Regards to the End

Released 2022 via Thesis & Instinct and This Is Meru

1. I’M NUMBERS

For Jenny Holzer and Félix González-Torres

I’m numbers, I’m numbers, I’m numbers till I’m not

I want to lie, back to front, with someone who adores me

And if you offer me forever, I’ll take some, I’ll take some

And if you offer me tonight, I’ll take some, I’ll take some

And if you offer me tomorrow, what a delight, I’ll take some

And if you offer me forever, I’ll take some

2. TWO DOGS TETHERED INSIDE

Two dogs tethered inside, my heart a fighter

See who I am in the lion’s den

Of myself against myself, against them

Try to trust the living or the dead

Come on hurt me, come on hurt me

Where do I run, when I run run unhooked?

My heart a fighter

Broke the rope, but I come come back

Give me one last look, give me one last lap

Sleep, sleep

Let me run like I did that day

When I knew the love of my own body

Come on hurt me, come on hurt me

3. ALL BURN, NO BRIDGE

For Walter Benjamin

Don’t go easy on me, not for the things I have seen

I cannot I cannot unsee I cannot I cannot unsee

Even when I heard the sound, I stayed in the silence of me

I cannot I cannot unhear, I cannot I cannot unhear

Don’t go easy, don’t go easy, don’t go easy, easy on me

Don’t go easy, don’t go easy, on me... on me

Give my regards to the end, to the chaos in remembering

When I’m all burn, no bridge, when I’m all burn, no bridge

Don’t go easy, don’t go easy, don’t go easy, easy on me

Don’t go easy, don’t go easy, on me... on me

All burn, when I’m no bridge when I’m no bridge

4. COME ON KIKI

For Kiki Smith, David Wojnarowicz, and Peter Hujar

Say something, say something

Really wish I would say something

Come on Kiki, don’t untie me

Can you see me, see me, if you send a search party?

I’m not leaving, but I want you, want you to find me, want you to find me

Meanwhile you don’t stop wanting, you don’t stop wanting, you just want differently

I want more I want more, give me more, give me more, all I want is more

Dancing, dancing, really wish I was dancing

Somewhere in the street, but I forgot to move my feet

Oh my body, my body, don’t forgive me now, just give me some more, all I want is more

I want more I want more, give me more, give me more, all I want is more

Meanwhile I don’t stop wanting, I don’t stop wanting, I just want differently

Meanwhile I don’t stop asking, I don’t stop asking, I just want differently

I want more I want more, give me more, give me more, all I want is more

5. dAVID’S GOT A PROBLEM

For David Wojnarowicz

Tie a cord, tie a cord and hold me down

That’s why you love me, that’s why you love me

That’s why you love me, when I can’t be loved

Throw a little grass out, throw a little seed

Throw a little grass out, then go lie among the weeds

6. love saves the day

For David Buckel

I wanna go home, seeing is alright

I’m just a fire, burn everything in sight

I wanna go home, I wanna go out

All of my acres, the wet ones the dry ones

They’ve all been devoured, so now baby now what

I wanna go home, I wanna go out

I’ve been, complicit

Feels like, a kid with a secret

(Love saves the day) Nothing’s gonna hurt me now.

7. ORACLE AT DOG

(poem/lyrics by Timmy Straw)

The Oracle at Dog

I told you the words to it oriole. Now when an ear come

say it right.

Give the true kiss

and there is no more two faces but one stone. Fruit flies, the lights all on as if none

live here but life––

and stingily stingingly the song

like in your voice the evening

“smelled like trees”

Meaning how to hold a thing one loved and how describe

custody.

If incantation is national

say a nation is a plane of

equivalences galloping one by one

onto the blade,

a blade in sunlight,

far far offstage-––

there, grass and weeds and what,

Cassette tape in the culverts Shimmering ––the song, Two dogs tethered inside–– but the scale changes,

then the key

and how to hold a thing one knew and how authority?

8. ARNIE AND BILL TO THE RESCUE

For Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane

She Said, “I’d riot”, when she heard about Elijah

She cried, a little shy then, choking on the obscene in the open

I put my hand out like a puppet, inside I was wooden and repugnant

Arnie and Bill to Rescue Arnie and Bill this time

Later on I made her cry again, when I told of the night that Arnie died and

The ambulance wouldn’t touch him, so the whole household began erupting

All that was left in the delirium, were the stars that had always been above him

Arnie and Bill, Arnie and Bill to the rescue, Arnie and Bill this time

When the lights went out that evening, we were two children who believed in

A world so endless and extravagant, so vast we barely did inhabit it

Without the reckless understanding, someday even we would abandon it

Arnie and Bill, Arnie and Bill to the rescue, Arnie and Bill this time

9. THE DRESS REHEARSAL

For Nayland Blake

All day the trees are praying

I go down in their splendor

Then I am praying too, then I am praying too

Somewhere in the night, that creek turned to a river

Now we are all banks, now we are all banks

Love happened here. Love happened here.

Where nothing is still, love happened here.

All night the fox is outside

Knowing how to live forever

While I’m in here trying to be an animal

Search your delicate mind, for all that you took

To the dress rehearsal, to the dress rehearsal

Love happened here. Love happened here.

Where nothing is still, love happened here.

10. BLOOD BROTHER

For David Wojnarowicz

Some kind of violence you touch

Some kind of violence you turn away from it

Some kind of violence you trust

Some kind of violence you need to be done for you to stay up

Some kind of violence you feel in the body, my body, my body

Do it in remembrance of me

My Blood, my blood, my blood brother