Blood Metal Lullabies
By NoPassport
Along the Hudson. Day. Jewel takes one step
forward.
Are you blue tonight, honey?
Is your cactus dry tonight?
Jewel takes another step.
Wrap my eyes in plastic
Wire my cradle.
Jewel takes another step.
Play with me.
Jack wears a bed sheet.
I'm getting married. My girlfriend's name is
Jewel.
We float into the night
We fly like crayons
We have hope
and we want a river to be named after us.
Lust grows white
Silence is perfect.
I play the map of forgetting.
Jewel looks at the motel.
The world is for forgetting
The world lies in wait
We float
on crayons.
The moon hands out the sky
We float
and abandon our boat
And the moon hands back all we see.
We might not make it home this time
We might not make it home
Minor stars make us dizzy
dizzy
Jack and Jewel
are a Jesus of some size
We are
sunny and orange
We are
blue
hands
eyes
veins
blood metal lullabies
Five mighty steps.
We haven't learned
to hold nails in our hands.
We lurch onward
and hear voices
dead calling
low over a church and bells
holy blood falls from the steel heavens
We catch it
bent invisible
bled invisible
curling round finger bone
wrap me tight
juice in mouth
we pour ourselves into each other
for the long camino
a thousand times in death
we are snapped free.
The world is for forgetting,
the work is in the apple,
the world is the way the summer turns to snow.
nothing for good and evil to do, all things being equal.
Snow dissembles, and the moon hands back all we see
to sorcerer equality.
Jewel watches the motel burn down. Jack takes
a step.
And one
we might not make it home
Two
pulse breath rattle lung
Three
Mute phone don't wanna be disturbed
Four
Who will cradle the sun to sleep?
I will.
She sings, and wails her cry
I will
Fish tail on my tongue, the sound
of the universe turned out.
I was born in this field, in this water, my voice put a mike to it
by a man with a machine at his hip
"Speak into the mike, sing your song.
This is for history, woman."
She sings, and wails her cry
my tongue hanging til dead drop
parched like the man by the water's edge
looking to fall into the river warm.
She holds the note.
on a tar groove, record smooth
cracked voice from long time ago
American mutant
and hold……
because we haven't learned
new hopes
intimacy with objects
and how to make a sausage and egg cheese sandwich.
in this way we lurch onward
having to live somewhere
whether ruined or redeemed
We are from the other
shallow river
We take our time,
and hush our dry lips with longing
in the strip of grass that lines the westside highway
our bluish knuckles hold fistfuls of glitter
as we walk through Times Square thinking of Providence
with neon umbrellas
new hopes as sharp as lemon
are spiked with imminent loss
because we haven't learned
to hold dust and nails
in our empty hands
Who will cradle the moon to sleep?
Who will cradle the moon to sleep?
Satellite sun will
Rosary beads will
Our love.
Jewel and Jack step forward.
And again.
And again.
Find me a child
who flies like a crayon
chewing on my shoes
Who brings the daily bread?
Who marks the journey?
The tall cry of the yodeling son
all breath bent and yearning
Are you blue tonight honey?
Is your cactus dry?
The restless choir fills its breasts.
A string of blue is held…..
How how blue are you………..?
because we haven't learned
the weight of words
we haven't learned the daily, daily.
we bring our heads down
to the water,
and seek the bloom on the lilac berry.
Summer turns to snow.
Cool against the back of your
skull
snapped free from a wire pulled too tight, I float into the night
Jack and Jewel in half-light.
We met at the Flower Drum
We use magic pennies
we talk to garbage
and slice our pulpy hearts with cupcake wrappers.
(Who am I to describe such fragile delights?)
I am tightly wound
and pretend I am a tiger being.
Inside my palms I feel the scared song
of thieves and ministers
My throat whispers
across minor stars
a thousand times in death
My throat whispers
ashen breath rosary beads
look inside the glance, mister
whisper
big buildings eat the air
The moon is going down
and out goes y-o-u
Throw a penny off the Empire State
Lincoln's re-dimensioned
and you've lost a brother in the snow
Hell frozen over. Love frozen over.
No maps now.
a clearing finds Jack and Jewel
Time to take the moon.
One crane comes archangel
Miserere nobis
Qui toles pecata mundi
Bye, bye Jack. Bye bye.
The jukebox reigns. Jewel burns.
Night is all words
poor language, bad language, junk
language, official language,
newspeak, proper language, sex language, slang-uage
operatic language, comic-book language
country, classal, hip-hop, punk, bop, swing, choral language
ay, yi, yi
ay, yi, yi
a cry
epic, scientific code, jabber,
patois, beta,
cyber hyper ad language
in grunts, swoops and howls
ay, yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
earth sinks tide
No one misses you more than I do.
Jack. Are you coming with me?
Are you blue tonight, honey?
hide me in your sorry wing.
Come on.
Disassemble me.
My mouth is water
Drops of water fall from my lips
(care not the heavens)
from my eyes
making an ocean
What kind of language is this that does not let me speak
that makes me liquid and bends my arms?
Love dies, again and again
Jewel eyes Jack in her dream. Long goodbye.
in the desert with ancient wings
we cross the chainlink
and destroy our feet
we eat the blossoms whole
and don't wait for water
we scratch at earth
and pretend our tiger beings
are fine
is fine
Low over a church and bells
Jukebox reigns.
the wind catches our arms as we
rise
our tiger fights
and our saliva tastes of watermelon
The accordion plays in the background.
Ay, ay, ay
snake roots of the apricot tree
Jewel holds Jack trembling.
Who will cradle the moon?
____________________
[This text was created online by a virtual
performance collective founded by Caridad Svich. For more information
about NoPassport, click on "About the Author" below. The writers
here were Erik Ehn, Sheila Callaghan, Christine Evans, Gary Winter,
and Svich. "Blood Metal Lullabies" was built out of orphan
texts the artists shared with each other from January 2003 - September
2003, and is only one "mix" of the fragments, phrases, and
word-scraps posted in the virtual landscape. The first site of performance
is cyberspace, the screen where the texts live. Another option may be
the invisible performance of sections in three-minute intervals in discreet
open spaces in a city. Concrete human interaction and witnessing in
the everyday…]