Mixed to black BREAK: Your intuition doesn't scare me But is this Belief that is forming- Or, just mercury clouds Over swarming birds, mocking... CHORUS -Written April 17, 1994 (Fredericton). Music by Kevin Mersereau. |04-15-1994>LOVE'S A SMOKING GUN See him drowning in an ocean of puke It's supposed to be this way See him disembowel himself without provocation It's supposed to be this way Locusts weave a path through his cranium It's supposed to be this way Change him into a healthy geranium It's supposed to be this way CHORUS: Love's a smoking gun When the moon comes up Love's a smoking gun When the moon comes up He wishes it were a laughing matter It's supposed to be this way Like breeding fish in boiling batter It's supposed to be this way Kick to the stomach with a kaiser shoe It' supposed to be this way You like this...yes you do, yes you do CHORUS (2x) -Written April 15, 1994 (Fredericton). Music by Chad MacQuarrie. Song appeared on "'Ello, Gail?'" project (1994). |04-28-1994>I REALLY LIKE YOU [a.k.a. 'I WANT TO BITE YOU'] You've got the right kind of hair It shows that you care And, you're right over there And, there, beneath the shade Of statues you made You sit and prepare And you, who I can't see through- Bet you never knew what I was into I really like you I really like you When, on a prayer and a jet, we finally met, I could not forget- And, now, from what I've learned And what I've observed I've finally bet And I, I won't make you blue For I am a clue And I'm talking to you I really like you I really like you Now, I'll step inside, If you can surmise, it can't be denied Love is tough like a rock We'll turn back the clock To its other side Oh, it's something new That's happening to Both me and you I really like you I really like you -Written April 28, 1994. (Ottawa) Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on "THE OTTAWA TAPES" (1995). |04-27-1994>DAMAGE Barbed-wire at the gates to your mind And all the appropriate implements of interrogation I was guilty; guilty of believing a lie- Our love was nothing but hallucination So, night falls, and, far away something's calling me- I'm too sick and tired to start counting up the cost How can I apologize when I was never sorry For pointing out the landmines I kept running across I never minded When the truth was savage Too bad there had to be All of this damage In a picture trapped, your face is framed just for effect And, as a matter of fact, it gets foggier every second, yet- If you were thinking that you would just disappear from my memory, The ruins remind me. How could I ever fill that hole in your head -Written April 27, 1994 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Keyboard arrangement by Kevin Mersereau. |04-21-1994>FOR A PICTURE What were you thinking When the tiles turned diagonal? I saw you on the chessboard Didn't look like a good time Now good fortune follows On the hot heels of the bad You drink the bitter essence Of my lemonade lamp CHORUS: You caught your prize fish Now you think you're a prizefighter You got your wish Now, you're heavy on the highwire For a picture, you say you won't For a picture, you say you can't For a picture, you say you won't stoop to that level You say they've tied your hands CHORUS For a picture, you say you won't For a picture, you say you can't For a picture, you say you won't stoop to that level You say they've tied your hands Now, how am I supposed to make Some sense of all that- When you keep a portrait of yourself Tucked way down in your hand CHORUS Are you prepared to deal, deal, deal With the devil? -Written April 21, 1993. Words by Martinnn Warren. Music by Chad MacQuarrie. Song appears on "'Ello, Gail?'" project (1994). |05-uu-1994>NOT TOO MUCH Apparently, a screw snapped In the grandfather clock by the wall When a friend asked me what time it was I said "there's no time left at all" He found this somehow funny But when I asked him what he had for lunch He found it fine to say to me That he didn't have too much No, he didn't have too much A pair of wandering eyes met mine And so I upped the bet And stared the guilty party down And she tried to act upset So I covered my eyes with sunglasses Too thick to invite her touch She asked me what that was all about I said "forget it, it's nothing much-" I said, "really, like, nothing much" Smelling salt's what they gave him When the mirror would fog But, otherwise, they did him in Like any other injured dog He had blisters all over his feet And third degree burns When I asked the cop what was goin' on He replied, "not too much" -Written May, 1994 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on "THE OTTAWA TAPES" (1995). |05-uu-1994>GOOD-BYE TO YOU Good-bye to you Good-bye to you Good-bye to you It's a time for an untying We've had our chance And a bad circumstance Yes, it's the last dance Though, it ain't from want of trying These sleepless nights Full of trivial fights Tells us something ain't right And it's right before our faces It's too hard to take This keeping awake And, for sanity's sake, Let us stake out separate places This phantom fire, it will consume us both Unless I go And as the flames lick out to the cores of their goal We're both losing control I won't soon be free Of this spell over me You know what I mean, Lightning just don't stop that easy So I'll find me a bed Put a dream in my head And wear your eyes instead, So that I can see what you see. -Written May, 1994 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on 'THE OTTAWA TAPES' (1995). |06-uu-1994>KNIFE Henry bought a knife last night Don't know what he got it for But, just to show that he was right He planted it into my door He told me he was from the north And could he sniff my gasoline? I told him how much it was worth And he showed be his guillotine Then he pulled out his top drawer Took out Barbie, and then Ken Put them both beneath the blade Now, they won't drive that van again With this I was so impressed I purchased him a pound of crack In return he said that he would Find some way to pay me back Two a.m. that very night A prostitute rang my doorbell Henry said: "Hey, she's all right- Even if she smells like Hell !" Then, in the morning, I awoke And I couldn't feel my arms or legs I was choking from the smoke But, on my nightstand, there was a plate ! In Henry's hands there was a fork Between his teeth the meat was meshed He said he liked to eat his pork Even when it's someone else's flesh And so, this story has to end Even though it's kind of sad Henry gave me half his pound And his leftovers weren't bad, no- They weren't too bad. -June, 1994. (Ottawa) Words and Music byyy Martin Warren. Song appears on "THE OTTAWA TAPES" (1995). |06-14-1994>SPOOK Funny face Filled with space Leather case Filled with guns and grace Plutonium Will get your deed well done If you love someone You need more than a gun CHORUS: I wanna know where you're gonna go I wanna know, I wanna know So I can spook! Spook! Talk to them Little zombie men Your next of kin They'll be your only friends All in all A voodoo doll Nailed to the wall Has the wherewithal CHORUS Skulls 'n blood Stuck in the mud It's all that you Will be dreaming of The night is nigh When the tears you cry Will surely dry From your bloodshot eyes CHORUS -Written June 14, 1994 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on 'THE OTTAWA TAPES' (1995) |06-uu-1994>YOURS INFERNALLY Walk through the dunes 'Til you can't walk anymore Walk into your brain 'Til you remember what it's for The empty well With the sharp, craggy, rocks Is your milestone, below- The swirling flock CHORUS: Sleep, darling, sleep So you can be with me For I'll always be Yours Infernally Shake all the dust Off your cracked and weathered skin Your soles are both torn And paradise won't let them in Now, collect yourself For some peace you'll come to mind The hot, blowing, wind Has been approved by the undersigned CHORUS -Written June, 1994 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on "THE OTTAWA TAPES" (1995) |06-uu-1994>BURNING PIG She picked up the telephone It was a false alarm She looked down, and then she found A burning pig had bit her arm She was just a little low She had an angstful week But Jean-Paul Sartre never let her know There's No Exit from a burning pig ! If your life is too oblique, Don't get stuck in a burning pig If Nausea isn't what you seek Don't get stuck in a burning pig Burning pig. -Written June, 1994 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on 'THE OTTAWA TAPES' (1995). |07-uu-1994>MARQUIS DELAYED I found you on a stretch of road You wilted syphilitic toad I could read your back Like it was written in Morse Code And, I picked you up And I brought you home And I whipped you And you got me stoned Let's stay together You and I, alone CHORUS: 'Cause my leather whips are all decayed And my studded chains, they're all homemade Look out baby, I'm the Marquis Delayed Come inside, it's nice in here Take your clothes off, and stand by the mirror Don't you cry, baby, don't shed a tear You've got a body as hot as the sun If you were a virgin, they'd still call you a nun By the way; your stockings have such an awful run ! CHORUS The air it smelled of sweet perfume But, what I saw came from the tomb Maybe it was just the imminent sense of doom Yeah, I was just a little afraid Of how you looked after you got flayed Baby, I'm the Marquis Delayed. -Written July, 1994 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on "THE OTTAWA TAPES" (1995). |07-uu-1994>TALK TO ME If there's something that you've just got to say Baby, you know that we can find a way And maybe it's good news, and maybe it's not But if it's good news you need then I'll give what I got Talk to me You can talk to me If it's wearing you down and you can't let it go There's something that I want to make sure that you know You can spill me these things regardless of tense All the trials and the errors and the arguments Talk to me You can talk to me I can give you advice if that's what you want I will try to untangle the net if you're caught We can hold each other gently once we've said what we must We both want the love and we both need the trust Talk to me You can talk to me Talk to me You can talk to me -Written July, 1994 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Music alone appears on "TASTE OF BLOOD" (1995). |07-uu-1994>WAITING FOR DAWN Every morning, he'd wake up To a blue light and an alarm clock Time went by, and he'd forgotten some things But, he'd remembered when they'd laughed and talked Then came the day when the chapter had gone The page was turned, and they both moved on The words were right, but the timing was wrong And he was waiting for dawn His mind was like a curio from some museum And that was the reason she'd been glad to see him And she'd skate frozen down a concrete hill If she'd found out he had some time to kill But, when an earthquake comes, and all the antiques are gone A gallery's a mausoleum He seemed like the Kaiser, with the pointed boots on And she was waiting for dawn Couldn't he be wrong, Couldn't she be wrong Why couldn't he bring himself to see that he could be wrong ? Why couldn't she bring herself to see that she could be wrong ? Why couldn't they bring themselves to see that they could be wrong ? REPEAT 1st VERSE -Written July, 1994. (Ottawa) Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on "THE OTTAWA TAPES" (1995). |09-uu-1994>SKIN OF THE LAMB (Ad lib) I'm a-gonna tell 'ya somethin' About the riches that ye may even find All the way to China I swam And me, I left nuthin' behind But, if you go far away There's a price you gotta pay You're gonna find out someday There's a way back from cloud nine Now I got a few things to say Don't care if 'ya believe it or not But these dreams they just won't go away And if I don't say 'em I might get shot So I got myself a drive-in movie theatre It cost me fifteen-thousand grand I guess that I should have gone - Aaw - But that's just the way that I am {two missing verses here} The world is on my shoulders And so is the skin of the lamb And I won't be gettin' much older Before I find out who I am Before I find out who I am -Written September, 1994 (Ottawa). |09-uu-1994>HOUSE ON FIRE Gonna burn in house on fire Knots in the string exploding end to end Fill a can of gasoline; connect the wires Babycarriage burns at the top of the stairs Broken bottles everywhere In a house on fire. To the dance we make our rendezvous With nonchalance, we strike the match Yon demon sun; bask in the afterglow Crimson path, weave your sticky trail Hound dog bay, oh siren wail In a house on fire. Everyone's been told to drink from this glass Dragonflies on the blue buglamp When terror spins, what do you say you think of that? There are monks with robes transparent white But, there will be some light tonight In a house on fire -Written September, 1994 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren, with arrangements by Robb Chessie. Song appears on 'TASTE OF BLOOD' (1995). |10-10-1994>TALES OF THE AUSSIE OUTBACK You arrived on- On a merchant ship Under a waterfall You cleansed yourself You found a camel At the foot of a mountain So long city life So long city life Down in the canyon You met a dingo Fed it your rations From your canteen Prepared a campfire And slept for seven weeks The dingo guarded you From the whistling wind And you found a camel At the foot of a mountain So long city life So long city life -Written October 10, 1994 (Ottawa). Music by Kevin Mersereau & myself. Song appears on "TASTE OF BLOOD" (1995). |11-uu-1994>TASTE OF BLOOD Sunday drivers at the show Look what they're takin' in They're snug and warm and vericose- Veins stick out beneath their skin And, baby Bill, he gets a thrill His diapers need a change Mama looks at him and knows Her baby's real strange Aww...aww...aww Protruding from his tender gums A pair of sucking fangs Mama thought she could tell 'em apart But they look the f***ing same! Baby leaps onto her neck And gnashes like an ox The drive-in picture's just like that- The vampire kid from pandora's box Aww... Taste of Blood Aww... Taste of Blood Cornstalks grow on Mary's dog, She takes him to the vet She waits out in the waiting room And she lights a cigarette And the vet returns without his clothes Saying "Mary, y'know what's next?- I'm afraid your dog must have some rabies to it, yet!" Aww...aww...aww Mary rushes o'er to see That gaping, swollen, wound But the vet, he ain't no true M.D. And he says his trees ain't pruned So, "no problem", Mary tells the vet- "Vengeance ain't that hard; Your bushes he'll chew to a sheen and you can bite him back in the yard!" Aww... Taste of Blood Aww... Taste of Blood Mortimer was rigorous In journalism school He flew the world over And in war he was no fool. So, he hijacked every plane he saw From Bern to Borneo- And, he ended up in prison In Tabasco, Mexico! Aww...aww...aww They racked him for the fun of it And they stoned him just for spite And gave him lots of little things to do And a slate on which to write And just as he scribbled down the words: "This is not very nice!"; They stuffed him with a live grenade- It's been a blast, have a good night! Aww... Taste of Blood Aww... Taste of Blood -Written November, 1994 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on "TASTE OF BLOOD" (1995). |11-24-1994>THE KEYS The wind flew down those pained streets And all inside my coat That ragged thing to which I trusted my own skin It was an incidental headline Barely spanning seven months But it's as good a place as any to begin As I studied the construction that had barely begun Across the street with Marie; the red-haired one Who welcomed home her native son Respecting him for what he hadn't done And it sure as hell wasn't easy Fitting into this scheme of things As Marie held her used thesaurus to her eyes There were scaffolds raised just high enough To force her vision to the clouds And the words she needed eluded her this time Lazy fingers etched their figures on the windowpane Tracing slices of a moment on destiny's train Insane, Profane- A night went by, and I could only wish to ride it again In a rite of rote mesmerization My friends and my family Filled in their blanks by connecting all their dots And while some in the circles were slower To puzzle out some "missing me" There were others spinning yarns to fit the knots The ritual gossip; the virtual lies Were there, as always, but I didn't give a damn this time More pain, more wine No more hope, and no more looking for a sign A crawl away from the stage I sat In this tasty paradox (Calculating my fiscal supply against cathartic demand) Your grand debut was a distraction And, at last, I forgot the clock It vanished the moment that you touched my hand The first thing I thought nearly made me a bore- "Haven't I met your mind somewhere else, before?- Give me the Grand Tour... How much mystery can one person store?" Sonic booms and seismic tremors Played tangos through my skull And I laughed at your perceptive wizardry Knowing then that my only worry Lay in finding a cab ride home, And believing that no-one could do a thing to me We connected in the midst of a social typhoon Maria played while you decided that there was no real room In my heart, for you- But, how were you to know more than you knew You would speak to me in that ivory room And half-jokingly to the wall That once the fun ended, there was no point in going on So, me, I clammed up and I waited For that point of no return To leave the table once your chips were down I hit the depot like a howitzer shell, glowing red But, y'know, if I'd stayed I'd just be hard on the head "That's it", I said I packed my kit bag with ammo- To the city I fled My first months here, they were a carnival And I almost forgot your name When she whispered to me: "Hey, everything's alright" But, when I saw you again, you convinced me Things could be better than the same If I could only hold you again For just one night Maria went to the west coast; to jive with the tides And here, further inland, I wasn't tied up inside- Aligned and fine Just sitting here watching the world unwind Now, the wind howls down these main streets And I've written this on a guitar Lent to me by a woman who I can't love as much as you And it wasn't for want of trying After all, we're miles apart- And to stay with her would be the easier thing to do You can think of me as anything I need to be I just hope that you keep thinking something of me No, I'm not looking for some garden of eternal peace Content myself that there's a fire burning, at least- So, please be appeased- Time moves on And tomorrow holds the keys. -November 24, 1994 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on "TASTE OF BLOOD" (1995). |11-uu-1994>RISE I wish that I could give you Everything you need, at the touch of a button But, that's mechanization, to me- It don't mean nothin' And the words you say, well, sometimes- They got me running away A cold numbness fills my limbs And I'd rather it didn't spread Oh, don't you see That there's a beast inside Who'll pace the cage Until he gets himself fed 'Cause in his wild domain, He's free or else he's dead. I wish that I could dull the clarity I'm seeing with these two eyes Stripped of all delusion And everything that this implies You can either let yourself get buried Or you can rise At another time, well, Thing is that I can't say But I got this thing to do- And it's not your fault that it's happening today Can't help it that it happened And I'm sorry- that it's happening this way -Written November, 1994 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren. |11-01-1994>GOLDFISH In the dream, playing out the initial routines In an ocean wearing out your aqua-blue jeans Hook, line, and sinker, drop a quarter, make a wish Your aerodynamics are fine, goldfish Through an underwater maze you twist and turn Through sunken craft you swim from bow to stern Your the number one fish on my list You can't do much better than this can you, goldfish I love you, goldfish I love you, goldfish I love you, goldfish I love you, goldfish You're the cure for anybody's blues And I don't have to search your gills for any hidden clues Can't explain why you got me feelin' like this See you soon, my lovely little goldfish -Written November 1, 1994 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on 'TASTE OF BLOOD' (1995). |12-13-1994>TUMBLE DOWN The hill is high; the grass is tall Feels like we're gonna tumble, yeah Tumble down The sun's shining and the world's asleep We ain't been waiting for anything, yeah Tumble down But, we've got more on our minds Than you know But, we've got more on our minds Than you know From the crevice we crawled out Carrying mountains in our tiny mouths, yeah Tumble down Bridges, trails, and burrows, and beds Find us a place to rest our weary heads Tumble down But, we've got more on our minds Than you know But, we've got more on our minds Than you know A giant with some lighter fluid Poured some on us and put a match to it... -Written December 13, 1994 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on "TASTE OF BLOOD" (1995). |12-uu-1994>DISENGAGE Disengage No, I don't want to say Anything I don't believe There'll be much of me Left anyway BREAK: All I have to give you is poison All I have to give you is poison Here's a dose of it Disengage Guess it only had to be that way Waiting around for a hand to come down To take my mind away You said you wanted to hear some straight talk from me But, I'm not so sure that this is what you wanted to see -Written December, 1994 (Fredericton). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Appears on 'TASTE OF BLOOD' (1995). |01-uu-1995>BABY, I I climbed the slope of Mount Athens Flying on a Persian rug I thought I'd get to Athens But it wasn't far enough Baby, I- Baby, I- I worked for Alexandria Library Just to get a map of Singapore I thought that I could find some gold & some silver- Over there...all kinds of stunning allure Baby, I- Baby, I- You got the right kind of body And it's not right for every man Let's take a Cessna plane, honey Pull a Howard Hughes- Fly off to Japan Baby, I- Baby, I- -Written January, 1995 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on 'TASTE OF BLOOD' (1995). |02-uu-1995>OAXACA Gonna go down to Oaxaca Get me a bite to eat Thirty-eight shots of tequila And a great big bag of weed Gonna sit down beneath the shadow Of a sun-drenched chalk-white church And I'll chomp into another taco Spit tobacco into the dirt CHORUS: And oh, it's my kind of life Oh yeah, it's my kind of life Wanna soak my blood in whiskey- Shoot smack by a Mayan ruin Don't need to tell nobody What the hell it is I'm doin' Feed my body to the leeches Quetzacotyl brought with him Gimme gimme gimme Sand and sun and sin CHORUS Rpt 1st vs CHORUS (2x) -Written February, 1995 (Ottawa). Words aand Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on "TASTE OF BLOOD" (1995). |02-uu-1995>OLD KING HENRY Old King Henry wore a bib Coated it with vomit Didn't know until he did Lay his hands upon it Gave it to his second wife Who served it up with coffee Henry drank the whole thing down Turned into a zombie ! -February, 1995. (Ottawa) Words and words aand Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on "TASTE OF BLOOD" (1995). |02-uu-1995>CRYPTOGRAPHY (Dazzle Me With Your Touch) All the sweat, and all the hard labor And all the years they hooked you up, by tube, to the inhaler They added up, you found out much later To a place in the sun between the moon and the equator You fell in love, by your own admission With a bald and bearded laboratory technician And, trying hard, to fulfill this ambition You allowed his hand to make the first incision Oh, it was freezing when we knelt outside your window Your mouth moved, but we could hear very little And just because we were caught up in the middle We took our leave before our bones became too brittle You want to know how this vision came to our focus? Well, we saw them clock the levels of your lotus And, when security came to serve us notice You were too busy screaming, that's what they told us -Written February, 1995. (Ottawa) Words and Music by Martin Warren. Arrangement contributions by Kurt Goltz and Robb Chessie. Song appears on 'TASTE OF BLOOD' (1995). |03-uu-1995>CALL IT ANYTHING Sometimes I can't remove myself from the burning page Allowances are made for the part I've had to play And in respect to you, and the times that got away It all seem like forever and a day. You told me you were down, and you said that I should show- But, before you see my face, there's this thing you've got to know All I've seen, it took a toll on me; my eyes will tell you so- I've never been feeling so low This not-so-subtle recognition drives me onward to your door Yes, I understand your language now, what the hell was I waiting for? And this room's a little stuffy, there's these cobwebs on the floor So, if you want to see me there, I'll say "sure". And there's nothing that I'm asking for beyond what you want to give And I'll give you everything I can to help you love the life you live And I hope we understand each other just a little bit So call it what you want to call it. Call it, call it, call it, call it anything -March, 1995. (Ottawa) Words and Music by Martin Warren. Instrumental version called "Krakatoa" Song appears on 'TASTE OF BLOOD' (1995). |05-uu-1995>IN THE NAME OF LOVE I will climb to the mountaintop for you, my love No-one shall impede our progress now! The wolves' foaming jaws shall clamp down tight! Ours alone will be our night! Will be our night! And 'tis with the light of love we are inflamed The light of a love so wild and untamed We shall scrutinize scripture with all of our strength The deeper the passage, the longer the length! The longer the length! And let our mission be to hold the torch And to keep the fragile truth from getting scorched! There shall be no cutting off- Of those things that work in the name of love In the name of love! -Written July, 1995 (Vancouver). Words and Music by Martin Warren. 04-track recording by Scott Ritchie. |05-uu-1995>DRAGGING YOU DOWN Go to isolation section, Room four-twenty-nine Lie down on her stretcher All your sicknesses should be fine The woman in the booth She's whitt'ling at your heart She calls it brutal honesty- You call it art It's dragging you down, now It's dragging you down, now It's dragging you down... You make your way, she's free today And giving you the time She's cool, she's calm, she's calculating- And wants to know your sign As a cure, for your amusement, Your own blood has got you drowned But, you got that doggie collar And it's dragging you down, now CHORUS: It's dragging you down, now It's dragging you down, now It's dragging you down... You picture her in satin; She just don't wanna play the role You picture her your own; She's got just too much soul When you deke into the hotels Thinkin' you've found a home It's then she switches stations With her remote control CHORUS Sometimes it's true-to-life, yeah It's just the way it seems Sometimes your reality Is what necessity deems Now she's all decked out in leather Like your wildest fantasies And she'll push you in the car And (you'll?) be turning all the keys CHORUS -Written May, 1995 (Vancouver). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Lead guitar arrangements by Robb Chessie. Song appears on 'THAW' (1996). |06-uu-1995>GNAT Me necktie make me ill Just like Aunt Figleaf Whose two long guarded years Are almost over, indeed; Every appliance has a marker And when you stink like Auntie- She shits and begs forgiveness And, on purpose! Gnat, you phony teeny bug on the wall Purring fuzzy terr-ih-tory Plows make you pointed up like arrows Plows make you pointed up like rainbowz -Written June, 1995 (Vancouver). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Appears on 'THAW' (1997). |06-uu-1995>TOUCHED GOPHER That meteor shower was just too much last night; There were fifteen birds in the park Seven survived. And you were dodging mirages driving in from the East Trying to make the Library In time. And the gargoyle dogs are huge and painted And the eight-year-old scooterboy thinks- He may recognize you- Be forewarned! "Tasty!" says the Swede, when he licks at you- You wrote in the letter You wrote in the letter. But, he's got it good at the villa And he'll treat you like enchilada And touched gopher And a private police officer reads hielogryphics And is getting ecological spasms- In the cathedral In the cathedral. But, the hare won't survive the gopher When he's arrested for being a loafer Soon, Soon. -Written June, 1995 (Vancouver). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on 'THAW', (1996). |09-26-1995>COMMERCIAL LONG ESPRESSO DIVERSION WRITTEN IN EXILE I. From 'Land of Folly' came I, back to Capital- the tamer zoo, my Mantra loosed Amplified through each earbone this peculiar cartoon deafness...'Chad, turn down...Chad...' Every word sounding 'PAN-DA', dulled, LOUD Pondering every square hexameter of anti-matter In that not long bygone Skull-Hades, Where rolled-up dough-tongues were flung, DASHED- Onto pastel hotel facades, pink Gaping mouths intending NOTHING ORDINARY BUT FREAK Unerring practitioners in a craft of deconstructed conversation; ALIEN RITUAL ALL TOO FAMILIAR SEEMING FUNDAMENTALLY BORING Where vegetative assent, regardless- of these things, remains A CHEAP COMMODITY ? This role-play; Ashes, Ashes, WE ALL FALL DOWN. And, rarely does the childlike mind desire diabolical company This instinctively. II. Walkin' 'Round Sunny Summer and Mountains - OOOOOoooo Fractured stage on springs ROT THA BRAIN ! END OF THE LINE ! ROT THA BRAIN ! ROT THA BRAIN ! LAST HURRAH ! ROT THA BRAIN ! ROT THA BRAIN ! ROT THA BRAIN ! WESTERNMOST CORNER OF THE NEW BABYLONIAN PENTAGRAM ! GAPING ASSHOLE OF BUSTED OZONE ! ANTI-MANNA IN FINE PELLETS ! JUNKBELLY POOLSHARKS SKANKING ASHTRAYS FOR- THA BITTER SYRINGE ! o...THA BITTER SYRINGE ! wherefore art thou BITTER SYRINGE ! Whacha doin' here on South Granville ? Lacerated eyes turned to meet the seasoned 'WAAAGAA !' III. A: Thinking back to the orange chairs- I was there and You were there. A kiss. -Written September 26, 1995 (Ottawa). |01-14-1996>ARACU FISH You imitated carefully, to every detail- What was wriggling beneath our skins You wrapped your legs in cedar bark Then in rainwater, you were cleansed And, as you spoke of your agitation Someone twisted your thoughts around Though it was your psychic plantation That had divined this underground Aracu Fish, you could not dance or cling You were the mask behind the hair Paroxysms stood by at your flourishing And, no danger could compare I saw you pick up the book; you tried to throw it my way You said you knew what it really meant In the twenty-third hour you reveal'd It had been no mean accomplishment Aracu fish You lay bestrewn with eagle down Where my countenance was caught So zealously had we devoured we That our phases were all thrown off As it was, and it were, I used the catalyser Why, we took the thing to town On your swim away, you left a vacuous plane Where we had nourished ourselves on sound Every touching memory Is contained, in some respect Your image on my palm Leaves me cut down to my amulet But, when you put it to me, plain as day- With a pyramid beside No gargoyle from the Great Crusades Ever felt so transmogrified Aracu Fish So, 'Very Well', you said to me Upon transcribing your account But, my assistants were yelling for poetry While we were getting these rabies out I asked you to describe an 'Actual Case', But, I was treading on diamond eggs And you were reaching, and putting your cedar rings Around my wooden legs Aracu Fish -Written January 14, 1996 (Fredericton). WWords and Music by Martin Warren. Appears on 'THAW' (1997) |01-11-1996>THAW Chains are crumbling faster than the links were ever named, Notions come like gifts to you from further than away And to spit it out that this is better than you are accustomed- So frail an aspiration is to no-one else so awesome You know the latitude of all that's falling into place Complexities come bursting through the hoverings of space The tightwire of transparency is thin enough to speak of But the telling of this thoughtline used to be all you could think of CHORUS: But, can you say it up close Can you say it up close Can you say it up close Can you say it... Can you say it up close? Your neck and limbs are edging from a precipice that dances And the hairline fracture feature tells you to get back to Kansas Mercurial, in stereo, your substitute for breathing Slowly pulling out from that low down low down feeling The amber holds the insect you might fossilize in plastic Hold it up to the lamp; observe as it goes spastic Now you feel like you're thawing from your time beneath the glacier The parallel is obvious; but only to your nature CHORUS It's just an old skin crumbling and a sign of some sensation Sometimes it does resemble a conversation... And foretellings and misspellings undermining the peculiar If the feeling's almost human, then it's also unfamiliar While some new paradox connects with a paradigm outdated In your wide mind your thoughts get encapsulated All vocabulary sifted through a self that wasn't truthful All wrapped up in a rumor with no room left to be rueful CHORUS -Written January 11, 1996 (Fredericton). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on 'THAW' (1996) |03-uu-1996>TEQUILA TONIGHT Breathing thing Mandala Contained Neon farther on at the gas station Attentions from the iron walls Venus flytraps in the octagon Chanting to you in loving tongue CHORUS: How can you explain to the bartender To bring you tequila, tonight Breathing thing Trophies in a basement Collecting dust Old man scaling a cliff Looking for a Rembrant to sell off at the auction Beads of sweat at the edge of the desert CHORUS You've got the sun in your boots Insects are making their homes Cactus, reflected in a mirage on the highway Snakes in your Java Maria She's the generic one... Ain't you glad you met her? CHORUS -Written March, 1996 (Fredericton). Words by M. Warren. Music by Robb Chessie. |03-12-1996>PACKAGED DEAL On a hollow log by the river Where I forgot how to remember But, I heard the outback was getting mopped up And it was part of a Packaged Deal The dugout's done its doing And, unless I'm missing something You knew it would end this way You knew it would end this way CHORUS: Who's been making the rules up, around here Who's been making the rules up, around here Who's been making the rules, anyway... This straw house, it should be torched You should show no remorse There's a bit of the plague in all of us If you if you if you... HEY, didn't you tell me your other name? And etch it onto a painting? It was raining, and I didn't want to see you We always knew it would end this way We always knew it would end this way CHORUS It's one think to prepare to acclimatize It's quite another to overanalyze Do not adjust the springs We just want to hear them sing, sing, sing- I'm your freshwater pollutant zambouka In your garden of perfect carrots I get close to all those vegetables, and- They never seem embarrassed When the sun beats a path through our jungle And the ecology gets so clear All those trees, they just get weird I remember how you scraped a root And you found some old man's beard You found a place, a space- Here come the dogs... -Written March 12, 1996 (Fredericton). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on 'THAW' (1996). |06-uu-1996>SOAPSTONE ESKIMOES You f***ed off to the bullwhip factory With your impeccable credentials in your sleeve And you squashed a fly with your opened right hand Shouting: 'Get out, get out, get out, get out, get out!!!' I searched in vain for a smile There were warts on you...there were warts on you What a sadness overcame us When we saw, when we saw! You wanted to tell the fortune-teller's conclusions To the ones who could dispense of what they stole By the time the bullwhips were almost ready You were busy buying soapstone eskimoes -Written June, 1996 (Fredericton). Words by Martin Warren. Music by MW & Joey Haley as part of 'Architecture & Community Planning' project (1998). |07-uu-1996>ARCHITECTURE AND COMMUNITY PLANNING Architecture... And, Community Planning! Architecture... And, Community Planning! We will endeavor To dissect the bald eagle carcass With impunity We will leave it on the highway To demonstrate our mastery Of Architecture, And Community Planning! Architecture, And Community Planning! We will demolish The archaic artifacts of our unreal pasts We will propagate new visions of history Making it possible to illustrate This Architecture... And Community Planning! Architecture... And Community Planning! -Written July, 1996 (Fredericton). Recorded at CHSR-FM with Joey Haley for the 'Architecture and Community Planning' project (1998). |07-uu-1996>CRAB LEGS ON THE BEACH We used to play bingo with Lillian She always ate the flowers And the vomit of enlightenment Made it all go sour And careful as it went back then The accidents were cool- Crab Legs on the Beach, pretty honey And a cat-shaped swimming pool So, now you try to mumble That you're finished with your plant All the rest of us are grieving For, it's your name that we chant B and 1, C and 4, She has finally won the game Hand Lillian the roses So we can be free again Crab Legs on the Beach... Crab Legs on the Beach... Crab Legs on the Beach... Crab Legs on the Beach, Yeah. -Written August, 1996 (Fredericton). Recorded at CHSR-FM studios for later mix of 'THAW' (1996). Words and Music by Martin Warren. |12-uu-1996>FULL BODY-CAST You laid your head on the pillow Said you needed a rest Began to froth; from the lips I laid down beside you- Gave you spiders covered with epoxy I couldn't say anything to you 'Cos I thought you knew CHORUS: Now, I feel like I'm walking In full body-cast Feel like I'm talking In full body-cast Feel like I'm nothing In full body-cast The linoleum flooring in the kitchen Had been around for several years There were cracks in it; where bits of food collected and turned to mold. You told me you loved me, I hungered for your touch But, I directed you to the refrigerator door And, pointed at an apple. CHORUS (2x) -Written December, 1996 (Fredericton). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on 'THAW' (1997). |12-uu-1996>LUNCH ON A PLANE Call the stewardess- Bring me something on a plate I work for Head Office Tell her that it cannot wait I am sitting in a seat Next to a Norwegian rat Someone turn on the strobe lights I only wanna dance Paper folded on his knee You can see he's well informed You can see his teeth highlighting Every kernel of his corn Then, out the window, there's a floor Of cotton candy clouds Five seats ahead there's a family Watch the kiddies bounce Now, the old grey monk, Well he just ain't what he was Out comes the paper bag And out goes the wooden cross And the stewardess trips up As on the floor, he falls- Then on the loudspeaker The co-pilot calls He says: "The turbulence you're feeling- It's all due to UFO's" And that, by the way; "The kitchen is closed" So, I get real mad Bite the stewardesses nose And then she sees I'm naked And that I need a dose, yeah But, the madness in the method Is enough to do the trick And the platter arrives To conceal my dick The oatmeal on my body Has a maggot per grain And, I feel the tentacles Plodding on through my brain Then, I look down from my airplane window And I see the parks and trees And the traffic lights; They all look Vietnamese And, I contemplate all this As I down my liverwurst Then, my intestinal track Goes into reverse You're so goddam lucky You don't see me when I barf There's barf on your umbrella There's barf on your scarf There's barf on all the places That you wouldn't wanna barf There's barf on the barf There's barf on the barf So, all the little green people With their forks held high Salute their freedom From you and I And they return to their planet Way up in the sky And the old grey monk Gets crucified. -Written December, 1996 (Fredericton). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Recorded for later 'THAW' (1997), and then also placed on the 'Architecture and Community Planning' project (1998). |12-uu-1996>IDRIS Mr. Martin E. Warren 418 Smythe Street Fredericton, NB E3B 3E5 Dear *****: It was very funny in the rain. When the corner was turned by the grey car marked "IDRIS", we all clapped, and we sang with great fervor when we saw the face of our Beloved. Before, we could only dream of the Power. Now, our hands were clasped, one to another, because we now knew that he was the Conductor. The great beard sank behind the dark Plexiglas. And then, there was that row of teeth. Shiny. Stellar. Behind us stood a soul with a purple face. The figure in the green raincoat with big alien eyes shining yellow. It had a little grey speaker grid where its mouth would have been. The words which came out of it sounded like the weeping of a dog, or the weeping of a dog. No-one except me gave it any notice. And then, I turned away. I don't believe a word it said. What I do know, is that it had a purple face. When Idris had given his decree, and the podium was being taken apart by the Dance Squad, the soul with the purple face kept standing around. Today it is there. This morning, we awoke at eight, and had our water together. There was a good pleasure. Recalling to ourselves that we were all going to see Idris, it was so plain that nothing was going to stop us. The afternoon was really good because when Mackerel said he had bennies, he really wasn't lying this time. The beat went on and never seemed to stop, and we had the lights working really well. Our open-air preparations got even more right, though. I remembered that I had left some money in my coat pocket, and so I went back in to get it. It was still two sun-hours to Idris' arrival time, and when I walked into the greenhouse, I certainly did not expect to see my miniatures sitting there, plain as day, in a perfect circle. When I unveiled the array, we were set for the whole afternoon ! I just want you to know that Idris is still your caretaker, and that the great things that can be done in your life will be done in your life. Just as my miniatures were in their correct form, so will yours be, if you would still yourself for but a moment. The purple face was there, is there, and will always be there. Do not be afraid to face its grid. The things that it says cannot be listened to with ears. The rain is still funny. Peace and contentment in your sun-life. You will have your Mackerel. all praise due Idris; Mehckan Rowboghts -Written December, 1996 (Fredericton). |12-uu-1996>KIMONO Out in the kitchen I could smell the chicken This is how I knew When I saw you on television The atmosphere was perfect The plot could only thicken; I like my faces purple You don't know what you're missin' They called her 'Transplant Honey', Or, so said the reporter I tried to call to tell you But the phone was out of order And I miss her silky skin And her featherweight kimono And the movie that she's in Won't be on the screen tomorrow REPEAT 1st VERSE -December, 1996. Words and Music by Martin Warren. Scratch recording appears on some early versions of 'THAW' (1997). |12-uu-1996>PROJECTION ROOM She was the kind of Rosetta Stone You'd find in the depths of a hulk All she was , was ratty cage And rubber thongs And when she walked into the room It was like she wanted you Like an army poster- Says they do And with her words She turns toward you You curl into a ball Beneath your desk You know there has to be An end to this...cycle Rosetta Stone...you dig her You know you'll never live down The heaps of color That you laid outside the door Of every friend and well-intentioned foe As if they weren't screwed by their own journalism Aloud, this time- Hurl your flesh and bones back onto the wall Where someone is sure to say: "You're- pretending to be a victim" Before you even open your mouth And, you know it's only out of decorum That you keep it closed Because, bile on the floor Isn't easy to clean And you must plug your nose In the face of these certainties And, 'you're a good egg', Or, 'you're in denial'', they'll say- Or, 'you've got to change', Or, 'you're, you're just a goof' Or, 'you're my worst nightmare' Or, 'you're just trying to be weird' Or, 'admit it, you're out of touch... you're in outer space, man'' Or, just that 'you f***ing lost it' You hit yourself with a rapid fire Flurry of combinations To suffocate, as if in a chamber of antiquity And baskets of woven reeds And blocks of stone With carved-out eyes and teeth They weigh your heart against your words And, before she gets mentioned again- Who held the sandpaper voice, And who shattered the globe That kept a candle I didn't light Burning down; with manifestoes And manifestations of all illusion Locking us into the projection room Locking us into the projection room Treat me with truth, are you being heard Above the grinding of each device? Over the top of those reflective Gregorian tones I had the 'Soup of the Day', when I was starving And if you look above the rotunda You'll find yourself, naked. -Written December, 1996 (Fredericton). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Appears on later mixes of 'THAW' (1997). |04-26-1997>STRAINING TO HERE I'm straining to hear you- Straining to hear Tell me, show me- Your anger, dear CHORUS: I'm straining to hear- Straining to here, I'm straining to hear Here. If I said any more I'd be repeating myself You'd get sick of this movie & I'd be all tired out CHORUS My mind's full of answers To some questions you got I believed in a Future- And you got me caught CHORUS And it hurts like Hell To see you hurting like this If I say too much more Then this point will get missed CHORUS And, if it hurts, it gets better- If it hurts, it gets better ...than it is. -Written April 26, 1997 (Fredericton). |08-uu-1997>YOU WERE PENGUIN LOVER You were penguin lover, before I ever met you You dehumanized all the romans, Turned them into vampire stew Don't expect pity from me- I am immune to your geometry I picked my nose, I know where it goes- And you ain't gettin' a piece of it! From the remains of the pictures on the wall I really don't give a s**t Put the lark's tongue in aspic Or do something drastic I don't have to explain anything to you I don't have to explain anything to you Cut-out cardboard villains You'll eventually get around to throwing them Into the river -Written August, 1997 (Fredericton). Words & Music by Martin Warren. Appears on 'LOYALIST COURT' (1997). |08-uu-1997>WORSHIP "What's this", you do despair- "There's no more, it's not fair!" This feeling through your arms Carries its lucky charms It's a thing from a book unread It's a thing better left unsaid Your look is distracting me What look could that look be? Stay there through the phantom trial I'll show you the controller dial Say the word and I'll bring the drugs Up the river in convertable tugs Then you will worship me Because I am wonderful Then you will worship me Because I am so wonderful! -Written August, 1997 (Fredericton). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on 'LOYALIST COURT' (1997). |08-uu-1997>PIGLET'S SNOUT BLUES What are you doing in this vestibule? What do you think you're up to? I take a look at you- I SEE what you're up to! Running a cash cow lookin' for skin In a previous life you were illustratin' Crystalline looks under the crystalline skies Can't bear to show you how I've been dissappointed! Gold is ugly, like a piglet's snout You know I love you like a piglet's snout I'm spazzin' out- Bowin' down to the intelligentsia Hopin' that it'll give some suspense to 'ya Madonna, she ain't got a thing on her She swims underwater with no speedometer She makes her serious social commentary And I'm bound and gagged someplace on the third floor of the library; Help me! -Written August, 1997 (Fredericton). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on 'LOYALIST COURT' (1997). |08-uu-1997>PENGUIN ICEBLOCK Far away from the swimming pool where we used to meet I picked up a four-leaf clover It was painful to the touch, but I wanted it so much Too bad it isn't over! CHORUS: Now I'm sittin' on an iceblock like a penguin Sittin' on an iceblock like a penguin Sittin' on an iceblock like a penguin And it don't mean a thing to you! The radio dial's on two-seventeen, and the time, it goes on and on The drive-in movie theatre ain't too far away Won't someone tell me- When the last movie is gone?!? CHORUS Now, when sadness overwhelms me, and I miss the human beings I think of all the joy that being an alien brings And then, I go back to my ship Anger gnawin' at my fingertips -Written August, 1997 (Fredericton). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on 'LOYALIST COURT' (1997). |09-19-1997>ANDADO ANDADA Escoger la emergencia, tu esto guardando la armadillo senil "Por la intensidad de la caridad", cuantos gustando? La instalacion senitaria estas un sueno hecho realidad Andado andada Andado andada Mi vida, lecturando mi meteorologia Las navajas recontando contraccion econimica Yuca con mojo, guerra relampago Andado andada Andado andada Que piensa de sobrendo las olas con Dios? Que piensa vegetaciones adenoides? Que piensa el bobo mutilado? Disfrazar la expresion del rostro; Arroz et hahichelas rojas! Ella esta alucinante en excesso Hacia luz de la luna orla hacia el este Lluviando por siempre, un siglo, un segundo- Andado andada Andado andada. -Written September 19, 1997 (Fredericton))).. |10-17-1997>LETTERS IN THE SAND Those years weren't funny at all. When we could all sit around and varnish Cracked edges into a quick Dark- future; Itself only a sacrifice to a tense present. Everything liquid then glue then stone- Stop. Every nerve in me rails at my own explanations. What I Know: The Noise was about two things; (Joy, and- Opportunity) Between them, only a tension of priorities (Feeding and Eating) Where we were all imbued with paradigmatic psyches Fitted to wrench at our academies, Is it really any wonder that we are, again, Children? Regret? just learning. There have been great sadnesses Which require greater strengths. -Written October 17, 1997 (Fredericton). |10-07-1997>TAXING THE URCHIN Every day, after squash, I go downtown to tax the Urchin- Who is really an Emperor. When he observes how I approach; Nickel face and spinning nose- He gets jealous and feeds himself to his television. When I consider the ubiquitous strains of history, I am overwhelmed at how well This all parallels. The universality of the Urchin Manifests itself in Novels and Short Fiction, Prose and Poetry, and- In the piss at the bottom of a wall. -Written October 17, 1997 (Fredericton). |11-27-1997>EASTER ISLAND STATUES CHORUS: There beneath the traffic lights In glaring sun, unfolding their news Nothing to do at all But look at Easter Island statues Easter Island statues (rpt line 4x) Another charismatic fundamentalist octogenerian Fell down the steps of the County Court, Rupturing his spleen And a summary of the day's events Will appear in breif in a glossy newsmagazine ! A newsmagazine ! Someone is on the patio Filling a vase with dioxin She'd like to open your mind In order to throw the rocks in ! CHORUS Palm trees ! Golf courses ! Giant woodcuts ! Polynesia, here I come ! Sometimes you search for form to your content Sleeping sunburnt in your deep No-one moves a muscle, yet- The occasion forces horns to beep Look at all that burnt skin where your sunglasses were It's your style to recline, committing sins- To get yourself a piece in The Times A piece in The Times A piece in The Times A piece in The Times A piece of your time CHORUS -Written December 21, 1997 (Fredericton)... Words by Martin Warren. Recorded at CHSR-FM studios w/ Joey Haley for the 'Architecture & Community Planning' project (1998). |12-uu-1997>HER MULTICOLORED HAIR ...she didn't cost that much She was made out of sponge She was warm to the touch When I saw her there With her hair flowin' free And colored multi I could only stare, what else, what else, why else would I? Yes, I saw her there with Her multicolored hair And when she wore her sponge It didn't even touch And when she used her sponge, It didn't cost that much And when she was a sponge, She was warm to the touch, yes Lying at night upon my pillow... Looking out my window, Teardrops flow, Teardrops flow On her multicolored hair -Written December, 1997 (Fredericton). Words by Martin Warren Recorded at CHSR-FM with Joey Haley for the 'Architecture and Community Planning' project (1998). |12-uu-1997>SPY GEM Oh, Hosanna, you paralellogram Mix it up with everything And I tell you, someone will pay the price Oh, Hosanna You know the sounds... You fell off the wagon, Bunjee baby, in the round Your lips aren't makin' the right herbs no more We castigate you- Ostracise your minerals No one can do it The way it slowly expands all over your spine You spy gem In neverlands, in neitherlands, And everywhere, Oh Hosanna -Written December, 1997 (Fredericton). Words by Martin Warren. Music by M.W. & J.H. Recorded at CHSR-FM with Joey Haley for the 'Architecture & Community Planning' project. |12-uu-1997>MY TRANQUILITY Remove the equipment from me, please It comes from the corpses of dead trees No-one ever told me this would happen to me But it disturbs my tranquility, My tranquility I can't say much about Captain Kangaroo But I've got more to say about him than you There's a snout on your face where a pig should be Pretty soon, I'm gonna be free I'm gonna be free Throw me into a greasy lake of fire If it's a pug, give it wine Fettered face, hold it down On a dump truck headed down town Down, dump truck, yeah, pug... bolted face...headed down town Attribute the appliance to what you will A cottage cheese container is there to fill There on the table to help you relax Is a bed of nails and thumbtacks...relax. -Written December, 1997 (Fredericton). Words by Martin Warren Recorded at CHSR-FM with Joey Haley for the 'Architecture and Community Planning' project |01-24-1998>EYES ON THE FACE I'm looking for Eyes on the face All I see are very large blisters You drove from the Polynesian Club All the way from the Polynesian Club to get here- Touch your face, and you disappear Admiring your fortitude; Your resourcefulness All your friends tell me your the greatest Imprint of a cat's claw on your brow All that you're about Has been chronically chronicled And all the assasination attempts Are firmly nailed into your file Your itinerary of life As reflected in those eyes on your face Every bank heist Executed with percision I see them before me The highway robberies The shoot-outs and shoot-ups At the Polynesian corrall Are all obvious, self-evident Like death, like birth, Like the small world of a frisbee-catching chihuahua rotund body and abnormally peaking ears and canine mentality and prosthetic limbs Limiting its upward mobility Your feelings require no explaination When I fall among the bushes Sanguine beetles on my bared legs And you aren't close to me with your piles of cardboard And your flints and Russo-Manchu generator I take a monkey wrench to my decaying teeth and feel the wisdom innate in my Golden Age I inject opiates to counteract these agents of doom The newsreels pictures are sprung from electrodes Under my headband; the pictures are of you Flash, and not a grain of attention gets paid to the little bites I feel from gripping talons on the ego Happiness to real to be reconstructed in totality possesses me & the memory of your blistered face Haunting for eternity -Written Janurary 24, 1998 (Fredericton)... |01-27-1998>STUCCO AND TOFU Looking up at museum ceilings I count the dots to hurt your feelings And stucco and tofu were on the plate for you When you're finished your garden What good will it do? What good will it do? Echoes of mothering thoughts that caress Can't help but wonder who was blessed That night in the Winebago sniffin' 'da glue That suitcase with cyanide capsules for you What good will it do? What good will it do? Stucco and Tofu, you pay a heavy price- It don't look too good, it don't taste too nice Stucco and Tofu, for the sake of your pride Into your suitcase, I slipped cyanide! -Written Janurary 27, 1998 (Fredericton)... Lyrics by Martin Warren. Music by Joey Haley and Martin Warren. Song appears on 'Architecture & Community Planning' project (1998). |02-23-1998>GOBI DESERT BRUSH WITH DEATH Red like spiders underfoot Colors pass me by I never met no one like you Don't even know why With the cocaine rush in Sinkiang You let me know the news Gave me goats and a herd of sheep I couldn't even use You put a box of poison in my kit But, I really did it proud I found the origin of sin And multicolored cows Then my mafiosi horses' head Threw you a real curve Guess some things I gave to you You just did not deserve ! In this Gobi Desert brush with death Some things I can't forgive The tracks you left up to my tent Took me back to where you lived -Written February 23, 1998 (Fredericton)... |02-25-1998>LATER, IN THE BAR Later, in the bar, they unclipped your spiny arms Sent you to the hill to rest against a cedar tree Branches heavy with the weight of time Brushed against you, as you lay sleeping Sun like a dinosaur's jaw- Ripped into your commonplace ways of doing things You could break an egg on the rocks And be eating for months But with the memory of the yellow lights You couldn't speak BREAK: Clutching at the roots, You buried toenails in the trunk And climbed Clutching at the roots, You buried toenails in the trunk And climbed The sound was a collision, and there were incandescent visions Calling you- The fat face of the Hare Krishna Karma Baboon Meanwhile, back in L.A., someone was heard to be Speaking your name On your porch, you surveyed What was too wild and beautiful to tame. -Written February 25, 1998 (Fredericton)... |03-13-1998>IT WAS NOT NEW GUINEA So you see, gesticulating There is the undead one with fingers waiting And stone-white eyes With your friends all under haystacks You sever your umbilical To size I warned you in the bingo hall You shouldn't mess with a crystal ball So you ought to know It wasn't my foot I put in your mouth But you don't have to take it with you Everywhere you go BREAK: On Bertha's flattened stalks of corn, She showered you with praise She told of many vistas And her most consumptive phase It was not New Guinea, not New Guinea, I say It was not New Guinea, I say Call it down for attitude You swat a fly, you feel rude Yeah, right Your eyes they work a combination Of every hi-tech variation On life The zombie is your supervisor Pointy helmet like the Kaiser See... They say that it is next to none Her frighteningly real- Agility BREAK: Bertha brought you up disrcrete She taught you all the ways But you weren't allowed to secrete On Bertha's pillowcase ! And it was not New Guinea, not New Guinea, I say It was not New Guinea, I say Up on the volcano's crest And on the streets of Budapest You stood You tried to drink the water But you found out that it wasn't Very good -Written March 13, 1998 (Fredericton). |03-13-1998>RAGE OF THE LION Whaddy'a call giving yourself the high-octane treatment? Whaddy'a call yourself when you get seized by demons? Whaddy'a call these friends of yours who claim that they're human? When everything gets all f***ed-up And you don't know what you're doin'? I'm layin' down in the fire I don't know what to call it, but it sure as hell ain't desire The sickness spreads in chunks that go a-flyin' This is not the New Age; this is The Rage of The Lion ! I outnumber you twenty-five to one Correct us if I'm wrong, but there's a deal to be done You don't chip off your shoulder to make a point You just figure out how much more you need to roll into that joint ! I'm layin' down in the fire I don't know what to call it, but it sure as hell ain't called desire ! The sickness spreads in chunks that go a-flyin' This is not the New Age: this is The Rage of The Lion ! -Written March 13, 1998 (Fredericton) |01-uu-1999>MRS SPROUT Good tobacco; the feel of it diffused particle by particle into the cinnamon vein, and she wis finding herself to be speaking faster already. In a sight-line through the forest, she saw hooded figures at the other end of the dam. Presumably, they were trying to keep staving off the inevitable disaster which would happen when the dam broke. That's when she found a crummy biscuit in her coat. She looked over to her small bicycle with its woven basket and thumbswitch bell. She had crumbs falling out of her face and the hooded figures had begun their dancing. At the risk of getting sacreligious, she was finally doing what she wanted to all along. The hooded figures were drawing closer to the crumbs she had left them. She finally arose to her bicycle, and left, feeling more beautiful than she ever had. -Written January, 1999 (Rockville, IN). |02-uu-1999>YOU FREAK! You Freak! Drowning in disbelief! Grinding concrete with the skin of your teeth Creature of the Great Barrier Reef You Freak! You Freak! You Freak! You are freaky, at least The ants in your stomach are deceased The size of your nose has increased You Freak! You Freak! You Freak! Sunburnt at the beach Or is that the mark of the beast? Drinking boiling bacon grease You Freak You Freak! If the mechanized dog took a bite out of crime And gave you back your spaced-out eyes You'd take one good look at a parakeet And give it back its beak! You Freak! Give me a receipt! Shadows extend from your feet All the way down the sunburnt street You Freak! You Freak! You Freak! You were once a grain of wheat But I see through you like falling sleet And my understanding is complete You Freak! You Freak! -Written February, 1999 (Rockville, IN). |03-23-1999>RETRIEVE And thinking upon the mystery, There was but one cradle; trust I know there to have been better moments For, there was a field of gems for her to hold, But, yet no light with which to search The sparkle in your eyes I must retrieve for your heart -Written April 21, 1999 (Rockville, IN) |06-02-1999>AGE OF GOLD In the age of gold, none of us were that old The whiskey bottle you drank by yourself And by the time I finally saw your face that night You couldn't hear what I said with my mouth The dancers came in, chased the dog out the door Your were rich, young, and naked And sprawled on the floor Now you have trouble adjusting to untroubled times But I remember the days you were crazy and fine I'm such a bullshit artist but it's it's own damned reward When I see what's happened to you Used to be the only price I had to pay Was a broken heart, or two The drunk fiddlers would retch at the secret suspense So glibly brought forth at your idiot's expense Now you have trouble adjusting to untroubled times But I remember the days you were crazy and fine Part of that scene I will never forget Was the vomiting stink in the dawn It was a very rhythmic dry and wet heaving That must have, must have gone on You and me to a match would have burned the place down And it was such a cold chill that was swirling around, though Now you have trouble adjusting to untroubled times But I remember the days you were crazy and fine -Written June 2, 1999 (Ottawa). Words annndd Music by Martin Warren. Appears on 'ONE BOWLFULL OF RICE GREUL FOR YOU (2000). |06-01-1999>INTERIOR SHADOWS An empty ashtray holds the door open tonight Interior shadows reveal darkness in the light A hairless statue, you appear in fullest bloom The stony silence occupies the living room Heat is rising, I hear myself whisper your name Touching your hemline, suddenly nothing's the same Numbed by your prescence and the way you never speak Sweet metallic lover, I will never again go to sleep Red on your fingers, the taste of wine upon your lips Gentle ripples through your softly sloping hips Your face so sculpted, the danger turns and runs Hereunto known only to the company of nuns You are my fondest wish, my one abiding dream Yet your skin contains all things vile and obscene Through symbiosis, we shall become your own And in your test tube is your embryonic clone See how it grows!, Ah, it has our stranger signs The mangled wrists, and the capsules of cyanide No point in freaking out, or in feeling petrified Surely you know that life's been this way since we died Do you want me to call the dice in turn Win or lose, we learned what we had to learn Beyond the picture is the sound of no-one there, Beyond the clone there is a spirit so aware -Written June 1, 1999 (Ottawa). Scratch rrreecording. Words and Music by Martin Warren. |06-02-1999>ISLAND OF NO RETURN I'll find you a place, give you a dream to chase Baby, don't you fear I'll give you more gold, and something more valuable Than Van Gough's rotting ear Oh, the wonder of your fascination And the warmth you've given to me It's time to leave for a far destination I'll take you there for free CHORUS: Oh, oh, I'm like Doctor Moreau And your welfare is my concern Oh, oh, on this raft we'll row (or, "baby, let's go") To the Island of No Return It's very regrettable that the one thing that's edible Is absent from my domain The stovetop explodes with unholy pressures Pressure-cooked inside our brains No, it's not quite an island of fantasy It's almost surreal there So concentrate on this chain reaction And get yourself prepared CHORUS (2x) -Written June 2, 1999 (Ottawa). Scratch RRecording. Words and Music by Martin Warren. |06-uu-1999>EXPLOSIONS Thought all night of things to do Went through many many notions Just yesterday I finally figured out There will be some explosions There will have to be explosions Laughing gas just ain't that funny And contaminates the oceans Baby look 'round wherever you are Soon you'll see some explosions No, I don't need to meet you baby No, I don't need you to give me potions But, honey, someday when we're in the same place There are gonna, gonna be explosions There are gonna, gonna be explosions Explosions, explosions -Written June 02, 1999 (Ottawa). Words aand Music by Martin Warren. |02-02-2000>PERSONA Always walking the uneasy path From "where you been" to what follows, then, Burrowing down through enchanted ground Thinking: "Where'd all this come from?" Somewhere in the deep heat of a coal-blast fire Burned what could have been a list; Running from caves the glacier of memory Can't recall that I can't recall this There shocking these speechless personas to sound Though awakening eyes Yet a gleam tarnished to blackness Itself both deaf and blind The ocean lapped up shadows Which took the feet from under me The final hour of exile Brings a sound around, finally And anything I have to say Won't always be what you want to hear -Written February 02, 2000 (Ottawa). |04-30-2000>MATTER OF TIME Your furnace had been shut down, So you shivered on, without a sound And your eyes were bound from without While your valet just hung around As reflections on the street from the hotel lights Streamed behind in your vehicle's path And the road to the future seemed only a trail Of polygonic math CHORUS: It was only a matter of time (3x) And things to find All the dark hearts on the upper deck Mistook nothing when you claimed your chair And all the obstacles you had to overlook They were all firmly anchored there You were sequestered to speak, as if under the gun And compelled to fit in a frame You proceeded to leave the caracature Talked to death, yet unexplained CHORUS Cindy came over, said she was disturbed By the way that you had stared- Off into your glass, while the rest of the bar Hardly knew that you were there "But, the thing about beer is it makes a good mirror" You said as you called for a cheer, And, when Cindy got sour at the top of the hour She had fallen for what she'd feared CHORUS So when you found yourself in a distant wood The stillness chilled the old rage And facing into the inevitable Finally turned that heavy page And the things that you tried for such a long time To somehow comprehend Were singed with the heat of your disbelief And are familiar once again CHORUS (2x) -Written April 30, 2000 (Ottawa). Words aand Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on 'ONE BOWLFULL OF RICE GREUL FOR YOU' (2000). |04-22-2000>THE GUEST HOUSE The guest hall assembled Brought tequila down from the shelf Then we talked to the reporters Who were sitting by themselves We were feeling damaged Being covered head to toe By a twenty mile bandage It was a feeling you'll never know Delilah had a complexion Paper white with a bluish tinge And as her eyeballs shot their lightning We could see her brows get singed Then she asked if she could test our telekenetic skills We consulted a professor And took twenty-thousand pills In what seemed to be an instant We proceeded to walk the line To illustrate emotion Which had never been defined We stood under her umbrella And set off beyond the Elephant range And to bring back the good doctor Who could tell her why we were so strange There was an empty cavern Full of papers from the previous war We didn't find the doctor But still found something we'd been looking for A quick phone call to her mother Was more than enough to satisfy And confirm what we'd been thinking When all Cambodia ran dry "Word just came from the museum", Said her mother in a trembling tone, "Archeologists went missing, At the temple someone stole their bones" It was then that we decided We would fulfill her deepest wish Then to the shrine we confided And laid our gifts out on a dish Then as if for the imprint Of an X on a treasure map And the scratching of the needle Amid mating temple cats We kept our compsure Making sure to light the ground Then peered through the enclosure Where bandit footprints could be found A bucket of cold water Would have to bring us through that dark night At the party of their slaughter Them Khmer Rouge don't treat you right So we stood more still and quiet Than the roots of jungle trees 'Cause in some places a riot Is more deadly than disease We each had our own carton Of store-bought cigarettes And a pile of buddhist prayer books That had been smuggled from Tibet We tied a crash-test dummy To a chair in the field And turned on all the floodlights While we were well concealed The resulting explosions- Mortar flashes and rockets launched They messed with our emotions At first resistance seemed so staunch Expended ammunition Put an end to the bandits good And as in a premonition They all raced off into the wood They left their cheif surgeon To collect pieces of the crash-test dude He gave me tequila And that's all that I got for food Here on the mosquito boat I'm going back to Delilah's lair I'd never go to that place If I was any less prepared -Written April 22, 2000 (Ottawa). Words aaannd Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on 'ONE BOWLFULL OF RICE GREUL FOR YOU' (2000). |04-21-2000>SANDEATERS You and me were talking on the bus And I really don't think there was much to discuss You had a croissant; said how tasty it was And suddenly I felt like Santa Claus The clouds in the sky didn't threaten that much And, unlike yourself, I had nothing for lunch; Not even a pizza, not even a crunch Just a bruised bit of ego that needed a crutch And the words that you said, they inspired me When from your jaws you set them free CHORUS: You said, you'd rather eat sand than be with me Well then, I'd rather eat sand than be with you You said you'd rather eat sand than be with me Well then, I'd rather eat sand. Well, in the first place, you don't know me that well- And you seem to presume I only know how to sell But wherever you work, working can be hell And the nightcrawling panther is lunging again The fire is back where the fire had been And this strength it is focussed to avenge The poseur explosion on which Top 40 hinged And you can't take away what I've already got What I've learned from battles I've already fought CHORUS On the road you're on, hard to say what you'll find If you can't get beyond these little walls in your mind And I hope you don't think I'm being unkind But sometimes this happens when planets collide So, I'll just sit here at home in the combat zone As the sirens go by and the bottles get thrown Praise the midget god of the vampire clone And stay the hell away from my telephone And you might believe me to be from outer space I've got some dirt from planets you'll never taste CHORUS (2x) -Written April 21, 2000 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Appears on 'ONE BOWLFULL OF RICE GREUL FOR YOU' (2000). |05-08-2000>PIZZARIA In order to make dough, there's something you gotta know: You shouldn't use too much yeast Yet, the moisture, it must be there, so pour sauce everywhere Use twenty-eight toppings, at least- To finish in time for the feast CHORUS: Down to the pizzaria, I'm goin' there to see 'ya You, and your brown eyes You come from Tanzania So let me heat up a tortilla While you show me your sweet thighs, A medium combo with fries One morning you were there, you wrapped me in your hair Said you wanted to cook it right Your oven was turned on, and the tension, it was gone, You let me have a bite, And the dinner was out of sight CHORUS Along with all the pans, and your palmolive hands I detected the time was up Again feeling so tense about ingredients You wanted me to get you some stuff And you couldn't, you couldn't get enough CHORUS (2x) -Written May 8, 2000 (Ottawa). Words anddd Music by Martin Warren. Scratch Recording |05-18-2000>MUSALA Old Musala, left at the drawbridge Covered in armor, awaiting a sign None at the border, nor the cathedral, None at the castle, nor at the moat Old Musala offers his refuge To hungry souls who will fight to the death Against the king's sentry's and his noble allies Basking in their feastings, then sitting back and gloating Up on his throne the king told his chattel "Spare not the sword, put an end to this war" But when it was over, Musala was nowhere- To be found, until his force it was strong The king was enraged, and he sent boats and armies "My kingdom is mine", came down the command But Old Musala poured fuel on the water And all the king's armies didn't last long Old Musala remembers the carnage What happened next once the battle was o'er Another great army over land came to take him Away to the fortress where he was drawn and quartered -Written May 8, 2000 (Ottawa). Words and Muusic by Martin Warren. Appears on 'ONE BOWLFULL OF RICE GREUL FOR YOU' (2000). |05-08-2000>ENOUGH ALREADY Would you mind putting on your bravest face Would you mind if I acted out of haste You're a little bit stuck on yourself, you little wench And everything you do contains a stench Enough, Already (3x) I feel like I'm watching pay-per-view And never ever gettin' anything new 'Cause I never seen anything like you When you're doin' all of the snotty things you do Enough, Already (3x) Your pedigree, it must be very fine To have gotten this point in life without a mind When I talk to you I'm only being kind Your responses remind me of an orange rind You're as infantile as this song intends to be When you think your ass is golden, I can see When you whine about, with your nose stuck up in the air And there's a whole lot of space, up there Enough, Already (3x) -Written May 8, 2000 (Ottawa). Words and Muusic by Martin Warren. |05-01-2000>TRAIL TO NUMA Old moonshine, stale water, Rusty hinges on the door Weathervane pointin' to the wrong destination You can hear the creakin' thru the floor Old winchimes someone had left 'ya, Tollin' like churchbells in the breeze A promise written on a dog-ear'd letter The coal dust makes you wheeze Where were your friends when they were really wanted Bill collecters peeked thru the screens You knew before you got it, the house it was haunted, Now you know what that means And she didn't stay long, once she saw it all go wrong, At least there's a story to tell When the sky grew darker than the shadows beside you You heard the windchimes bells CHORUS: To the west, there's a trail leads to Numa Careful as you steer Scarlet fever, Scarlet fever, Not far from here You ride out, past the covered bridges To the fenced-in stones Piled high past the wooden markers Of the known unknowns Your mind goes back as you see the barbed wire Beads of sweat on your brow You'd give anything to be forgetting What you remember now: 1915, your great grandmother Worked herself through her skin For weeks on end she'd be boilin' up the water Numbin' the patients with gin And now you're lookin' at the old cemetary Just rememberin' How it was she'd been bound to burn the town to the ground Once Scarlet Fever left no-one else livin' CHORUS Sometimes you've done what you're supposed to But that don't make it right All you need is a memory to stay close to On the darkest night Old moonshine, stale water Rusty hinges on the door Weathervane pointin' to the wrong destination You hear the creakin' thru the floor CHORUS (2x) -Written May 1, 2000 (Ottawa). Words and Muusic by Martin Warren. Appears on 'ONE BOWLFULL OF RICE GREUL FOR YOU' (2000). |06-16-2000>QUASIMODO IS FREE Baby don't laugh, it's really not funny It can't be helped that his nose is runny And, for keeping your mind all together, He knows more than Nebuchunezzar CHORUS: (Tell me) Why are you scared for Quasimodo? Are you prepared to meet Quasimodo? Why don't you care for Quasimodo? Quasimodo is free ! Baby take off your velcro g-string With the sneeze and the cough, you might hear him singing Forget the past, there's none to remember Once the hunchback loves 'ya tender CHORUS He'll make you smile, so full of laughter Yes for today and forever after If you aquiesce to his admonitions He'll fondle your breasts into different positions CHORUS Back in the old days you looked for a model Then you got sad, and so hit the bottle You fell down that cliff like so many lemmings It's time to consider the suggestion I'm sending CHORUS (2x) -Written June 16, 2000 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on 'ONE BOWLFULL OF RICE GREUL FOR YOU' (2000) |07-05-2000>IN THE GUTTER Such a long time ago, in the lines between the thought I learned who I was, and learned what I was not I remember how you said to me, you thought I was naive Well, the only card I really lacked was locked in my sleeve CHORUS: I'll take the fish out of the river of blood If for the sake of its life I can And if I die down in the gutter, honey I'll die a happy man Said I'll die a happy man There were so many times that I could have told you off Words I should've used like darts I wrapped up in cloth And I would have put it to you, only I wasn't that mean So you can find another fool now; maybe someone more naive CHORUS Keeping my words short and sweet was a lotta fun to do Finally saying what I mean; hope it means something to you I wanna tell you that you suck, and that you're full of shit But you're the one who's got to live with yourself, lying in the pit CHORUS -Written July 5, 2000 (Ottawa). Words and Muusic by Martin Warren. Song appears on 'THE GUTTER SONGS'" (2000). |07-30-2000>I'D NEVER TAKE YOU FOR GRANTED Just when I thought everything was empty and cool You crossed my mind and made my silence cruel Was there nothing that I could have spoke Other than some awkward joke And if you saw my heart through the smoke How would you answer? I do believe there's more to this than meets the eye When something seems so effortless, why even try? In my life I've had a lot of fun Rearrangements one by one And it was onward through the fog Until last Thursday CHORUS: I want you to know I'll never take you for granted (2x) Whatever's goin' on with you now ain't makin' things better And if that wasn't true, I would have written a letter Maybe I just don't understand I'm a very cynical man Who's seen too much in his time To be easily blinded My blood boils hot like a furnace when I see you hurting I curse the pause that falls when the moment gets disconcerting You mean more to me every time Your universe meets mine And when I saw the pain behind your eyes I more than minded CHORUS Written July 30, 2000 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren Song appears on 'THE GUTTER SONGS'" (2000). |07-07-2000>THE LEATHER APE Once upon a time, when things in the world were right And I stopped seeing your face glow in the dark at night Something new must'a happened to you You stopped tellin' me things that were true CHORUS: There was no escape from the leather ape You thought he was great There was no escape from the leather ape One evening I thought I might take a chance And take you out to the dance hall; there we could dance! But I think something must'a gone wrong 'Cause it forced me to write this damned song CHORUS You stood out there beside the electric fence I called and asked you if you had twenty-five cents I don't think it struck you quite that quick You asked a piglet if it was sick CHORUS -Written July 7, 2000 (Ottawa). Scratch reccording. Words and Music by Martin Warren. |09-10-2000>YOU WON'T HAVE TO SHARE Underneath it's there to see, beyond your recent history Opinions that you hang upon are sometimes right and sometimes wrong This business it is serious, and all resistance must be crushed So sweep your brain out with a brush And settle in for a new kind of hush CHORUS: Take a walk to the railroad track And don't forget to not come back Hitch a ride to the northern lights Experience sensual delights Kick your feet up in the air Or piss on a koala bear Whatever you do I don't care And you won't have to share You came to me like a hyena, all the way from China Where some confused Confucious said he covered all your crevices We were going door to door in the downtown urban core But you didn't like the city scene Went to Flin Flon, sniffed gasoline CHORUS Now I see the pundits gather 'round to stake their claim on corperate ground The official version's getting told 'bout how you braved the winter cold And I don't think it was very cooth; a wolly mammoth robbed you of your youth At the end of that old tusky-tooth While you searched for some pointed truth CHORUS Everything can be win or lose no matter which path you choose In a subway under Tokyo there's no round trip from where to go Whenever life is rated 'G' for garbage or for gravity You're not where you're supposed to be Or else you're living poetry CHORUS -Written September 10, 2000 (Ottawa). Lyrics & Music by M Warren. Song appears on 'THE GUTTER SONGS'" (2000). |09-21-2000>I WALKED AWAY FOR YOU Walk on over, close the door Please won't you hear my voice My brain it hurts, my throat is sore, Mind if I make some noise You've known me for a little while Enough to say you knew And not one song might have brought a smile But I wrote the best for you When you told me what you did I'd already had my fill Of a strong imagination in A sugar coated pill It was my fault, go ahead, blame me, It's an easy thing to do But those songs will fit you famously I wrote the best for you The shelf of books betrays no trace Of a love I guess never was The lines I see within your face Betray love like nothing does And I'll be walking away as you read these lines You won't hear me no more You'll remember me only in Legends and in lore The empty teacup holds no leaves No telling what was true And tonight, believe in what you can't see I walked away for you -Written September 21, 2000 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren Song appears on 'THE GUTTER SONGS' (2000). |09-13-2000>OVERTOOK I hate seeing things in a funny light But that's how I'm seeing them tonight You say your Halloween costume's got the devil's horns Made me glad that I'd been warned See the neighbours falling down the stairs Looks like their bannister needs repairs As I lie right back into my chair Thinking of you there CHORUS: You let me be what I wanna be I love the way you walk with me Blind me so, I cannot see- I'm overtook with your beauty, I'm overtook by your beauty Our first meetin' I don't recall But every one after, I remember them all Like when we stood there in that empty hall And the heartbreak made me crawl You say you don't want flowers or katydids But you came for the Congo's pyramids Now there's no more getting rid Of a love that nothing hid CHORUS Everyone's wondering what's been going on And I'd be a fool to just play along I just tell them nothing's wrong Just hope you stay in my song CHORUS -Written September 13, 2000 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on 'The Gutter Songs', (2000) |09-11-2000>HEART TORN IN TWO You say you're wondrin' what I'm down to The answer I'm findin' is makin' me blue I got a heart torn in two And it's torn over you I put on my best poker-face I think about you and it gets replaced I got a heart torn in two And its torn over you Her picture sits up on a shelf But you're damn beautiful yourself I got a heart torn in two And it's torn over you I got a heart torn in two And its torn over you -Written September 11, 2000 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren Song appears on 'THE GUTTER SONGS' (2000) |09-11-2000>CAN OF WORMS When I stand tall for 'ya baby Like any man of steel You never ask me How the hell I feel Lizards in the driveway Where my crushed rock used to be The cat's in the basement window Watchin' pigeons in the trees It's a strange, strange fiction When the real image is A juxtaposition Of naked bodies in bliss When you come to terms With the back of your own mind's eye You can buy a can of worms And watch them multiply Maybe then you'll see the point You been missin' all the while: Not everything that squirms Is gonna make you smile -Written September 11, 2000 (Ottawa). Words and music by Martin Warren Song appears on "THE GUTTER SONGS" (2000) |09-13-2000>IT'S YOUR BRAIN (SYNTHETIC PARANORMALS) Crows on the horizon, red sky in the morn Fautlines in the cloudline where the firmament's been torn The threshing of the ghost machine, the fractured splintered light The gleaming eye of evil down below a surface bright Synthetic paranormals knowing everything you do An empty row of bottles sitting there in front of you You could turn and walk away, but the sound would make you sad The way the world goes these days, it's better to feel bad You can sit there debating all the things that get you upset All the memories of mating, and the moments you'd rather forget Someone's in the hallway, filling up a hemlock bowl Remember that old Socrates never drank it until it was full The mysteries of your origin are a painting on the sun Looking through a telescope will let you look into one The panther screams, the wolf it howls, the little baby cries These are some of the sounds you'll hear walkin' 'round without any eyes You put me in the picture, and I told you the tale About how the circuit switcher has transistors for sale I threw a kiss to your forehead, and we wished each other luck It isn't just your body, it's your brain. -Written September 13, 2000 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren Song appears on 'THE GUTTER SONGS'" (2000). |10-24-2000>I DON'T WANT TO WANT NO-ONE Hard to think about the way that you smile Hadn't seen you do that for a little while Standing aloft in the bamboo shoots Getting back now to my roots Time that I really cared Seems like there's a lot of thinkin' up there I don't want to want no-one, but I want you Near the temple I pretended that I saw you smile Just like before, I hadn't seen you do that for a little while Standin' there inside the mist Drinkin' all that donkey piss Pretendin' it's right, but this time you know that something's missin' I don't want to want no-one, but I want you Thought before there was something new to tell But the words, I can't find 'em, so, ...oh hell Strap the ropes onto my mind Let the stray thinkin' unwind Oh, well baby, I can't find the answer... I don't want to want no-one, but I want you -Written (ad-lib) October 24, 2000 (Ottawwwaa). Words and Music by Martin Warren Song appears on 'THE GUTTER SONGS' (2000). |01-13-2001>MISS MISCHIEVIOUS Maybe it's the way your hair feels so bold Maybe it's the way you leave me with no where to go Gotta know if I got the head to make it here It won't be very long before I dissappear CHORUS: Got to know what makes you so mischievious Wonderin' will you tell me so, Miss Mischievious Maybe it's a funny way I see you stand Lookin' with your gleaming eyes and nowhere to land I'd be true to me, myself, and I... suppose If I could know where all your thinking goes CHORUS I ain't got the taste for what's happenin' Try to keep a brave face on what's happenin' I can't replace this happenin' Tell me how to face this happenin' CHORUS -Written (ad lib) Janurary 13, 2001 (Ottaaawwa). Words and Music by M. Warren. (Scratch recording) |01-29-2001>HI, JEAN Hi, Jean, how 'ya feelin'? My dream got me reelin' Nineteen, so invitin', Whipped cream, so excitin' CHORUS: Hi, Jean - Hi, Jean Hi, Jean - Hi, Jean Hi, Jean - Hi, Jean Hi, Jean - Hi, Jean - Hi, Jean - Hi, Jean Hi, Jean - Hi, Jean - Hi, Jean - Hi, Jean Your thoughts, they are controllin' Dreadlocks, they are holdin', One toke, gonna take a- Rowboat, down to Jamaica CHORUS Hi, Jean, how's it goin'- Downhill skiin' where there's no snowin'? Palm trees, exotic flowers Tight jeans, rasta power! -Written Janurary 29, 2001 (Ottawa). Words and Music by M. Warren. Scratch rec |02-02-2001>NEVER NUTHIN' WRONG CHORUS: What'cha gonna do once you're without me? What'cha gonna do once I am gone I never gave you any cause to doubt me And we never had to try, 'cause there was never nuthin' wrong By the wigwam, sittin' by the fire Took my shoe off, for to warm my sole Now, hypothermeized by my desire- My gangrene's the same shade As the burned out coal CHORUS A rainy mornin' always makes me crazy Rainy nights, they make me stay indoors- A rainy afternoon, you'll find me cryin'- Tears on my table, Passed out on the floor CHORUS This old house is so full of old memories And the horse out in the stable ain't been fed Think I'll go get me a coffee down at Timmy's Go tell the mafiosi They can keep the horse's head CHORUS (2x) -Written February 2, 2001 (Ottawa). words annd Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on 'EVERY PAGE INDEED' (2001). |02-10-2001>WORDS FAIL ME CHORUS: Listen to the guns outside, I hear they're getting close I bid farewell tonight to the one I love the most An anchor in the sea betrayed the tattered sail Skies darken ominously- Words fail me without fail Last night not that much went on, but I dreamt of what might have been And February's song brought things to an end As I awoke from my sleep, just as you said that name It seemed a million years before I slept again CHORUS How much silence did I hold before we pulled into port? The pirate flag did unfold, disorder did hold court To you, his boat pulled close, after this I averted my eyes For eternity rings true, whenever the moment lies CHORUS Forgive me, It was only a cross- -between turning the other cheek and glueing on a gloss Everything was what was not, tonight you know to tell And the moment I was shot, you emptied out the well CHORUS (2x) -Written February 10, 2001 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren Song appears on 'EVERY PAGE INDEED' (2001). |02-07-2001>THAT'S THE PAST Looked out the window, someone handed me a paper I tore it up the middle, but both sides read "see you later" Pentagon employees stealing Rip Van Winkle's clothes Left the fourth unwise monkey holding his nose There's a special way of speaking when you're staring at your shells It forever keeps you drawing from your wealth of empty wells You're so full of questions, you remind me of the owls Who look so insistent, though they ask amongst themselves CHORUS: You said you were the last You put your heart in a cast But that, that's the past That's the past, it was all I could do To keep my memory without mentioning you! In the wintertime kitchen, at the pleasant home, There was plastic on the windows, and one candle burned alone Looked to the street at three a.m., when you came in from his van Then I loved your sillhouette by the garbage can It served me well that in this neitherworld, It was filling up with Chestnut girls I don't know where I threw your rings and pearls Probably into the Chestnut girls' girdles! CHORUS I remember you called me when you got back from the south It was dark, cold, and dreary, and I'd found someone else The way you looked at me was like scissors in my skull But I still felt vindicated, 'cuz you stole my Jethro Tull Then in a dogfight emblazoned with t.k.o. calls, You used your tai kwon do skills to kick me in the balls I called you the love, the love of my life Now put on your stillettos, honey, you're my type! CHORUS -Written February 7, 2001 (Ottawa). words annd Music by M. Warren. Song appears on 'EVERY PAGE INDEED' (2001). |02-03-2001>ONE MORE PRAYER We met bizarrely covered in the aftermath of an accident Led by the hand around the tent by the Justice of a Mutual Friend Now I often wonder why, near the philosopher's stone I sit beside Weighing pros against the cons, the sacred trust against the earthly bonds CHORUS: And I recall the things we said And I think of the things we did Not much to save at the bitter end But that's one less prayer, One less prayer I've got to send With dreams of all we'd hoped to find, in reflecting yours, I refracted mine- That night I set off for the coast, and neither needed the other most I spent a month in sullen smoke, until you called and a newsflash broke So I crushed the ash, let the bottle sit, believing in more than I ever did CHORUS I wrote this one for the one who knows what it's for In a major key and in trinity chords Lord, give me the voice and, Lord, open the door- And Lord, give me some words I can't ignore CHORUS (changing "one less prayer" to "one more prayer") -Written February 3, 2001 (Ottawa). words annd Music M. Warren. Song appears on 'EVERY PAGE INDEED' (2001). |02-05-2001>BRING ON THE WAGONS In the foothills, where the panther calls Screaming its hunger at the city walls Rich in nurture beneath the blue-spread dome Ritual murder in an empty zone Where no-one answered because nobody knew No point in saying what no-one could do Willing to tremble, but unable to shake So many people; a wilderness to forsake Caught at the juncture of a dusty trail and a stream Seeing the future in the sun's reflected gleam Bring on the wagons to settle us down for a night Circle them closely; hold your eyes to the sights And you can know that this is all you're meant for The sun is falling and there's nothing more And you can know that this is all you're meant for The sun is falling and there's nothing more -Words and Music by Martin Warren. Writttteen February 5, 2001 (Ottawa). Song appears on 'EVERY PAGE INDEED' (2001). |02-11-2001>HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL I had so much to say about so many things I ended up only huffing When I told you that we were kind of agreed I bet you thought I was bluffing I got a flashing light in my mind Felt like it was there by design Saying 'hope springs eternal', 'hope springs eterna;l', 'hope springs eternal' Don't you find? You found it out right, you had a sheltered life- When you started making funny faces You showed me your heaven And I showed you some stranger places Now it's up to the question of if... I can get through all this sand I've left to sift While singin': 'hope springs eternal', 'hope springs eternal', 'hope springs eternal Like a gift Whatever more there is in store For you on this bright blue marble I pray that it's as good as more Of what's in my whiskey bottle 'hope springs eternal'... -Written February 11, 2001 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on 'EVERY PAGE INDEED' (2001). |02-04-2001>STRANGE IN MY SHOES These broken legs, they just didn't hurt You served me this pain for dessert I want a "Mongol Empire" T-shirt So I can look good in my yurt CHORUS: You say there's nothing to lose, While I say there's nothing to choose It must feel strange in my shoes I've heard it all, and then more But some things I just can't ignore It's arrogance you're reeking of Masquerading as love CHORUS King Tut's sarcophogous Reveals the future to us So when you lie a mummy down on the floor I'm sure you can imagine what for CHORUS -Written February 4, 2001 (Ottawa). words aand Music by M. Warren. Song appears on 'EVERY PAGE INDEED' (2001). |02-09-2001>EVERY PAGE INDEED Standing in the freezing rain, struck dumb by doubt Tell me, were you thinking the same things I was thinking about? There was a picture there, no photographer's chair I remember I could have said anything, anything, But we only stared CHORUS: Well, some get irritable We got spiritual And I'd say what I liked in broad daylight It might be beautiful My book of life, I concede Isn't an easy read But I wanted to show you every page indeed What's with this iron cage around your heart? My convictions will prove to be strong, just when you think that they're not You've got to give me some time, you can count to nine Once you open your eyes, you might find- That I didn't hide CHORUS You can throw it away while I pretend to turn it off like a light What doesn't happen is always safer than what might It's such a tranquil rest, feeling so unpossessed But I digress, you can be impressed That I confessed CHORUS -Written February 9, 2001 (Ottawa). words aand Music by M. Warren. Song appears on 'EVERY PAGE INDEED' (2001). |05-uu-2001>WHO DO YOU THINK? By the way, was that sound- The dim shattering on the rooftops Through which I heard a whispered name Resembling one very familiar and memorable I turned my deaf ear to the noise And I heard only a whisper And the name spoken within it -Written May, 2001 (Ottawa). |05-uu-2001>UNTITLED 2 Boulevards stretch infinity to the breaking point Plexiglass jar full of nails; a bewildered gleam In the eyes of the armadillo Threatening an era of vengeful reaction (Note the twitching ears and imposing armor) Where I stand is bound to be charred earth Armadillo of doom, fix that glare- Face me with watherbeaten snout: I dare you Match your nemesis! Break the wheel! Burn up the air! Dig the falcon's crater! Until the morning falls into the arms Of every yesterday -Written May, 2001 (Ottawa). |05-uu-2001>NORMAL POEM You stood five feet from the caged bear Who looked for you everywhere And, truth be known, I didn't care Because I didn't dare My teeth were sharp, by file and flint Still can't know what you really meant And the pictures and the postcards sent Me running to your tent Oh you plied me with your focussed will And I set fire to the bitter chill But the bear, he took the poison pill And paid the subscription bill -Written May, 2001 (Ottawa). |06-07-2001>WHAT YOU KNOW Rich like the giant-killers south of there You've been standing, and, yeah, who knows where? Tortured voices wail into the dark, inperceptibly Sometimes you notice what is what cannot be And I scream at Fortune, she's the Astral Bitch, deserves every bit And I scream at anything that comes off without a hitch Get me to some other place, get me, get me, get me hence Make me weary, make me wise, make me, make me make sense Sharpen my teeth on your emotion, you ain't got no life And I felt closer to you for a while than any arranged wife Don't need to wound you with words, I can be good at this, though I just want to know what it is you think you know I just want to know what it is you think you know I just want to know what it is you think you know -Written June 07, 2001 (Ottawa). Words aaannd Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on 'NO SNOW IN THE MOUNTAINS' (2001). |06-09-2001>YOU NEED CHAINS CHORUS: Train your scopes on the horizon Seek out your oasis there The damned howl from their shelters The police stay away from there You set your feet down dusty From all these ancestral remains The horse you ride needs tamin' But you, you need only chains The tacos they are a-steamin' In the open-air marketplace See the holy sister's faces beamin' From all the radioactive waste Brought up as you were in the darkness They shed a little light On your horses' soon-to-be carcass Which begins to glow so white CHORUS Now, the sargent led you to your jailcell But it had overflowed So he tried to bury you alive While you sang him "King of the Road" But then, you, you leapt up shouting Like some mumbo-voodoo priest Transformed into a zombie-slave Wearing the mark of the beast CHORUS Like a man, you stood your ground For about four-hundred years Had about four-thousand rattlesnake bites Drank over four-million beers You broke a bottle on the sargent's face And after he fell down The sisters had your sins erased Turned you into the lost and found CHORUS -Written June 9, 2001 (Ottawa). Words annndd Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on 'NO SNOW IN THE MOUNTAINS' (2001). |06-04-2001>JAMES A. MICHENER Don't walk by, my honey love Don't you make me grovel The words you said I read before In a James A. Michener novel You didn't lack the fire of love I didn't lack the feeling We didn't lack the stars above But your breath was not appealing I caught myself before I did What you might have regretted But ever since I was a little kid You knew where I was headed Back when a child I knew you well Threw stink bombs at your mother Now how can you expect me to Tell her that I love her? At seventeen we skinny-dipped In the stream of conscience Now you want me to kow-tow To your mother, as she watches The lazy sun, it judges us Equal to the mission But tell me yet, how do we get Unstuck from this position? Don't walk by, my honey love Don't you make me grovel The words you said I read before In a James A. Michener novel -Written June 4, 2001 (Ottawa). Words and MMusic by Martin Warren. |06-04-2001>REAL GOOD REASONS Before you start, can you please get on with it? Your dissappointment's not the one you admit A line is what you tow Someone doesn't want you to know I had real good reasons, real good reasons to go Now we could argue the subject all night for argument's sake But how much punishment could each one of us take? And I don't want you to feel low I just want you to see, even so, I had real good reasons, real good reasons to go Some doubt the meaning of anything I might have said You, for one, act as if you've been misled Well, I can swim but I can't row And I can shoot with an arrow and bow And I had real good reasons, real good reasons to go Your patience got tried, and my muzzle they tried to apply Well, I can bark like a dog in the day, I wanna howl in the night! I'm only your average Joe Where I'm planted I wanna grow And I had real good reasons, real good reasons to go The truth I said to you in your ear so that you could hear It's something I've felt ever since you first were near No need for a fable of woe I just wanted to let you know I've got no more reasons to stay, and a million to go -Written June 4, 2001 (Ottawa). Words and MMusic by Martin Warren. Song appears on 'NO SNOW IN THE MOUNTAINS' (2001). |06-13-2001>BINDWEED Go to the contessa She will give you stones of kyanite She's up there on the inyala Incubating someone's dynamite You won't be incognito When you make the reflection turn Now you feel like a reefo Newly arrived and unconcerned She'll excuse you your saliva When you utilize the loving tongue Just about, almost, kinda When you speak about what's to be done Keeping track of the progression From a kiosk to the center stage She will tell you every session Her real story and imagined age The lake is deeper than your membranes As you ingest her sweet revenge These are the most unsympathetic pains Now you will never be without your friends On the reef a scuba saviour Turns metaphysics to statocracy You can savour all the flavour Of what the contessa promised you could not be Staring off from the partition You can hear all the enemies march So you set up a reception Underneath the triumphal arch There she is with her retainers Every bit the one you used to know You put your heart into containers Pieces recovered a lifetime ago -Written June 13, 2001 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on 'NO SNOW IN THE MOUNTAINS'(2001). |06-04-2001>RELEASE THE DRAGON These clouds brought the monsoon in Under the dark night's watchful stand Sleeping amid these forest sounds Down beneath this matted thatch Drivers pick up their things and go Run these streets swept up with rain In this room is a prescence swirling Calling your name Calling your name Your portion in life is a secret Go to the river and call it down And if the heavens release the dragon Tell that secret all around Spices fragrant turn the air liquid The dusk abhorrent cloaks your frame To your feet in a coat of silver You can hear your name You can hear your name -Written June 4, 2001 (Ottawa). Words and MMusic by Martin Warren. Song appears on 'NO SNOW IN THE MOUNTAINS' (2001). |06-02-2001>SO MUCH TIME Just as he was leaving, Something told him "keep your voice down- You've got more than this to live for- Why else would they keep you around?" She'd thanked him for the good times At least that's what she'd let on And it said more to take the door Than to stay with forever gone A thousand lines jammed up with static, The most familiar voice But it wasn't enough to empty the attic By their common choice When he thought back to how she said There wasn't a moment he wasn't on her mind It occurred to him there had been so much time A signature of frailties Was what they together were Like the echo of the thunder Off the surface of the earth And on up into the heavens A kind of ordered chaos reigned Where a Deity asked angels If they could please explain She was looking otherwordly As she made her silly face And he held her close to watch the rain Out on the fire escapes But today it's just a question Of how to say "goodbye" and be kind When it always seemed they had so much time She didn't want to tell him, So she said it was for a greater cause He didn't care as much For the cause as the applause But her memory stayed with him Like some kind of lucky rabbits foot To remember who he was back when Things were not quite so good Now I hope that you can see That I'm finally movin' on And that I'll always love you, honey Even now that you are gone Of all of God's creations You're the greatest He designed And I'm grateful that we had so much time -Written June 2, 2001 (Ottawa). Words and MMusic by Martin Warren. Song appears on 'NO SNOW IN THE MOUNTAINS' (2001). |06-02-2001>NO SNOW IN THE MOUNTAINS Up the cliff you charged, to make the world go flat From another age you can't forget about that And the ocean knew all the weight of time Everything about you, and your sacred mind Now you put up for auction all that you possessed Tread on me with caution, or you might get depressed Yes I put on a mask, but I did it for truth And vision, and passion, and a spirit of youth Then I was shown scripture: "unequally yoked", Your hope springs eternal that you might be provoked! Now without a word you allow for no fun There's no snow in the mountains; just a whole lot of shun It's what you'll be told; so I might as well agree There's no-one, noplace, as evil as me Now I've told you I'm evil, and my evil's the worst "Like a dog to its vomit", but "the last shall be first" I can't believe you feel the ends justify the means You seem so much more real than these kinds of scenes It was just wishful thinking, somehow I wish it had been more Once I found I'd been sinking, I made my way to the door And you'll never change me; I'll never try to change you You're right there's "nothing to say"; what good would it do? Now, without a smile, the story's all done I see no snow in the mountains; just a whole lot of shun. -Written June 2, 2001 (Ottawa). Words and MMusic by Martin Warren. Song appears on 'NO SNOW IN THE MOUNTAINS' (2001). |07-14-2001>TSUNAMI TSUNAMI There's a story it's about three-quarters through, but I don't believe a word Of what you think is meaningful, but isn't, I've observed- That I can't change a thing And like you said you got to pay some heed when it gets to the point Where the ghosts begin to feed Punch a hole in the card tell me what it is you need Adrienne don't slouch I'm listening to 'ya, Adrienne don't slouch I'm listening to 'ya, Mud and steel there's room in the car don't talk so loud act so bizarre I'm used to you Tsunami Tsunami I'm used to you Dog breath dog breath dog breath you can taste it From the balcony where you got so wasted Portraits of George Washington, a gun in his cold dead hands You wanted some sympathy, well he understands Present-tense makes you blue rare a second on each side Problem is your thai olives taste like dog's breath Honky on your elbows undergoing needles Electricity makes you dance -Written July 13, 2001 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on 'ONE AFTERNOON' (2001). |07-14-2001>SABBATH As they crawled down from the tree They could see they were covered in mosquito bites Which itched and then bled when they scratched them My camera was out of film so I said: "what the hell - might as well" Went pannin' for gold, yeh pannin' for gold As these fools had skin swollen up so bad I didn't think I was gonna be able to stand their whinin' So I gave them shots gin and told 'em they needed new footwear They thought I was just talking but just then Up over the ridge you could see the fuzzy ears of A grizzly with somethin' on its mind Knowin' better I got between 'em all with a Winchester at the ready Grizzly turned vulgar and snapped and stood up And the idiots wouldn't sit down behind the trees And I could see that they both had allergies They were both beginning to wheeze So I said there "hey, bear, come on over here, I got you a heavy meal" My six week old chili was sittin' there opened Don't know to this day which one got into it Damned grizzly walked up to us, through the bushes Gave us his Sabbath cd -Written July 13, 2001 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on 'ONE AFTERNOON' (2001). |07-14-2001>LAURA Laura you really took it in stride When I discovered the place you went to hide You told me about the rotting fish But where it went last I it's too late to wish Laura your hair is like nothing else Something your picture never tells You're not the lady of the lake, you're the woman of the pond A genuine Du Pont blonde Laura be with my unravelled mind We can smoke some crack and drink some wine There's only so much that I could do With a chemical mistress no-one ever knew -Written July 13, 2001 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on 'ONE AFTERNOON' (2001). |07-14-2001>LEECHES No one could tell us what was following We been blinded, by something An emotion, a bad riverboat ride In trouble, just for being alive Bastinados, do you understand A cheese grate hammered onto your hand Mercenaries had to bring us back To the river and that old rice sack Lord have mercy, I can't thank them enough Here come pirates takin' all our stuff Patrice Lumumba would have loved this show In Zaire or in the Old Congo Bring us leeches, purify our blood Bring us trucks that can slog through mud Bring us time to try and narrow things down And get our sorry asses back to town -Written July 13, 2001 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on 'ONE AFTERNOON' (2001). |07-14-2001>MY BAFFIN ISLAND LOVE The year was two thousand-four It was tough, it was war And down at the general store, There wasn't any more It got cold, house got froze, Solid snot inside my nose But how it goes is how it goes Oh my Baffin Island love Dogs created from a lab blueprint, A failed experiment Took me where the evil went... Without my consent Saw no money, nothing worth a look 'Cept the pictures in that book Oh, how I prayed for just a look From my Baffin Island love Rites of passage by the mammoth bones, The sadness of these undertones The howling of the canine clones Who the man at the general store owns These things I can live without, There's no lying about And I love without a doubt My Baffin Island love -Written July 13, 2001 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on 'ONE AFTERNOON' (2001). |07-14-2001>MY UNDERARMS STINK The algae in your coffee makes me wanna go back home My underarms stink like a mule This is a funny temple full of your relatives And an ant farm you think is so cool Now give me no more stories, 'cause there's only funny stuff The money from your board games makes good kindlin' And your aunt and uncle make me throw up in their garbage Which they then mail away to Finland Tell your sister she's a cute one playing yahtzee on my navel I got a few things to mention to the priest I got sick on all the captions she was writing on the floorboards It took a year to clean 'em, at least And the ashtrays stand a washin' about once a New York Second I encourage you to try the broken one It's interesting the stink you get when a burning ash combines With bubonic plague infected chewing gum Like contortionists impressing the hell out of a king Like a bar full of every evil twin In the final end you'll find you've forgotten everything Even which box you keep the dead rats in Written July 13, 2001 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on 'ONE AFTERNOON' (2001). |07-14-2001>WATCHING THE CAT'S FACE EXPLODE I know just one thing, it's the one thing that I knowed I'm watching the cat's face explode Welcome one and all to my humble abode Where I'm watching the cat's face explode Where I'm watching the cat's face explode It's all under the table where the foot fungus flowed I'm there watching the cat's face explode Been fed so damn well I'm surprised it never growed I'm watching the cat's face explode I'm watching the cat's face explode It goes a mile a minute following where 'ere it glowed Now I'm watching the cat's face explode Smells every little bit like a microwaved toad When you're watching the cat's face explode When you're watching the cat's face explode And that was all she wrote once the river overflowed We had to watch the cat's face explode Now I'm lonely every mile down this windin' dusty road Ain't gotta watch the cat's face explode Ain't gotta watch the cat's face explode -Written July 13, 2001 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on 'ONE AFTERNOON' (2001). |07-14-2001>HAITIAN VACATION CHORUS: Come along with me on my Haitian vacation It will fill you with the greatest elation If you're filled with profound indignation Come on along on my Haitian vacation Hispanola is a sacred isle Port au Prince is just your style And all the locals are friendly as pie; Have so much fun you might die CHORUS Around the ring over poultry bones All the relics and shining stones Dancing for weeks, no lettin' up the pace Burn marks on an anonymous face CHORUS An old dial phone by the old police h.q. A local governor has things to do By the beach they're singing some fisherman's blues Don't sound much like 'Blue Suede Shoes' CHORUS Just be sure to well ecoute When standing next to the governor's boot Keep lyin' low and live a pleasant long life Just play dumb and pack a knife CHORUS (2X) -Written July 13, 2001 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on 'ONE AFTERNOON' (2001). |07-14-2001>SHOW ME YOUR IRON LUNG Something struck you on the side, Made you think twice about this The trail of life is deep and wide, But you will not learn without this Like a breath of vapored lead, You inhale and go metal You are sleeping with the dead; An easy place for you to settle Show me your iron lung In the east you saw the sunrise, Pearl Harbour was no joke As the light went into your eyes, They got burnt and you went broke Thank you very much for taking, All the time you must have given No turning back and no forsaking, For your creature keeps on livin' Show me your iron lung What do you call it - A fulfillment?, Let me say it's just a legend You near the finish line so nicely, Still you only came in second And you will never call it nothing, it really is except for glory The voice you'll know from its ringing; But you are free to just ignore me Show me your iron lung -Written July 13, 2001 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on 'ONE AFTERNOON' (2001). |07-14-2001>OGRE OF DOOM Almost you could see the old footfalls Where your feet got stuck in When you walked in circles That night in the cabin You watched a sasquatch movie And it was so scary That it wasn't funny And I sent you flowers And I sent you presents But you didn't notice But you didn't notice So somewhere in my mind I remembered There had been revealed ...the opening lotus Ogre of doom - ogre of dread Ogre that wakes you up at night in your bed Ogre of love - ogre of doom Ogre that wakes you at night in your room Cringing in something like terror But a little more tasty And a little more trying You were bit by chihuahuas, Who, sensing your deeper motives, They could smell the lotion Which you had been buying A telephone rang and scared them to blazes They all started yelping, And calling for vengeance Just then a tall shadow on the door it was forming Then only a silence, And a kind of repentance CHORUS -Written July 13, 2001 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on 'ONE AFTERNOON' (2001). |09-05-2001>ANOTHER FOR MY FRIENDS They cornered her in Crawfordsville While I fell off the bus She told them an old wive's tale About the two of us Now, yeah, I got some new diseases From her vile, mutant, heart But her struggle never ceases When she sees a shopping cart A lazy hour on the patio A Corona in a glass I thought about her breasts And I thought about the past The way she used to kiss me Was something I won't soon forget But, if you're doubting that she misses me You ain't seen nuthin' yet! It's only fair to give a quarter When the devil needs his due No, I'm not Little Jack Horner Though the devil may say it's true There's nothing there but damage In the way that story ends She'll have one there for her family; I'll have another for my friends Original, and so fiery A stunning spectre rose She called herself "a bad influence"; But I was not opposed She told me all that happened But her stories just didn't jive But while she held her legs against me I could overlook her lies I took her to the Tapas Bar- We had one too many rounds 'Till the room kept getting closer And the morning light was found And the only thing that was injured Was my pocketbook... And, I- ...While my liver doesn't miss her It feels sorry for her guys' When fate leads me to forebodings; Funny people with a chip- What's it to me, if not knowing Lets a bit of ego slip There's nothing really cool About the way this story ends She'll have one there for her fool I'll have another for my friends When the purpose and the passion Broke into their stilted dance Desire led to action And I fell into her hands She nursed me with her holy book Accompanied by a vaccine But then that preacher uttered words Which were lethally obscene Without any compunction I leapt out the eighteenth floor Where my faith fulfilled its function- That floor was just a door Wherever I was goin' I guess she just couldn't go along It don't comfort to me, knowing- I was right, and they were wrong Besides the "going psycho"; There was nothing missing there Caught between objection cycles And a never-ending prayer There's nothing really lofty About the way the story ends; She'll have one there for The Body I'll have another for my friends I don't mean to be pushin' no buttons But the DANGER light is on I'll give you credit for your conscience Now that I know where mine has gone Now, just because there is a siren Don't make a mention in the press 'Cos beside the real thing, the gossip- Is far more easily undressed -Yes, I want your deepest reaches Even as I'm standing down For a moment there, I thought I heard That bugle's lofty sound -You should have been a princess So that I'd be free to serve In a uniform, with titles, But your Love, I don't deserve -You shake your head, incredulous That this is being told Don't bother acting jealous When these words are getting bold 'Cause there's nothing "high and mighty" 'Bout the way this story ends; You'll have one there for your honey, I'll have another for my friends No, there's nothing "high or mighty" 'Bout the way this story ends; You'll have one there for your honey, I'll have another for my friends. -Written September 5, 2001 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on "SEISMOGRAPH" (2001). |10-27-2001>WHAT'S IN THAT BOTTLE? We're both "shit out of luck"; We're one another's drug Always testin' the bounds, yeah And sweepin' under that rug Tell me your name once again- I don't care where you've been All I wanna know- Is, do you go there often? What's in that bottle? Welcome to the feast I see your hunger's increased Baby, you know that I need Some kind of heavenly peace I picked off all the fleas Off my old dungarees Now just fill out that form- And read the warranties What's in that bottle? By the windowpane I feel the urge to explain- Honey, I wish we were walkin', yeah- Down lover's lane When I think of those times The feelin's so unrefined Start lookin' for somethin' To paralyze my mind What's in that bottle? Approaching you is a field; The harvest here is revealed- I toss you my silver sickle, yeah; Gather up all it can yield Take the people to task For all from you that they ask: I'll be the one with the camera And the Halloween mask What's in that bottle? You're a thief and a cheater You drank up all the ether! But when I think about it, yeah- It's ether, all or neither! It's like a heroin high This thing between you and I Sometimes I really don't know Whether to laugh or to cry What's in that bottle? -Written October 27, 2001 (Ottawa). words aand Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on "SEISMOGRAPH" (2001). |10-29-2001>WHAT'S THIS ALL ABOUT? It seems too right to get put down- (In the way that things might get scrawled) So much is new when you're around But if this ain't "blue", I don't know what it's called You turned a corner down a one-way street You should have been warned, my heart's a combat zone Too many memories that I don't want to repeat I'll do what I can to make you feel at home I'm surprised to see you; And I'll try not to figure it out Where is this goin'- What's this all about? If it were my place, I'd give you a "carte blanche" If it were my turn, I'd go and make my move We'd go horseback ridin' down at the ranch I'd toss a lasso like I had something to prove Guess these days, I'm just feelin' too wise; "I've said too much, guess I best shut up" A tragedy is when a comedy tries And doesn't know when it's said enough I'm not sayin' "I need you" And I'll try not to figure it out Where is this goin', yeah- What's this all about On second thought, there's just one more thing- I can't keep this down forever, you know If you were mine, you'd have that ring But since you're not, I'll have to just say so By the neon signs and the city lights Where the vagrants stare and the drunks fall down With all that goes on under cover of night Forgive me if sometimes I get unwound I've got nowhere to lead you And I'll try not to figure one out Where is this goin'- What's this all about -Written October 29, 2001 (Ottawa). words aand Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on "SEISMOGRAPH" (2001). |11-03-2001>YOU WERE NOT THERE No idle threat, this scorpion sting Three times to you what to me you bring Far from getting me down, far from being blind I just want you to know, I know what's on your mind Obstacles you imagine in your path You think "divide and conquer"; I can do the math! But you're slicing thin air, 'cos underneath the ground The earth is shifting, can't you hear that sound? Behind every tree a phantom stands Welcoming you to this haunted land I'm just biding my time 'til the dawn appears- Well, some things take a while; this took many years You stand forgiven all that you presumed Before my silence there stood a tomb When you see for yourself, when all's said and done, You were not there; I was the one You were not there; I was the one You were not there; I was the one -Written November 03, 2001 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on "SEISMOGRAPH" (2001). |10-05-2001>595 KING STREET, JANURARY 1989 The party went 'til after four; Not "'til noon", like the night before CHORUS: "Well, here you are; but I don't care- [Heidi's] in the bush somewhere!" A carpet's burnin', gonna keep you warm "Welcome to Purgatory; this is the dorm!" CHORUS The cat of nine tales whips the ace of spades "There's the stove; wanna do some blades?" CHORUS A taxidermist gave his deer head away; "He pays no taxes, and he acts real gay" CHORUS Your sister tells me she's callin' the cabs- "Don't sit on the couch; you might get crabs" CHORUS "Watch where you step; it might be hash!" It's dressed all in black like Johnny Cash CHORUS "She puked in the stairwell"; no stoppin' the stink- But now the carpet is a skating rink! CHORUS Sweet young thing, she claims to be from mars; "Her moans sound like electric guitars!" CHORUS Woke in the mornin' tastin' cigarette ash; Now "I feel like Crosby, Stills, and Nash" CHORUS (2x) -Written November 05, 2001 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on "SEISMOGRAPH" (2001). |11-06-2001>SILENTLY If I were you, which I am not- And knowing what you feel- I would at least consider the thought And let it all get real You would know why it is I take... Pains to keep open the line And, you would know how far things go- Beyond what's in my mind Silently up in the sky The rain falls through the air Silently, I remember why, And keep that feeling there If you were here with me tonight- Maybe you would know And we could turn those wrongs all right Each made such a long time ago What there is beyond the pale Is our expectation's ghost When we're afraid we might fail Is when we should try the most Silently the wind is turned Down the river's valley's wake Silently, the lessons learned- Will not our hearts forsake If I were you; which I am not Knowing what you feel I would at least consider the thought And let it all get real Silently a teardrop fell- And I didn't let on that I saw; The tears fell from my eyes as well- Now, there's a well from which to draw -Written November 06, 2001 (Ottawa). Words and Music by Martin Warren. Song appears on "SEISMOGRAPH" (2001). |05-22-2002>THE CACTUS This cactus requires no cultivation- Feeding itself through the night's condensation It lacks even leaves; yet it patiently climbs Amid all the dust, for to spite simple minds While standing still looking as if nowhere-bound It shadows the ground through the cold sundown It's a home for the ants and a perch for the crow But to anything else, it's a needling "no" I may be that cactus; for some there are thorns Still dusty with sands of the years I have worn But I stood in the sun of your shimmering sky And I'll share of the dew once your riverbed's dry -Written May 22, 2002 (Fredericton). Words and Music by Martin Warren. |12-26-2002>ORANGUTAN REPOSESSED spontanious combustion got ya good the other night heard the hollow through the basement was so far out of sight couldn't bring a silver ladder down to that place so low now you feed me inquisitions through the pauses after "so?" hear him clanging up the stairway, buddhist monk with saffron robe in one hand he swing his incense, in the other balanced globe me, i just rickshaw messenger! orangutan is back! it's bored with me - i'd hate to see the face that it attacked! CHORUS: now couldn't you find a better way to speak now couldn't you find a sounder way to hear now couldn't you find a smarter way to think get it on out of here lets go invent new holiday, call it what they think fits well the whole world's jammed with joiners, keen for some synthetic hell "some people", says one genius, "they don't know who they are..." then where's the label on your navel!?, the line code on my bar!? conditions and afflictions and addictions and religions makes for target advertising fit for tunneled visions `identity' is obscenity, fit to fabricate some `-ism' hackneyed categories cobbled out to stave off true intentions CHORUS oh, you'll be so brought to tears by the logic of the free- enlightened people trying to make your world easy you'll never have to think about your feelings very much they'll just dim the lights and gather round pretending to be touched you'll swear most of them believe you to be near your comfort zone but self-mutilatory pleasures are to them as yet unknown (awwww....) and though you know how bad they want you out on some limb three cheers! you only end up feeling sorry for them! CHORUS BREAK: Ole! Ole! Ole! CHORUS bonjour, comment ca va? you scrub your skin with S.O.S.!?! it's all a ritual now you're obsessed with your old flesh you only know how high you are once you know how low you've been and you're into speaking playfully, please take note of this one sin: generics biting monkey-ears... unacceptable and crazed like an elevator orchestra playing Purple Haze sounds `soothing' to the `straight' folk, yeah, `just marvellous' to `gays', with everyone obsessing over how to turn the phrase CHORUS if you don't want your navel stamped as if it were a brand don't bow down to these corny laws of supply and demand evil counsel be damned! kill the first deadly vice! starve dead all the vultures! slow minds will grow wise! i hail from another galaxy, so much for the outside Elvis was the king and Cleopatra was the bride don't expect a living truth jus' 'cause some old lie's denied now go repossess orangutan; it wants a bumpy ride CHORUS so, "how convinced are you?" is a question you won't ask when you're placed before my dehydrogenated devil's mask while you're stretched on your lawnchair so your wellness trip will last, North Korea and Dubya are gonna waste every ass! and those pop-quiz-psychology loads of baloney- they just won't play right without your .mp3 Sony! like so much else it's all bullshit, surface and phony its all trash tv riding on waves of Marconi CHORUS -Written December 26, 2002 (Ottawa). Words & Music by Martin Warren (June 2005) Song (1st 3 verses) appears on 'THE SLATE' (2005). |01-19-2003>TANGIER it was heard that you depended- once the battle, it had ended- on the caravans to get you where you got i read your telegrams by candles travelled by a herd of camels 'cause that's the only way they could get brought of course its you who knows its bringing things to a close this winding spiral staircase of who's what's and woes i'll tell you if anything changes... let you in on the funky deranges... it's keeping me occupied here exiled in tangier yes her opulence implores me just as her golden hair allures me past the sky and far beyond the sea's maroon hanging flatbreads in the tents and hotly haggled arguments- disperse; mere grains of sand in furrowed dunes of course its you who says i'm in a place that you detest yet go farther to the east- and you'll end up in the west i'll tell you if some newer tide reaches... these sheer cliffs overlooking the beaches... and the view is incredible here exiled in tangier you are beyond conversation with relatives of no relation here your mathematics howl their own equation stood in the setting sun these numbers simplify to one: "life is always lived on location" your message never mentioned the whirling dervish scenes you should see them as they are when they revisit you in dreams of course its you who sees what this could really mean the desert renders stupid wasting time on mere routine i'll call you if anyone flees... this furnace has endless degrees... i do believe i will get me a beer while i'm exiled in tangier -Written January 19, 2003 (Ottawa) Words & Music by Martin Warren (May 2005) Song appears on 'THE SLATE' (2005). |01-19-2003>UNSELECTED TYPES through empty doors into an alcove it behooves you to leave well enough alone carpeted fictions are too much intense and won't outlast the reconnaissance and you'd do well to leave the mealy-mouthed demons fending for themselves where i was still, now picture this carbon-copy intellegence spoke whispers lest we turn to go dogs-foot?, crows-ear? let me know! hammer-hearts got the larynx pipes of unselected types you can call it rude or barbarous; but the meteor is awaiting us on ghostly cycles, the tracks other side a midnight curfew gets misapplied these hills, as far as eye can see hinder you formidably your stamp on the earth spoke strange to that lie- but i cared enough not to ask you why bring to me the chronicle- stopwatch, and a monacle a chemical or two ignites those unselected types old canvas hands with reels of news presented me with solemn foods i thought they told you - thought you knew ten toes, they do divide by two! it's a great day for your lesserknowns adapted well to cellular phones otherwise i'd pull the plug recount tales told to me by your rug (they're as good as anything else I've heard- now i've sold the world for one truthful word) instead of all these hideous hypes thrown by unselected types the sanest thing i ever did was to leap from the canvas where they kept me hid to be far from you i was then resigned all i did was speak plainly what was on my mind, and then lay that sword down once i ran me through hara-kiri was all left to be said to you so now that everyone's finally free there's an end to be put to this solemnity this mind in the middle with its knotted ropes carries no chalice of lingering hopes bring down the bulwark strung up with lights for those unselected types -Written January 19, 2003 (Ottawa). |01-19-2003>STEEL FLOWERS here is the place where the firestorm raged to the three-hundredth degree the gears they seized at nine-fifteen now i'm picking through the rubble for steel flowers you had no way to tell from your trench in the ground with the crashing burning beams falling down i was stood between you and the cyclone now i'm picking through the rubble for steel flowers a dark outline on a cold brick wall was all that could be shown the bridges collapsed with a groan now i'm picking through the rubble for steel flowers under patronizing pretenses through rose-colored lenses all that could be destroyed was dismatled now i'm picking through the rubble for steel flowers and i remember you- wishing only that you knew- there was once here more than rubble... and steel flowers -Written January 19, 2003 (Ottawa). |01-19-2003>GREAT FOR THE APES i was on East Hastings gettin' shot in the arm when an eskimo lady sounded off an alarm kicked me in the head, and i still don't know why but now she comes to me each time i get a bottle of rye and she says: "hey there honey, how 'bout one for the train- i got to get to Tuktoyaktuk, ain't no time to explain the world's been warmin', say the Kyoto tapes it's a bad time for igloos, but it's great for the apes krishna maharishi livin' on the ice cap he was feelin' mighty lost until i showed him a map he was lookin' for beetles 'cause they got him so stoned i told him they were gettin' Yoko Ono cloned he turned to me and said: "where'd 'ya hear that shit? Elvis came back and he already done it! now Lennon's sick in bed with their bootlegged tapes- it ain't too good for peace and love, but it's great for the apes" then just about as i was gonna throw in the towel, appeared Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld, and Colin Powell they were trippin' on 'cid to Clinton's rhythmic feed Lewinsky's mouth organ and Gore on speed George sang: "bring them to justice! smoke out their holes! make no mistake! Saddam's got hot coals! and now the CIA's got him on old Watergate tapes! it's old news to Nixon, but it's great for the apes!" -Written January 19, 2003 (Ottawa). |01-19-2003>THE PLANET I AM ON i try to see your side of things: "without the clouds how could angels be?" here silver soil and a metal bus- and dark sky between you and me i scour the surface with a shovel beacons pierce the great beyond someday it might be worth knowing what planet i am on i don't envy you for your "grounding" and i deserve no special prize but from this distance i can see your road- set before my eyes my trail is less travelled neither river, lake, nor pond there are only stars to dazzle on the planet i am on it's a task that's filled with danger but no fear will bring me down this divine pioneering and staking claims on sacred ground once to you are revealed the orbits that the heavens turn upon though you might choose to ignore it you'll see what planet i am on where once i lived your laws and down that highway these shoes trod now i am on a sacred mission building satellites for God your old world it is dying on this new one, life will dawn and you might just end up living on the planet i am on -Written January 19, 2003 (Ottawa). |01-20-2003>EXEMA HAS LASAGNA Susie laid down her tarot cards and ran into the alley there she wound up crossing paths with Finnegan O'Malley someone took a photograph and hung it in the Bistro now she answers to Lasagna and he panhandles at Heathrow Exema Montezuma he was just boarding his flight in O'Malley's hat fell ten gold bars and they were none too light he spoke to him in his harshest tone: "i must get to Cancun; go find enough Lasagna to last to tommorrow, noon" to counteract conflicting whiskey-nerved responses Finnegan watched movies- (mostly Charles Bronson's) then he flagged down a pizza plane onto the airport station and he sent for a Lasagna and peyote combination Montezuma said: "i've read these things in books by Casteneda, watched satellite, and internet, and a VCR called Beta" then stared he straight at Finnegan and said: "ten gold bars i gave you- i must have my Lasagna, or peyote will not save you" O'Malley's eyes leaked whiskey as he fumbled with his keychain as Susie she fell laughing from an incoming airplane now they all spin around this earth as if it were another Exema has Lasagna, and O'Malley won't recover -Written January 20, 2003 (Ottawa). |01-22-2003>WHEN I SEE HER SAD no telling lies under your arc of sky shelter and peace, yes, heaven knows why befriended, suspended, on a bridge too far gone all of what ended i commend to Beyond was any lost meaning consigned to a prayer? were Heaven the ceiling, i would leave it right there patience like salt takes a toll on the eyes and if she did speak she'd be none the more wise she minded as many, but meant as few could you just overstate what she instead understood there's a roughly right reading of the good and the bad and i feel her feeling when i see her sad you would hold doubtful eyes if you met that old ghost sailing at low ebb into contentment's coast while she prayed for sunrise you took it all wrong- for unearthly or otherwise, your seas rolled along a glass of smooth crystal on edges of sound while her silence encompassed my dread too profound and i would have spoken; but didn't yet dare for if her heart was broken, i couldn't be there there is a crawling on stones to be done at this moment; now speak ye of Knowns when no one can know It? you hold out a history of had-not and had but your cold heart is no mystery when i see her sad nine scattered bonfires scrape into your sight her bountiful shadows outshine your false light a shattering sharp- nine tall rings of smoke- the chime of a harp- then no earthly voice spoke. -Written January 22, 2003 (Ottawa). |01-31-2003>ELBOW SCALES This here place where i'ze bit me elbow, eet ees shot, An' so the bleach spindly scales undercook me- Blasted as I be, beyond a hinterland of ants Toxification process set in Particles beneath my skin Make my yolks sour where they navigate; Set into my skull as both of you are Admit all that has happened this siesta- Sombrero, Cactus, Guitar Sacred are kitsch relics on your lawn Oh, dusty be the pan that gets thee gone Red scorpion, consume thyself this once: How would I write the word you won't pronounce? -Written January 31, 2003 (Ottawa). |04-??-2005>THE SLATE There's a ticket on the windshield of ol' Ebenezer's Dodge Guess he stayed a little too long out at the masonic lodge Give no presents to the postman, 'cuz he won't be feeling well All this rain and sleet and hail doesn't add up to this hell I'm dealing with it fine, y'know, but I don't think you can see- Through this cloud of ink from this octopus that stands 'tween you and me- Now, it's only when it shows its teeth, we find we can agree- Throw out the slate, or else let's get it cleaned You chased me around with poison ivy plants so you could get a piece of my mind, Then I chewed on both your ankles to prove to you I wasn't blind So my exile wouldn't be self-imposed, nor would it be a chance Now, maybe it's the octopus that really wants to dance I told you I would fix your purse, but you just wouldn't sit still- This waiting thing was waiting, it would wait and wait until- Until we both got sick of this, and don't know what we mean Throw out the slate, or else let's get it cleaned If you wrote your life in charcoal, would you hate it in the dark There's a sure and present danger in your shrill religious bark Don't put off your holy garbage runs, I'm itchin' for a scratch And an elephant is pacing between our two Cadillac's We're hydrogen and onion, it's just biochemistry Returning to Atlantis, you'll find seaweed in the sea, And we'll figure out coordinates, once we're free of being free- Throw out the slate, or else let's get it cleaned -Written April ??, 2005 (Ottawa) Words & Music by Martin Warren (April 2005) Song appears on 'THE SLATE' (2005). |04-??-2005>ATTIC BLUES Just who's wool are yout trying to pull, I really can't tell anymore Set beneath unfolding branches, empty leaves of paper on the floor Think it's time to call the baker's cousin, let him overlook the deal- I pretend we can agree on something, you pretend to know how I feel Fascination's combination throws a force into darker form In this dark land of interrogations, whatever's gonna be is gonna get torn Picture this, imagine that we put our backs up to the wheel- I pretend we can agree on something, you pretend to know how I feel Fortune stares under great big clouds, really wish you could've been here All alone now with my thoughts, and you with all your fear Now you walk on with your platform shoes, what glimpses do you hope to steal I pretend we can agree on something, you pretend to know how I feel We criss-cross our starting markers, both of us ready to compete I feel lower now than that animal you have curled up at your feet Will I never know that time again when our lips hungered for to seal How can we agree on anything if we don't care what the other one feels? -Written April ??, 2005 (Ottawa) Words & Music by Martin Warren (April 2005) Song appears on 'THE SLATE' (2005). |04-??-2005>MAY YOUR PROPHECIES NEVER END A quarter-truckoad couldn't get to Jersey- When faced face-on by the Turkish cow A wheelbarrow's here to pick up the pieces No skateboarding allowed Human beings, they will ruin your evenings Expecting everything that you can pretend Get a box full of stones from your oracle- May your prophecies never end You've got to believe, believe in this pattern The feeling's notion too quickly dispelled Ammonia rings too close to Saturn- You were born with your name mis-spelled Don't want no garbage disposal Pile it up for the hinterlands Live in your snowdrifts 'til your lips start melting Boil the water with the thoughts in your hands (Repeat 2nd Verse) -Written May ??, 2005 (Ottawa) Words & Music by Martin Warren (May 2005) Song appears on 'THE SLATE' (2005). |04-??-2005>SUSHI AND TOMMY'S BRAINS He stood alone in the driveway, a bleak and sad scarecrow His eyes rolled back into his head, where did the feeling go? Then Aphrodite took him far beyond his next-of-kin Onto this desperate highway, and that's where his life begins He could see she was wearing a lampshade, by the shape of its metal frame Then a samauri on a horse sliced of his head, it would never shine again And there across the yellow lines, on this highway overpaved Two fathers in their lawnchairs fought over whose bottle they should save And meanwhile in the sandbox stood a ridgeback Rhodesian hound Tending to ancestral memories of how he brought some elephant down As a rickety old engine chugged away in some yonder field A letter bound for Los Angeles returned to the mailbox sealed There was screaming and rejoicing from every neighbour's yard As Tommy the local psycho with his bare hands ripped out his heart... And he dropped it into the frying pan, reserved for local events- Looked on the crowd in askance, since they forgot they rinse And later on, the mayor, famished from his diet of grains, Feasted courtesy of the taxpayers on Sushi and Tommy's brains The rat-a-tat-tat of the marching band gave the fireworks a special feel The mayor gave Tommy's eulogy after he had finished up with his meal And nowadays, the prophets, they're all in awe and at last, aghast- The miracle wasn't that he ate those brains, but that he ate them so fast -Written May ??, 2005 (Ottawa) Words & Music by Martin Warren (May 2005) Song appears on 'THE SLATE' (2005). |04-??-2005>GROUNDHOG They strung a groundhog up in our living room I would've stopped them but they did it too soon Now this place smells like something worse than shit I wanna know what else they did to it Now every morning it's the same old tune- That groundhog's rotting in our living room So I can see that he's still rolling his eyes While through the window shines the sunny skies CHORUS: You think I'm fat, but I feel thinner A rotting groundhog just ruined our dinner Your glass of wine, my cold beer on ice You gotta scratch, my scalp's full of lice There's no prize to this thing that went on, His groundhog friends are wonderin' where he's gone Don't tell me now that you're feeling relieved Can't know by the smell how this might be received The only thing that maybe might be believed Is how a rotten groundhog might be perceived cHORUS They strung a groundhog up in our living room I would've stopped them but they did it too soon Now this place smells like something worse than shit I wanna know what else they did to it Now every morning it's the same old tune- That groundhog's rotting in our living room While through the window shines the sunny skies I can see that he's still rolling his eyes CHORUS (2x) -Written May ??, 2005 (Ottawa) Words & Music by Martin Warren (May 2005) Song appears on 'THE SLATE' (2005). |06-??-2005>CAPPUCCINO RADIO The legend, it only took a stab at the truth They put my picture up inside the tavern's stinkin' booth But the automotive entrails, they got stretched all over you And that's the way it goes with good luck charms And, of course, they never questioned what the gypsy never told And her advisements from the corridor, where her carpet got unrolled Then, her byzantine pronouncements through the parchment paper folds They catalyzed more false alarms Now, as for me, I am the ghost of the Himalayan hills With a cappuccino radio that would have gone well with your pills No, I don't forgive you anything your lyin' schemes pretend But I'd feel much better that I did So, you can go conjure out of sight with your black candles and your dice I'm just living in the hope that I won't have to show you twice Up no further than your cupboard I can hear you're running mice Now, could I be any more concise? -Written June ??, 2005 (Ottawa) Words & Music by Martin Warren Song appears on 'THE SLATE' (2005). |05-??-2007>THEY'LL GET YOU! You roam escalators with metal detectors Close a deck of cards under each of your arms It might have been nice, you know you just saw too much Two voices told the time, and they closed the covers You're rotting, and now boil in your fat- Draw out the bronze to hold it You knew what you meant, why won't you bet on it? You knew what you meant, it was nothing to begin with They'll get you, they'll get you... Call the old daughters looking to the lawn- The world is seriously weirded At the scratch of the shoe-leather, hurry be humbled- In hope that those daughters get bearded They'll get you, they'll get you... It's not by the building that you should stand at It's not by the holy waterfall where the crime-encrusted paper Lies asleep in your eyes... Everything you do is urgent, And now I want to see what happens When all these lies add up This is a mountain of view That reports on your things Blatancy you are You would have never known When you step on a package of ketchup I just don't get too close to your corrupting influence Find yourself breathing, find yourself breathing, Find yourself breathing- They'll get you! They'll get you! -Written May ??, 2007 (Ottawa) Words & Music by Martin Warren Song appears on 'THEY'LL GET YOU' (2007). |05-??-2007>PIN IT DOWN No burden like yours could stand the test of these times- No pawn can be played when your opponent resigns The mind's getting heavy from these chessboard lines We're like gold prospectors making dubious finds, yeah CHORUS: What if you could pin it down, yeah Bring things back to solid ground, yeah Would those doubts you're thinking of Vanish into space... Amazing the worlds that we could dream on- The atmosphere's thin when the landscape gets gone- The glowing blue surface of the albino dawn Hope the orbit spins faster, hope it doesn't take long, yeah CHORUS Is it a critical mass or just an exercise At milking some truth out of so many lies Then knowing to know which one applies To finally fix which ones to emphasize CHORUS The papers all telling us it's part of the deal- Give you a wolf to kill all that the fox doesn't steal And as if that's not enough to bring you to heel- Be sure not to speak what your own mind reveals CHORUS Now, the edge of the crater's getting close to your gate Alien life forms, unevenly shaped- As you melt into microbes, you know it's too late To save yourself from this altered state, yeah CHORUS (2x) -Written May ??, 2007 (Ottawa) Words & Music by Martin Warren Song appears on 'THEY'LL GET YOU' (2007).